Leaders pressuring teams and teams engaged in deviance: An examination of leader–team extraversion incongruence

Abstract

SummaryResearchers have cited the need to account for subordinates in the leadership process, and the leader–team fit paradigm provides a framework for simultaneously considering the characteristics of leaders and those of their subordinate teams. Drawing on extraversion personality theory stipulating extraversion's implications on motivation and communication styles and preferences, we seek to add nuance to the study of a trait that has been widely assumed to exert positive effects in leaders and teams. Integrating theorizing on extraversion and fit, we posit in this research that counterproductive leader and team behaviors will be associated with misfit leader–team pairings in which extraversion incongruence exists (leaders higher in extraversion paired with teams lower in extraversion or leaders lower in extraversion paired with teams higher in extraversion). We test our predictions in a time‐lagged field survey study of leaders and their respective teams in the nuclear power industry, using polynomial regression analyses to find support for hypotheses about the association of leader–team extraversion incongruence and detrimental leader (use of pressure influence tactics) and team (deviance directed at the organization) behaviors. We discuss the implications of our findings for research and practice on leaders, teams, deviance, and extraversion.