Taking the Reins : The Effects of Incoming Leader Status and Style on Perceptions and Performance

This research examines how a newly assigned team leader's status and leadership behaviors interact to affect subordinate group members' emotional perceptions of the leader, cognitive assessments of leader effectiveness, and behavioral reactions to leader influence. The research also looks at the impact of leader status and leadership behaviors on group performance. In this research, I make distinctions between a leader-directed team interaction process and an emergent team process. I hypothesize that new leaders who use directive behaviors can be viewed as unfair, while leaders who allow a team process to emerge might be viewed as unassertive, and that leader status will moderate these relationships to affect subordinates' assessments of the leader's effectiveness and influence ability. This ultimately impacts team performance. Across two experimental studies, I find that low status leaders are rated as more effective and have greater influence when they use a directive style while high status leaders are viewed more favorably when they use an emergent style. In addition, I find that teams whose leaders are viewed more favorably perform better on a complex interdependent task. I discuss the implications for both theory and practice