Show and tell: How supervisors facilitate leader development among transitioning leaders.

Abstract

We argue that studying leaders experiencing a job transition offers a unique opportunity to explore initial changes in leaders' development in their cognition and action. Here, we examine 2 early indicators of leaders' development-their acquisition of knowledge regarding their new role (a cognitive outcome) and the time they allocate toward leading others (a behavioral outcome)-and how supervisors can facilitate these forms of development among transitioning leaders. With a sample of 110 first-line leaders who we tracked over approximately 10 months at 4 different points in time, we tested the efficacy of supervisors' support in the form of modeling effective leadership behavior (i.e., "show") and the provision of job information (i.e., "tell"). Results from random coefficient modeling revealed that the interactive effect of supervisors' "show" and "tell" accelerates the rate of transitioning leaders' self-perceived role knowledge acquisition over time. This upward trajectory is even more pronounced for transitioning leaders who have not been exposed to an exceptional leader during their careers. Further, with a lagged design, we found that leaders who report greater role knowledge allocate more time toward leading others, thus indicating initial changes in these leaders' behavior. We discuss these findings in light of their theoretical and practical importance to the field of leader development.