Open AccessFlexible Adaptation of Leader Behavior
Author(s) -
Friederike Gerlach,
Kathrin Rosing,
Hannes Zacher
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of personnel psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.67
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 2190-5150
pISSN - 1866-5888
DOI - 10.1027/1866-5888/a000274
Subject(s) - psychology , adaptation (eye) , social psychology , closing (real estate) , political science , law , neuroscience
. Based on the model of ambidextrous leadership, we investigated the impact of flexible adaptation of leader behavior, that is, opening and closing leader behaviors, on innovative performance in a laboratory experiment. Leader behaviors were manipulated with confederates attending to one participant showing either no leadership, a sequential, or a flexible application of opening and closing leader behaviors. We hypothesized that flexible adaptation leads to better innovation performance. N = 93 participants took part and received one leadership manipulation. We did not find significant effects. These findings suggest that the effects of ambidextrous leadership might not be as strong as previously expected. Nonetheless, this study provides a manipulation of flexible leadership in a controlled setting, which is important to provide causal evidence.