Romance of Leadership – Does Crisis Amplify the Over-Attribution to Leaders?

Abstract

Romance of leadership theory describes over-attributions to leadership responsibility on organizational outcomes. Theoretically, ROL is stronger in times of crisis. This paper explores the impact of crisis on ROL, along with whether the type of crisis (human versus technical) matters when attributing responsibility to the leader or the situation. Study 1 explores the conditions of success compared to failure. Study 2 explores the human versus technical dimension along with turnaround versus downturn in addition to whether the outcomes were expected or unexpected. In both studies, beyond attributions to the leader or the situation, we collected additional outcome variables including participants’ choices to allocate bonuses, recommend demotions or promotions, and whether the participant feels the leader has behavioral integrity and whether they would accept risk-taking by the leader. In study 1, we found the highest attribution to the leader occurred in the crisis success condition and highest attribution to the situation occurred in the crisis failure condition. However, leader effectiveness was strongest and bonuses were highest in the non-crisis scenarios. In study 2, we found that the technical and success conditions elicited the strongest romance of leadership, while non-crisis was stronger than crisis. Taken together, our results call into question whether crisis does elicit stronger romance of leadership. We discuss implications for the romance of leadership theory and broader leadership research.