Advancing Time Perspectives in Leadership Research - Polychronicity in Leader-Follower Interaction

Abstract

Organizations lose billions of dollars every year to poor coordination and scheduling resulting in failed and mismanaged projects. This study expands existing leadership literature by examining temporal leader characteristics that might hinder successful coordination and scheduling. Specifically, we investigate the impact of leader polychronicity (someone’s preference for working on several tasks simultaneously) on follower work outcomes (i.e., emotional exhaustion and performance) via the mediating role of team temporal conflict. Drawing on research of leader-follower fit, we also examine the interplay between leader and follower polychronicity. Results are based on a sample of 219 followers and 49 leaders from different white-collar occupations. Multilevel analyses support an indirect effect of leader polychronicity on follower emotional exhaustion, but not on performance, via temporal conflict. Whereas leader-follower polychronicity fit was not significantly related to follower emotional exhaustion, cross-level polynomial regressions showed follower performance to be high when both, leader and follower were either polychronic or monochronic.