Articles
Week 1
Hernandez, Eberly, Avolio, & Johnson (2011). The loci and mechanisms of leadership: Exploring a
more comprehensive view of leadership theory. The Leadership Quarterly, 22(6), 1165-1185.
(Links to an external site.)
Brown, Trevino, & Harrison (2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct
development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97(2), 117-134.
(Links to an external site.)
Hogg (2001). A Social Identity Theory of Leadership. Personality and Social Psychology Review,
5(3), 184-200. (Links to an external site.)
Settoon, Bennett, & Liden (1996). Social exchange in organizations: Perceived organizational
support, leader–member exchange, and employee reciprocity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(3),
219-227
Week 2
Kanfer, R., Frese, M., & Johnson, R. E. (2017). Motivation related to work: A century of progress.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 338-355. (Links to an external site.)
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task
motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist,57(9), 705-717. (Links to an external site.)
Gagné, M., & Deci, E. L. (2005). Self-determination theory and work motivation. Journfal of
Organizational Behavior, 26(4), 331-362.Links to an external site.
Parker, S. K., Bindl, U. K., & Strauss, K. (2010). Making things happen: A model of proactive
motivation. Journal of Management, 36(4), 827-856. Links to an external site.
Farrington, J. (2012). Procrastination—Not all it's put off to be. Performance Improvement
Quarterly, 24(4), 11-16.
Week 3
Barney, J. B., & Wright, P. M. (1998). On becoming a strategic partner: The role of human
resources in gaining competitive advantage. Human Resource Management, 37(1), 31–46.
Ployhart, R. E., Nyberg, A. J., Reilly, G., & Maltarich, M. A. (2014). Human capital is dead; Long
live human capital resources! Journal of Management, 40(2), 371–398. (Links to an external site.)
Buller, P. F., & McEvoy, G. M. (2012). Strategy, human resource management and performance:
Sharpening line of sight. Human Resource Management Review, 22(1), 43-56. (Links to an external
site.)
Su, Z-X, Wright, P.M., & Ulrich, M.D. (2018). Going Beyond the SHRM Paradigm: Examining
(Links to an external site.)
Four Approaches to Governing Employees, 44(4), 1598–1619
Week 4
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,Kozlowski, S. W. J., & Ilgen, D. R. (2006). Enhancing the effectiveness of work groups and teams.
Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7(3), 77-124. (Links to an external site.)
Thomas, D. A., & Ely, R. J. (1996). Making differences matter: A new paradigm for managing
diversity. Harvard Business Review, 74(5), 79-90.
West, M. A. (2002). Sparkling fountains or stagnant ponds: An integrative model of creativity and
innovation implementation in work groups. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 51(3),
355-424.
Week 5
Schein, E.H. (1990). Organizational culture. American Psychologist, 45(2), 109-119.
Kotrba, L.M., Gillespie, M.A., Schmidt, A.M., Smerek, R.E., Ritchie, S.A., & Denison, D.R.
(2012). Do consistent corporate cultures have better business performance? Exploring the
interaction effects. Human Relations, 65(2), 241-262.Links to an external site.
Chatman, J.A., & Cha, S.E. (2003). Leading by leveraging culture. California Management Review,
45(4), 19-34.
Edwards, J. R., & Cable, D. (2009). The value of value congruence. Journal of Applied Psychology,
94(3), 654–677.
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,Week 1
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Hernandez, Eberly, Avolio, & Johnson (2011). The loci and
mechanisms of leadership: Exploring a more comprehensive view of
leadership theory. The Leadership Quarterly, 22(6), 1165-1185.
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The differences in how leadership has been defined have resulted in disparate approaches to
conceptualizing, measuring, investigating, and critiquing leadership. In this article, we propose some
fundamental principles that can be used to integrate the numerous theories of leadership generated
over the past 100 years.
First, they begin by conducting a qualitative review of the core leadership theories. Based on this, they
conclude that each leadership theory attempts to answer two fundamental questions, which we used
to devise our basic rules or principles for codification: “Where does leadership come from?” and
“How is leadership transmitted?” Accordingly, we propose two dimensions to classify leadership
theories in a meaningful and useful way: the locus and the mechanism of leadership.
Second, based on a systematic review and categorization of leadership literature (using a two-
dimensional framework), they propose that to fully understand the complex intricacies of the
leadership process, a simultaneous consideration of all five loci and four mechanisms will be needed.
They use it to examine two promising approaches that have received growing attention in the
leadership literature: shared leadership and strategic leadership.
Loci/mechanisms of leadership
Locus of leadership = the source from which leadership arises. Leadership theories are categorized
into 5 loci of leadership: leader, follower, leader-follower dyad, collective and context.
