Relationships between leadership style and vision content: The moderating role of need for social approval, self-monitoring, and need for social power

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between leaders' personal attributes, leadership style and vision content. One hundred eighty three corporate managers from six industries, who completed a 14-week leadership development course, provided self-reports of their need for social approval, self-monitoring, and need for social power by the second week of the course. Eight hundred and nine subordinates provided ratings of their manager's leadership style by the third week of the course. Upon completion of the course, the managers wrote vision statements which were coded using Berson, Shamir, Avolio, & Popper's [Berson, Y., Shamir, B., Avolio, B. J., & Popper, M. (2001). The relationship between vision strength, leadership style, and content. The Leadership Quarterly, 12, 53–73] vision theme categories. Charismatic leadership was most positively associated with inspirational vision themes, whereas contingent reward leadership was most positively associated with instrumental vision themes. Leaders' need for social approval, self-monitoring, and need for social power moderated these relationships.