Ethical Leadership, Leader-Member Exchange and Feedback Seeking: A Double-Moderated Mediation Model of Emotional Intelligence and Work-Unit Structure.

Jing Qian,Zhuo Han,Baihe Song,Bin Wang

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01174

Abstract

This research elucidates the role of ethical leadership in employee feedback seeking by examining how and when ethical leadership may exert a positive influence on feedback seeking. Using matched reports from 64 supervisors and 265 of their immediate employees from a hotel group located in a major city in China, we proposed and tested a moderated mediation model that examines leader-member exchange (LMX) as the mediator and emotional intelligence as well as work-unit structure as double moderators in the relationships between ethical leadership and followers’ feedback-seeking behavior from supervisors and coworkers. Our findings indicated that (1) LMX mediated the positive relationship between ethical leadership and feedback seeking from both ethical leaders and coworkers, and (2) emotional intelligence and work-unit structure served as joint moderators on the mediated positive relationship in such a way that the relationship was strongest when the emotional intelligence was high and work-unit structure was more of an organic structure rather than a mechanistic structure.

Highlights

It has long been clear that people are reluctant to provide others with feedback; it is even more difficult for employees to gain certain resources through a formal human resource system in a timely fashion (Ashford et al, 2003; Anseel et al, 2015)
When significant mediation was established, conditional indirect effect procedures recommended by Hayes and Preacher (2014) were performed to estimate if the mediation was conditional depending on the levels of two theoretically proposed moderators
The results were similar to that with feedback seeking from coworkers as the outcome variable, that emotional intelligence and work-unit structure significantly moderated the indirect effect of ethical leadership on feedback seeking from supervisors via leader-member exchange

Summary

INTRODUCTION

It has long been clear that people are reluctant to provide others with feedback; it is even more difficult for employees to gain certain resources through a formal human resource system in a timely fashion (Ashford et al, 2003; Anseel et al, 2015). That is to say, when employees perceive fair treatments and considerations from their leaders, they are more likely to build emotional connections and mutual support mechanisms with their leaders and engage in high-quality social exchange relationships with their leaders as well (Wayne et al, 2002; Erdogan et al, 2006; Walumbwa et al, 2011b) This in turn could encourage employees to practice their feedback-seeking behavior with supervisors as a way to reciprocate their supervisors’ LMX and ethical leadership. Hypothesis 4: Emotional intelligence and work-unit structure simultaneously moderate the mediated effects of LMX on the positive relation between ethical leadership and subordinate feedback seeking from supervisors and coworkers in the way that the relationship will be the strongest when emotional intelligence is high and work-unit structure is an organic structure rather than a mechanistic structure

Participants and Procedure

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

Strengths and Limitations

CONCLUSION

ETHICS STATEMENT