Who takes the lead? A multi‐source diary study on leadership, work engagement, and job performance

• Published date: 01 April 2016
• Date: 01 April 2016
• Author: Evangelia Demerouti,Arnold B. Bakker,Daantje Derks,Kimberley Breevaart
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2041

Who takes the lead? A multi-source diary study

on leadership, work engagement, and job

performance

KIMBERLEY BREEVAART

1

*, ARNOLD B. BAKKER

1

,

EVANGELIA DEMEROUTI

2

AND DAANTJE DERKS

1

1

Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

2

Department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences Human Performance, Eindhoven University of

Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Summary Transformational leadership is associated with a range of positive outcomes. Yet, according to substitutes for

leadership theory, there may be circumstances under which it is difficult, if not impossible, for leaders to in-

spire and challenge their employees. Therefore, we hypothesize that transformational leadership behaviors as

well as employee self-leadership strategies contribute to employee work engagement and job performance.

Furthermore, we hypothesize that transformational leadership behaviors are more effective when employees

have a high need for leadership, whereas self-leadership strategies are more effective when employees have a

low need for leadership. A sample of 57 unique leader–employee dyads filled out a quantitative diary survey

at the end of each week, for a period of five weeks. The results of multilevel structural equation modeling

showed that employees were more engaged in their work and received higher performance ratings from their

leader when leaders used more transformational leadership behaviors, and when employees used more self-

leadership strategies. Furthermore, we showed that transformational leadership behaviors were more effective

when employees had a high (vs. low) need for leadership and that the opposite was true for employee self-

leadership. These findings contribute to our understanding of the role of employees in the transformational

leadership process. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: employee engagement; need for leadership; self-regulation; transformational leadership;

leadership substitutes

It is well known that transformational leadership behaviors, such as inspiring employees with an optimistic vision of

the future and stimulating employees to challenge the status quo, positively affect how well employees perform their

work (for a meta-analysis, see, e.g., Wang, Oh, Courtright, & Colbert, 2011). Yet, due to recent changes in ways of

working, such as a higher flexibility in work hours and work spaces (e.g., working from home; Baarne, Houtkamp,

& Knotter, 2010), it is becoming increasingly common for employees to no longer work under direct supervision all

the time. Research on inconsistent leadership suggests that under these circumstances, the generally positive effects

of transformational leadership behaviors are reduced (e.g., Mullen, Kelloway, & Teed, 2011). It is therefore impor-

tant to focus not only on how leaders motivate their employees to perform their work but also on how employees

motivate themselves. Are employees always in need of their leader to guide and motivate them or can they do it

themselves? In the present study, we examine how both transformational leadership behaviors and employee self-

leadership are related to employee engagement and work performance (as rated by the leader). Furthermore, we focus

*Correspondence to: Kimberley Breevaart, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Institute of Psychology, Woudestein, Mandeville Building, Room

T12-45, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: breevaart@fsw.eur.nl

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 09 October 2014

Revised 10 June 2015, Accepted 15 June 2015

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 309–325 (2016)

Published online 8 July 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.2041

Research Article

on employees’need for leadership as a contextual variable to examine under which conditions (low vs. high need for

leadership) either type of leadership is best used.

The present study is unique in that it uses a within-person approach to leadership. Whereas most scholars adopt a

between-person view of leadership, highlighting individual differences in leadership “styles”or leader behaviors on

average, we adopt the view that leadership behaviors may fluctuate within individuals from day to day (and, hence,

from week to week). Even though extraverted individuals are by definition talkative and like to interact with others,

extraverts also have days on which they are not able or do not want to be in the center of the attention. Similarly, a

leader high on “trait”transformational leadership is likely to inspire employees on any given day and likely to have

an eye for employees’individual needs on this day. Yet, even such transformational leaders show different behaviors

on different days (Breevaart et al., 2014c; Tims, Bakker, & Xanthopoulou, 2011). For one thing, leaders cannot give

individual attention to employees when they do not interact with these employees. In a similar vein, when transfor-

mational leaders are in a bad mood, they may not be willing to help individual employees. It is particularly when

leaders do inspire and do have individual consideration for employees’needs that these employees may get energized

to achieve group goals. Studying leadership as behaviors that may vary over time and situations also has important

implications for leadership training and development, complementary to the implications for personnel selection fol-

lowing from the mainstream leadership literature. In the present study, we examine whether changes in leader behav-

ior can explain why even generally engaged and well-performing employees are sometimes less engaged in their

work and, as a consequence, do not perform to the best of their abilities.

Our second contribution lies in furthering our understanding of leadership by studying leadership from both a top-

down (i.e., transformational leadership) and a bottom-up (i.e., employee self-leadership) perspective. Studying both

types of leadership simultaneously is important for several reasons. For example, considering the increased com-

plexity of work and the changing work environment, leaders are required to provide their employees with more de-

cision latitude to decide how and when to perform their work. Also, employees nowadays expect to receive more

autonomy from their leader, because they not only work to make a living but also value the quality of working life

(Ryan & Deci, 2000; Sirgy, Efraty, Siegel, & Lee, 2001). Furthermore, according to substitutes for leadership theory

(Jermier & Kerr, 1997; Kerr & Jermier, 1978), it is important to study characteristics of employees, because they

may substitute for effective leadership when, for example, the leader is not around or otherwise unable to guide

and motivate employees. We propose that by using self-leadership strategies, employees may substitute for their

leaders’personal attention and inspiration.

Finally, most research on transformational leadership and self-leadership focuses on the favorable influence

of these types of leadership on employees and/or the organization. Although different contingency theories

(e.g., Hersey & Blanchard, 1982; House, 1971) have tried to explain in which situations certain aspects

of leadership are more or less effective, characteristics of the employee “seem to have been forgotten as

a fruitful area of leadership contingency research”(Yun, Cox, & Sims, 2006, p. 376). Our design enables

us to examine how weekly changes in employees’need for leadership are related to the effectiveness of

transformational leadership behaviors as well as employees’use of self-leadership strategies. Employees with

a high need for leadership rely on their leader to motivate them and to show them how to reach their goals

(De Vries, 1997), which is elicited in situations where, for example, employees do not have the confidence

to perform a task on their own. Accordingly, it seems likely that employees’use of self-leadership strategies

is especially an important substitute for leadership when employees work independently and without their

leaders’intervention (i.e., have a low need for leadership).

Theoretical Background

Engaged employees have high levels of energy, are enthusiastic about their work, are able to bounce

back from adversity, and feel like time flies when they are working (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). The

310 K. BREEVAART ET AL.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 309–325 (2016)

DOI: 10.1002/job