The motivational effects of the behaviors of the value based leader behavior

1. The motivational effects of the behaviors of the value based leader behavior

syndrome described above will be heightened follower recognition of shared values between leaders and followers, heightened arousal of follower motives, heightened follower self-confidence, generalized self-efficacy and self-worth, strong follower self-engagement in the pursuit of the collective vision and in contributing to the collective, and strong follower identification with the collective and the collective vision. We refer to these psychological reactions of followers as the value based motive syndrome .

2. The behavioral effects of the value based motive syndrome will be heightened commitment to the collective as manifested by follower willingness to exert effort above and beyond normal position or role requirements, follower self-sacrifice in the interest of the vision and the collective, and increased collective social cohesion and organizational collaboration. We refer to these effects as the value based follower commitment syndrome. While the value based motive syndrome described in proposition one is not directly observable, the behaviors of the value based follower commitment syndrome are.

Propositions Concerning Leader Attributes

3. Self-confidence and a strong conviction in the moral correctness of one's beliefs will be predictive of proactive leadership. This proposition is a slight modification of proposition three of the 1976 Theory of Charismatic Leadership. This proposition has been supported by Smith (1982), House et al. (1991), and Howell and Higgins (1991).

4. Strong leader concern for the morally responsible exercise of power will be predictive of constructive, collectively oriented exercise of social influence by leaders and predictive of the value based motive and follower commitment syndromes specified in propositions 1 and 2 above.

5. Power motivation coupled with a strong concern for the morally responsible exercise of power will be predictive of the constructive, collective-oriented exercise of social influence by leaders.

6. Power motivation, unconstrained by a strong concern for the moral exercise of power, will be predictive of impetuously aggressive and self-aggrandizing exercise of social influence.

7. Power motivation, in conjunction with a strong concern for the moral exercise of power, will be predictive of effective leadership when the role demands of leaders require substantial delegation of authority and responsibility and the exercise of social influence.

8. Power motivation, unconstrained by a strong concern for the moral exercise of power, will be predictive of effective leadership when the role demands of leaders require strong individual competitiveness, aggressiveness, manipulative and exploitive behavior, or the exercise of substantial political influence.

9. Affiliative motivation will be predictive of non-assertive leadership, close relationships with a small subgroup of followers, partiality toward this subgroup, and ineffective leadership.

10. The leader motive profile will be predictive of proactive leadership and leader effectiveness when the role demands of leaders require substantial delegation of authority and responsibility and the exercise of social influence.

11. Achievement motivation will be predictive of effective leader performance in entrepreneurial contexts and for small task-oriented groups in which members have direct interaction with the leader.

12. Achievement motivation will be predictive of ineffective leader performance for the leadership of organizations in which the role demands of leaders require substantial delegation of authority and responsibility and the exercise of substantial social influence.

Propositions four through twelve are derived from the motivation theories reviewed earlier.

Propositions Concerning Specific Leader Behaviors

13. Leader behaviors intended to enhance followers cognitive abilities will increase follower and overall organizational performance when such behaviors complement formal organizational practices and the informal social system by providing direction, clarification, feedback, encouragement, support, and motivational incentives to subordinates which are not otherwise provided.

14. When leader behaviors intended to enhance followers cognitive abilities are redundant with formal organizational practices and the informal social system they will be viewed as excessively controlling, will cause follower dissatisfaction, and will be resented and resisted.

15. To be accepted by followers, it is necessary for leaders to be perceived by followers as acting in the interest of the collective and the followers, to be perceived as fair and trustworthy in their interactions with followers, and to be perceived as not self-aggrandizing.

16. Leader support behavior will be predictive of low follower stress, trust in by followers, and follower satisfaction with their relationships with leaders.

17. Leader contingent recognition and approval will be predictive of follower role clarity, follower perceptions of leaders as fair, and heightened follower satisfaction and motivation.

18. Directive leader behavior will result in follower role clarification but will be dysfunctional when followers prefer to exercise independent actions and initiative, are highly involved in their work, and/or perceive themselves as having requisite knowledge and skills for effective task performance.

19. Participative leader behavior will result in follower role clarification and will be functional when followers prefer to exercise independent actions and initiative, are highly involved in their work, and/or when followers perceive themselves as having requisite knowledge and skills for effective task performance.

20. Leader fairness behavior will be predictive of follower acceptance of leaders, and the leader's vision and values.

21. Perceived lack of fairness will result in follower resentment and resistance to the leaders vision and directions. These propositions are based on equity theory of motivation.

Propositions 13 through 21 are based on the 1996 version of Path Goal Theory of leadership (House, 1996).

22. Leaders arouse motives of followers by enacting specific motive arousal behaviors relevant to each motive. For example, defining tasks and goals as challenging arouses the achievement motive; invoking the image of a threatening enemy, describing combative or highly competitive situations or describing the exercise of power arouses the power motive; making acceptance of the leader contingent on mutural acceptance of followers, or stressing the importance of collaborative behavior arouses the affiliative motive.

23. Leaders who engage in selective behaviors that arouse motives specifically relevant to the accomplishment of the collective vision will have positive effects on followers' value based motive syndrome described in Proposition 2.

24. The more leaders engage in the value based leader behavior syndrome the more their followers will emulate (a) the values, preferences and expectations of the leader, (b) the emotional responses of the leader to work-related stimuli, and (c) the attitudes of the leader toward work and the organization.

Propositions 22 through 24 are slight revisions of propositions advanced in the 1976 Theory of Charismatic leadership (House, 1977).

25. The use of strong extrinsic material rewards contingent on performance will conflict with appeals to ideological values and will thus undermine the effects of the value based leader behavior syndrome. This proposition is based on dissonance theory (Festinger, 1980) and supported by the findings of Korman (1970), and Dubinsky and Spangler (1995) described above.

