Effects of group‐level and individual‐level variation in leader behaviours on subordinate attitudes and performance

Abstract

This study compared two contrasting approaches to leadership, average leadership style and the dyadic approach, by examining the relationships between leader reward and punishment behaviours and subordinate satisfaction with supervision, role ambiguity, organizational commitment, and performance. Data collected from 369 nursing home employees from 37 different work groups were analysed using a sequential data‐analytic strategy. First, the appropriate level of analysis (group or individual) was assessed using within and between analysis. Second, in the appropriate situations, the relative contributions of both group and individual leader behaviour measures to explaining variance in subordinate attitudes and performance were examined using a regression procedure. Results indicated that for the majority of relationships individual ratings of leader behaviours (which represented the dyadic approach to leadership) played a larger role than group ratings (which represented the average leadership style approach) in explaining subordinate attitudes. This pattern was also true of performance. These findings were examined in the context of past research.