Abstract

Recent evidence suggests high agreement among subordinates in their perceptions of their leader's behavior on the Consideration (C) and Initiating Srructure (S) dimensions of leadership, but little agreement between subordinate and leader descriptions of the leader's behavior (Evans, 1972). The present research is a further study of leader-subordinate agreement on leader behavior and inter-subordinate agreement, and includes an evaluation of the relationship bemeen perceptions of leadership and subordinate job satisfaction. Twenty-seven middle-level supervisors and 151 subordinates in a state mental hospital participated as Ss (15 RN supervisors and 12 supervisors from personnel, business, and dietary departments). Supervisors and subordinates (5 or 6 per supervisor) completed the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire (Halpin & Winer, 1957) to describe the supervisor's behavior on the dimensions of Consideration and Initiating Structure of leadership. subordinates also completed the Job Descriptive Index (Smith, Kendall, & Hulin, 1969) as measures of their own job satisfaction. The Job Descriptive Index scales include measures of satisfaction with the work itself, co-workers, supervision, pay, and promotion opportunities. No significant correlations were found between leaders' self-reports and average subordinates' reports on C (r = .26) or S (r = .11). Horsr's ( 1949) Coefficient of Agreement indicated significant inter-subordinate agreement on both Consideration (r = .76) and Initiating Structure (r = .52). Leaders' self-reports of these were not significantly correlated with subordinate satisfaction measures of the Job Descriptive Index. However, subordinate reports of behavior description were correlated with several subordinate job satisfaction measures: Consideration correlated .67 with supervision (p < .01), .45 with promotions (p < .05), and .57 with the total scale (p < .01); Initiating Strucrure correlated .44 with the work itself (p < .05), .73 with supervision (p < .Ol), and .57 with the total scale (p < .01). The present findings were consistent with Evans (1972) in indicating significant agreement among subordinates about the leader's Consideration and Initiating Structure, but a lack of agreement between leaders and subordinates. Subordinate reports of these behaviors of a leader were significantly correlated with subordinate job satisfaction, but leaders' selfreports were not significantly related to satisfaction.

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