Leader-Employee Gap in Verbal Transactional Leadership and Distributed Leadership: Evidence From a Randomized Field Experiment

• Author: Anne Mette Kjeldsen,Lotte Bøgh Andersen
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X211039004
• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Date: 01 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X211039004

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2023, Vol. 43(1) 80 –103

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X211039004

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Article

Leader-Employee Gap

in Verbal Transactional

Leadership and Distributed

Leadership: Evidence

From a Randomized

Field Experiment

Anne Mette Kjeldsen1

and Lotte Bøgh Andersen1

Abstract

Leadership behavior only contributes to goal attainment in public organizations if

the employees perceive the behavior. Given that studies on self-other agreement

show large gaps in perceived leadership between leaders and employees, it is highly

relevant to ask how HRM-programs such as leadership training can reduce these gaps.

Based on a large randomized field experiment including 130 leaders and their 4,800

employees in the Danish municipality of Aarhus, this article compares how different

types of leadership training affect gaps in perceived leadership. Results from pre- and

post-intervention surveys show a decreased gap in leader-employee perceptions of

verbal transactional leadership, while the gap in perceived distributed leadership did

not change. This suggests that leadership training can make leaders’ and employees’

perceived leadership behaviors more aligned, but less so for employee-centered

leadership approaches such as distributed leadership.

Keywords

transactional leadership, distributed leadership, field experiment, self-other agreement,

leadership training

1Aarhus University & Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership, Denmark

Corresponding Author:

Anne Mette Kjeldsen, Aarhus University & Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership,

Bartholins Allé 7, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.

Email: annemette@ps.au.dk

1039004ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X211039004Review of Public Personnel AdministrationKjeldsen and Andersen

research-article2021

Kjeldsen and Andersen 81

Introduction

Public sector leaders can play an essential role in shaping organizational success, but

their leadership behavior only contributes to goal attainment in public organizations if

the employees actually perceive it (Jacobsen & Andersen, 2015; Wright & Nishii,

2007). Leaders tend to overrate their own leadership behavior compared to their fol-

lowers’ perceptions (Fleenor et al., 2010; Lee & Carpenter, 2018), and a large gap in

perceived leadership can have negative consequences. Jacobsen and Staniok (2020),

for example, find that public employees with leaders who overrate their leadership

behavior relative to their employees are less committed to their organization while

Song and Meier (2020) find that they are also less satisfied (see also Amundsen &

Martinsen, 2014). Given the potential negative impact of a large leader-employee gap

in perceived leadership—and the oppositely positive impact of leader-employee agree-

ment (e.g., Erben et al., 2019), it is vital to find ways to reduce this gap in leader-

employee perceptions of leadership behavior.

In this regard, we argue that it is particularly relevant to study the effect of human

resource management (HRM) programs, such as systematic leadership training,

because public organizations can directly implement such programs if they are effec-

tive. Leadership training is thus a potential way for leaders to continuously develop

themselves to get through to their employees and ensure goal attainment (An et al.,

2020; Holten et al., 2015). Previous research has shown that transformational leader-

ship training of individual leaders can align leader-employee perceptions of leadership

(An et al., 2019, 2020). Through transformational leadership training, leaders get bet-

ter at formulating and communicating organizational goals and visions. As they get

inspired to adjust their behavior to fit the environment of their leadership position, this

changes the perceptions of their leadership among their employees. Yet, we do not

know whether it is possible to combine this training with other relevant leadership

behaviors and whether mandatory training where all leaders in an organization partici-

pate can reduce the gap in perceptions.

Based on panel data from a large, randomized field experiment with 130 leaders

and their 4,800 employees in the municipality of Aarhus, Denmark, this article

compares the extent to which different types of leadership training given over the

course of a year can reduce the leader-employee perceived leadership gap. In line

with the evidence on transformational leadership, all leaders in our experiment

received data-informed transformational leadership training as base training. Data-

informed transformational leadership is behaviors that seek to develop, share, and

sustain a vision based on and informed by data (Gregersen et al., 2021; Jensen

et al., 2019). This use of similar base training across treatment groups enables us to

test whether additional types of behaviors can be trained as well. We focus on two

additional leadership approaches: verbal transactional leadership and distributed

leadership training. Verbal transactional leadership is a type of transactional leader-

ship where leaders give positive, contingent feedback to employees based on their

efforts and results. Previous research shows that this type of leadership has the

potential to increase employee motivation and thus goal attainment (Andersen

et al., 2018). This even holds for leaders with a high initial level of transformational