- Leader: leadership either totally or partially arises from the leader.
- Follower: identifying unique aspects of followers which by themselves (i.e., independent of the
leader) would make leadership possible.
- Leader-follower dyad: leadership arising from specific features of the relationship rather than unique
partners in the relationship.
- Collective: leadership is presumed to arise from the interconnected relationships of people within a
specific group of individuals.
- Context: theories that take into account relationships beyond a predefined group and/or recognize the
power of the context such as team members' social networks, cultures, or norms within an
organization.
The mechanism of leadership
Mechanisms of leadership = the means by which leadership is enacted, so this is the actual process
through which the locus of leadership exercises influence.
Leadership theories can be categorized by 4 mechanisms : traits, behaviors, cognition, and affect.
- Traits: leaders exhibit certain personality characteristics that help to differentiate them from other
individuals. The term personality traits perhaps best captures the stable and enduring qualities and
patterns of individuals' emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.
- Behaviors: this mechanism encompasses the types of behaviors that make leadership possible.
- Cognition: these theories focus on the thoughts and sense-making processes related to leadership.
Instead of simply focusing on traits or behaviors of the leader, the cognitive approach to leadership
emphasizes how scripts and schemas influence the ways leadership is conducted and ultimately
perceived and interpreted.
- Affect: this captures the emotions and moods involved in leadership. Leaders' emotions can influence
their decision-making and ability to connect to followers. Leaders can transmit their emotions to
followers, thus influencing how leadership develops and is perceived.
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, The differences between the mechanisms and the differences between the loci are in fact fairly fluid,
so the framework of figure 1 is in reality not as distinct.
We posit that the loci and mechanisms of leadership can be used as fundamental building blocks to
understanding what constitutes leadership.
Leadership theories: a review and categorization
Trait theories
- Early 20th century: certain personality characteristics distinguish leaders from non-leaders.
- late 1940s: concluding that “leadership is not a matter of passive status, or of the mere possession of
some combination of traits.”
- 2002: Promising advances were made by systematically analyzing leadership traits through the
application of the Big Five personality framework. These advances went beyond the traditional
view of traits by emphasizing the need to understand the psychological mechanisms through which
traits translate into leadership effectiveness.
The classical and the neo-trait approaches focus primarily on the leader as the locus of leadership.
However even early theorists had already acknowledged the importance of followers and the
context. Nevertheless, the primary goal of these theorists was to emphasize the personality
characteristics of the leader and how those characteristics differ from those of non-leaders. Thus, trait
theories focused on the leader locus and trait mechanism. Ultimately, however, traits did not emerge
as sufficient predictors of leadership effectiveness, and the field of leadership was left with a
deficiency of predictors.
Behavioral theories
After the suspension of the trait approach, leadership scholars turned to identifying specific behaviors
and behavioral dimensions that would distinguish effective leaders from ineffective ones. Early
behavioral researchers differentiated between authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire leadership
behaviors. All three research centers emphasized the distinction between task- and people-oriented
leadership behaviors, but they diverged on the relative emphasis of each dimension in predicting
leadership effectiveness. Behavioral approaches to leadership primarily emphasized the leader as the
locus of leadership. Behaviors are used as an indicator to differentiate effective from ineffective
leaders. It is important to note, however, that behavioral scholars began to recognize the “situational
nature of leadership” and the existence of behavior by situation interactions.
Contingency theories
Contingency theories took into account situational factors acting as potential constraints or
opportunities for leaders. Fiedler posited that leadership effectiveness depends on the interaction of
leadership style with features of the situation he referred to as “situational favorableness”. Leaders
would be categorized as a task- or relationship-oriented leader: task-oriented leaders would be more
effective in highly favorable or highly unfavorable situations, while relationship-oriented leaders
would be more effective in moderately favorable situations. So Fiedler acknowledged that the
effectiveness of certain styles can depend on the environment in which they are embedded.
Path-goal theory also focuses on situation: people are more likely to engage in a specific behavior if
they perceive a high probability that the behavior will lead to a valued outcome. The extent to which
certain leadership styles (e.g., directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented
leadership) aided in clarifying employees' paths depended on the employees' personal
characteristics and on contextual demands with which employees may have to cope.
Like Fiedler's contingency theory, then, path-goal theory emphasizes the context as a potential locus
of leadership. However, a leader's effectiveness depends on follower attributes, locating (at least
partially) the locus of leadership in the followers. Finally, the leader is discussed as a third locus
because leadership effectiveness depends on the combination of leadership style with context and
follower attributes.
Practitioner-oriented situational leadership theory: suggests that leaders should match their
behaviors with the followers' maturity level by moving through the phases of telling, selling,
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