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Abstract
SummaryThis study seeks to advance our understanding of the leadership consequences that may ensue when supervisors and their teams have similar versus differing orientations toward the past. Integrating a leader–team fit perspective with functional leadership theory, we cast incongruence between supervisor and team past temporal focus as a key antecedent of supervisors' active (i.e., task‐oriented and relationship‐oriented) and passive (i.e., laissez‐faire) leadership behaviors toward the team. We tested our hypotheses in a team‐level study that included a field sample of 84 supervisors and their teams using polynomial regression and response surface analyses. Results illustrated that supervisors demonstrated more task‐oriented and relationship‐oriented leadership when supervisors' and their team's past temporal focus were incongruent rather than aligned. Furthermore, in situations of supervisor–team congruence, supervisors engaged in less task‐oriented and relationship‐oriented leadership and more laissez‐faire leadership with higher (rather than lower) levels of supervisor and team past temporal focus. In sum, these findings support a complex (mis)fit model such that supervisors' attention to the past may hinder their productive leadership behaviors in some team contexts but not in others. Hence, this research advances a novel, multiple‐stakeholder perspective on the role of both supervisors' and their team's past temporal focus for important leadership behaviors.
Highlights
Scholars have become increasingly interested in individuals' attention to specific time frames and how such temporal foci may help us to better understand important organizational behavior phenomena (Mohammed & Harrison, 2013; Shipp & Fried, 2014)
The primary goal of our research was to uncover the leadership consequences associated with supervisors' and their team's past temporal focus, we conducted a number of supplementary analyses to explore the potential roles of supervisor–team incongruence in present and future temporal focus
Our findings revealed that supervisors more frequently exhibited task-oriented and relationship-oriented leadership behaviors when their own past temporal focus diverged from their team's respective focus, whereas such proactive leadership behaviors occurred less frequently when supervisor and team past temporal focus were congruent
Summary
Scholars have become increasingly interested in individuals' attention to specific time frames (i.e., the past, present, or future) and how such temporal foci may help us to better understand important organizational behavior phenomena (Mohammed & Harrison, 2013; Shipp & Fried, 2014). Individuals characterized by a strong past temporal focus feel less powerful (Shipp et al, 2009), tend to delay actions and decisions (Díaz-Morales, Ferrari, & Cohen, 2008), and exhibit reduced energy and efficiency at work (Goldrich, 1967). Extrapolating these findings to leadership contexts, we anticipate that a supervisor's past temporal focus may critically shape his or wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job. Researchers have argued that “no leader wants to be called past-oriented” (Thoms, 2004, p. 103) because a strong orientation toward the past evokes perceptions of a “counter-ideal manager” (Alipour, Mohammed, & Martinez, 2017, p. 313) who dwells on memories instead of meeting current leadership responsibilities (see Hernández, 2017; Weick, 1979)
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