The roles of leader personality, motivation, and leadership style

122 Pages·2015·0.76 MB·English

University of South Florida
Scholar Commons
Graduate Teses and Dissertations Graduate School
January 2012
Cultivating an engaged workforce: Te roles of
leader personality, motivation, and leadership style
Amy Marie Taylor
University of South Florida,
Cultivating an Engaged Workforce: The Roles of Leader Personality, Motivation, and
Leadership Style
by

Amy M. Taylor

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Psychology
College of Arts and Sciences
University of South Florida

Major Professor: Walter C. Borman, Ph.D.
Michael Brannick, Ph.D.
Judith Bryant, Ph.D.
Stephen Stark, Ph.D.
Joseph Vandello, Ph.D.

Date of Approval:
February 8, 2012

Keywords: engagement, transformational leadership, abusive supervision, personality,
motivation to lead

Copyright © 2012, Amy M. Taylor
Dedication

I dedicate this dissertation, and the many long hours spent on it, to my wonderful parents,
Ed and Jean Zulch. This would never have been possible without your support and
encouragement along the way. There are no words to express my love and gratitude.
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my major professor and mentor, Walter C. Borman, Ph.D., for his
guidance, support, encouragement, and helpful feedback on this project and throughout
my time at USF. I love forward to his continued guidance as I launch my career. I would
also like to thank Jason Newberg for his love and support over the last three years. Even
when there was nothing he could do, he found a way to help. Finally, thank you to all the
friends and colleagues who provided advice, commiserated during the hard times, and
helped me to celebrate the successes.
Table of Contents
List of Tables iv
List of Figures v
Abstract vi
Chapter I Introduction 1
Employee Engagement 2
Predicting Success as a Leader 7
Personality 7
Motivation to Lead 12
Leadership Style 14
Socioanalytic Perspective on Leadership Styles 21
Hypotheses 23
Leadership and Engagement 23
Hypothesis 1 23
Hypothesis 2a 24
Hypothesis 2b 24
Hypothesis 3 25
Individual Difference Variables and Leadership Styles 25
Hypothesis 4a-b 26
Hypothesis 5a-d 28
Hypothesis 6 28
Hypothesis 7 29
Hypothesis 8 29
Hypothesis 9 30
Leadership Style as a Mediator 31
Hypothesis 10 32
Hypothesis 11 33

Chapter II Method 34
Participants 34
Measures 38
i
Demographics 38
Employees 38
Managers 38
Individual Difference Measures 38
Personality 38
Motivation to Lead 39
Leadership Style 39
Transformational/Transactional Leadership 39
Abusive Supervision 40
Employee Engagement 40
Procedure 41

Chapter III Results 43
Intercorrelations Among Leadership Styles 43
Leadership and Engagement 48
Personality and Leadership Styles 49
Motivation to Lead as a Moderator 56
Ancillary Analyses 62

Chapter IV Discussion 67
Summary of Results 67
Exploring Causality 72
Limitation of the Current Research 75
Directions of Future Research 76
Contributions of the Current Study 78

References 80
Appendix A: Email to Employee Participants (Non-Student Version) 88
Appendix B: Email to Employee Participants (Student Version) 90
Appendix C: Email to Managers 90
Appendix D: Email to Recruit Government Employee Participants 94
Appendix E: Email to Recruit University Faculty Employee Participants 96
Appendix F: Employee Engagement Scale 98
Appendix G: Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire 99
Appendix H: Abusive Supervision Scale 100
ii
Appendix I: Motivation to Lead Scale 102
Appendix J: IPIP Personality Scales 104
Appendix K: Demographic Items 108

About the Author End Page

iii
List of Tables
Table 1 Alignment of Five Factor Model (FFM) with Seven Factor Model 11
(IPIP) and Socioanalytic Framework

Table 2 Employee Tenure 36

Table 3 Industries Represented 36

Table 4 Manager Tenure with Organization 37

Table 5 Descriptive Statistics for Study Variables 44

Table 6 Intercorrelations Among Facets of Transformational Leadership 46

Table 7 Correlations Among Leadership Styles 47

Table 8 Correlations Between Engagement and Leadership Styles 48

Table 9 Intercorrelations Among Personality Traits 50

Table 10 Correlations Between Leadership Styles and Personality 51

Table 11 Hierarchical Regression of Abusive Supervision 55

Table 12 Hierarchical Regression of Contingent Reward Leadership 57

Table 13 Hierarchical Regression of Abusive Supervision 58

Table 14 Hierarchical Regression of Transformational Leadership 60

Table 15 Descriptive Statistics for Big Five Traits 64

Table 16 Correlations Between Big Five and Study Outcomes 66

iv
List of Figures
Figure 1 Proposed Model for Hypothesis 13 31

Figure 2 Proposed Model for Hypothesis 14 32

v
Abstract
This study explored the links between leadership style, leader personality, and
motivation to lead, with employee engagement. Transformational leadership,
transactional leadership, and abusive supervision styles were examined in relation to
levels of employee engagement via a sample of n=195 employees and n=130 managers.
Consistent with findings from Christian, Garza, and Slaughter (2011), transformational
leadership showed a positive link to employee engagement (r= .38, p< .05). On the
opposite end, abusive supervision was negatively related to employee engagement (r=
-.27, p< .05). Contingent reward leadership showed a positive link to employee
engagement (r= .32, p< .05).
Relationships between personality and leadership style were framed according to
the socioanalytic framework (Hogan & Shelton, 1998). This study did not find any
significant differences in the relationships between the expected leadership behaviors and
the traits directed at “getting along” with others vs. “getting ahead” to achieve power and
status. Motivation to lead (Chan & Drasgow, 2001) was expected to moderate the
relationships between leader personality and leadership style; however, these predictions
were not supported in this study. Future directions for research, including other
individual difference variables that may predict leadership styles, are discussed.
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