Propositions Concerning Social Context

26. Two necessary conditions for leaders to have the effects specified in proposition two are that leaders have the opportunity to communicate the collective vision to potential followers and that the role of followers be definable in ideological terms that appeal to them. This is a modification of one of the propositions originally advanced by House (1977).

27. The emergence and effectiveness of value based leaders will be facilitated to the extent to which a) performance goals cannot be easily specified and measured, b) extrinsic rewards cannot be made clearly contingent on individual performance, c) there are few situational cues, constraints and reinforcers to guide behavior and provide incentives for specific performance, and d) exceptional effort, behavior and sacrifices are required of both the leaders and followers. This proposition is based on the earlier discussion of strength of situations and dissonance theory and is a modest modification of one of the propositions originally advanced by Shamir et al. (1993).

The hypotheses were tested within the context of a latent structure casual model, using Partial Least Squares Analysis (PLS). This modelling procedure requires that substantive hypotheses be modelled in the form of paths connecting the hypothesized variables. The variables are latent constructs composed of scores on manifest indicators. The The slopes of these relationships are presented in Figure 3. This finding supports the competitive hypothesis 5a which states that LMP will have greater effects in non-entrepreneurial firms than in entrepreneurial firms, and will be discussed below.

IMPLICATIONS

In this section we first discuss the implications of the findings with respect to the value based leadership. Next we discuss the implications of the findings for each of the five theories that were integrated in the models tested. We then discuss the more general implications of the study for the discipline of Organizational Behavior.

Value Based Leadership

Thomas (1988), House et al. (1991), and by Waldman, Ramirez and House (1996)

demonstrate longitudinally, and with adequate controls for spurious relationships, that leaders have substantial effects on the performance of the organizations they manage. However, there have been no studies, other than the U.S. presidential study (House et al., 1991), that investigate the leader motives and behavior that lead to such leader effects. Thus there has been a "black box" concerning how leader processes influence overall organizational performance that remains to be explained.

Collectively, the findings of the present study help to understand the phenomena in the "black box." More specifically, the findings show, in some detail, important relationships between chief executives' motives and behavior and subordinates' motivation and commitment to their organization. Having shown how the components function, it is now possible to test linkages between leader behavior, subordinate responses, and organizational effectiveness using longitudinal quasi experimental designs.

Implications for Specific Theories

In this section we discuss the implications of the study findings for each of the theories that are integrated to form the Value Based Theory of Leadership.

Achievement Motivation Theory

Achievement motivation has a more positive effect on CEMS and all leader behaviors in entrepreneurial firms than in non-entrepreneurial firms. This finding constitutes yet another confirmation of achievement motivation theory concerning the specific conditions under which achievement motivation is predicted to result in high performance.

Moral Responsibility Theory

The bivariate relationships between the moral responsibility disposition and value based leader behavior, leader fairness and CEMS, and the moderating effect of responsibility on the relationships between the power motive, and CEMS, leader charisma, and support/reward behavior all provide support for Moral Responsibility Theory. Moral responsibility motivation is clearly an important disposition that deserves further investigation and attention.

Leader Motive Profile Theory

The positive relationships between LMP and executive value based leader behavior, support/recognition behavior, and directiveness provide support for LMP Theory. These two relationships are consistent with the interpretation that because high LMP leaders have low affiliative motivation they enact social influence in an impersonal and more proactive and assertive manner than low LMP leaders.

The findings are consistent with the propositions that LMP affects leader behavior, and leader behavior in turn has a positive effect on CEMS. These findings suggest a re-specification of the boundary conditions for the role of LMP in organizational functioning. Contrary to the initially specified boundary conditions, LMP has negligible effects on leader behavior and CEMS in non- entrepreneurial firms and positive effects in entrepreneurial firms. These findings imply that LMP has its' major impact on organizational outcomes through its' influence on leader behavior under weak psychological conditions.

Path Goal Theory

As predicted by the Path-Goal Theory of Leadership (House, 1996), leader contingent

recognition and supportive behaviors are predictive of CEMS, and leader directiveness is more strongly negatively related to CEMS in entrepreneurial firms. Thus Path-Goal theory is provided additional support in the present study.

CONCLUSION

The major conclusions that can be drawn from the above findings and discussion are: 1) the value based theory of leadership successfully integrates five prominent theories of leadership (transformational, charismatic, visionary, LMP, and path-goal theories) and assertions drawn broadly from established psychological theories of motivation and behavior; 2)  the components of the value based theory of leadership are rather strongly and quite consistently supported, although their exact combinations remain to be established; 3) the psychological theories integrated within the value based theory are largely supported; 4) the value based theory of leadership, with various kinds of operationalizations, has rather broad generalizability; 5) the theory supported by the U.S. presidential study holds for CEOs with respect to effects of leader behaviors on subordinates' cognitions and affective responses; 6) a re-specification of the boundary conditions of LMP should be further investigated; and 7) the motives that are most appropriate for effective leadership are contingent on the orientation of the collective being led.

Beginning with the 1976 theory of charismatic leadership (House, 1977), a new leadership paradigm has emerged. This paradigm consists of several theories of similar genre (House, 1977; Bass, 1985; Conger & Kanungo; 1987; Bennis & Nanus, 1985; 1987; Sashkin, 1988) and concerns the determinants of exceptionally effective or outstanding leadership. According to this paradigm, value based leaders infuse organizations and work with ideological values which are intrinsically and powerfully motivational. Value oriented motivation is stronger, more pervasive, and more endurable than pragmatic oriented motivation. The theories of the new paradigm are now integrated and formalized as the Value Based Theory of Leadership. Hopefully, this theory and the supporting research will stimulate further leadership research and further development of leadership and organizational behavior theory.