Question – Define the various technologies that are emerging as provided in the below two articles. Note how these emerging technologies are impacting organizations and what organizations can to do to reduce the burden of digitalization.
Please review the article and define the various technologies that are emerging as noted in the article.
Instructions –
Based on the below-provided articles, focus on the topic “Complexity of Information Systems Research in the Digital World. Complexity is increasing as new technologies are emerging every day. This complexity impacts human experiences. Organizations are turning to digitally enable solutions to assist with the emergence of digitalization. ”
The paper should meet the following requirements:
4 pages in length (not including title page or references)
0 plagarism
APA guidelines must be followed. The paper must include a cover page, an introduction, a body with fully developed content, and a conclusion.
A minimum of five peer-reviewed journal articles.
The writing should be clear and concise. Headings should be used to transition thoughts.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0731121418808800
Sociological Perspectives
2019, Vol. 62(3) 346 –365
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0731121418808800
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Education
You Lead Like a Girl: Gender and
Children’s Leadership Development
Alexa J. Trumpy1 and Marissa Elliott2
Abstract
Recent leadership initiatives encourage children, particularly girls, to defy gender stereotypes.
Yet, those creating and participating in these initiatives, like all members of our culture, have
their own gender biases, have received gender socialization, and live in a society where the
masculine is more valued than the feminine. We conducted participant observation of two
gender-segregated leadership summer camps to examine how camp counselors and directors
teach leadership to boys and girls. We find counselors unintentionally reinforce gender
stereotypes and promote gender-typical behavior while attempting to break down these same
stereotypes and behavioral expectations. We argue the gender-segregated environment leads
to a problematic “separate but equal” approach to thinking about leadership that advances the
individual abilities of boys and girls but does less to decrease gender disparities in emotional
development, physical competition, or leadership styles. This research contributes to our
understanding of how well-intentioned organizations and authorities, seeking to minimize
gender disparities and develop strong leaders, unwittingly reproduce gender differences and
perpetuate gender inequality.
Keywords
children and youth, culture, emotions, sex and gender
Introduction
Children begin to absorb gender stereotypes and expectations in early childhood (Cvencek,
Meltzoff, and Greenwald 2011). By early elementary school, girls are less likely than boys to say
that their own gender is “really, really smart.” They are also less likely to opt into games described
as intended for “super-smart” kids (Bian, Leslie, and Cimpian 2017). This pattern continues
throughout the educational trajectory (Storage et al. 2016). There is growing interest in disrupt-
ing gender stereotypes and expectations (Eagly and Heilman 2016; Parker, Horowitz, and Stepler
2017). Most Americans believe exposing children to toys and activities typically associated with
another gender is a good thing. They also believe more emphasis should be placed on encourag-
ing boys to talk about their feelings and teaching girls to stand up for themselves (Parker et al.
2017). Yet, attempts to lessen gendered constraints are often less successful than intended (for
1St. Norbert College, De Pere, WI, USA
2Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA
Corresponding Author:
Alexa J. Trumpy, St. Norbert College, Boyle Hall 430, 100 Grant St., De Pere, WI 54115-2099, USA.
Email: [email protected]
808800 SPXXXX10.1177/0731121418808800Sociological PerspectivesTrumpy and Elliott
research-article2018
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Trumpy and Elliott 347
examples, see Kane 2012; Kissane and Winslow 2016; Ridgeway 2011; Ryan 2016). How does
this gap between the desire to undo, or at least reduce, gendered expectations and the continued
maintenance of gendered expectations and outcomes persist?
We focus on the mismatch between expectations and outcomes in the context of gender and
leadership. Despite increased participation in sports, higher education, and the workforce, women
are underrepresented in leadership positions (Budgeon 2014). Our research seeks to advance our
understanding of this underrepresentation by examining how childhood leadership programs
may affect future gender leadership disparities. How do the adults creating and implementing
children’s leadership initiatives reproduce or challenge gendered leadership behaviors and out-
comes? To address this, we engaged in participant observation of two children’s leadership day
camps, which we refer to as GLEAM and BEAM (acronyms for Girls’ Leadership Empowerment
and Mentoring and Boys’ Leadership Empowerment and Mentoring).1
While there have been excellent studies looking at children’s conformity and resistance to
gender expectations at camp (McGuffey and Rich 1999; Moore 2001), this research addresses the
role adults play in maintaining children’s gendered expectations and behaviors. Both camps
explicitly focus on developing leadership skills and self-confidence, as well as encouraging chil-
dren to defy gender stereotypes. Given this focus, we were interested in how camp activities and
counselors’ statements subverted or reinforced gender stereotypes. How, for example, do camp
authority figures’ stated attitudes toward gender and socialization intentions line up with the mes-
sages they actually send to children?
Counselors and directors at GLEAM and BEAM frequently downplayed the role of gender in
leadership development. They framed leadership obstacles as individual-level phenomena and
assured campers they could do anything they put their minds to, regardless of gender. As a result,
campers learned simplistic and individualistic strategies for developing leadership skills, such as
cultivating a positive attitude and finding strong role models. This focus may provide helpful
tools for individual boys and girls, but it fails to address broader structural and cultural con-
straints that impact gender inequality in leadership.
As we will discuss, there were surface-level similarities in how GLEAM and BEAM counsel-
ors discussed leadership, but the underlying styles, content, and supporting messages that made
up the substance of leadership lessons were strikingly different. Ultimately, these differences
reflected divergent ideas about gender and leadership. If taken seriously, these differences will
continue to socialize children in gender stereotypical ways and reproduce gender differences in
leadership styles and opportunities.
In the following sections, we describe the camps in more detail and review the relevant schol-
arship pertaining to gender, leadership, and barriers to and advancements in gender equality. We
then discuss our data, method, and findings. We conclude by discussing the future implications
of our results.
Theoretical Orientation
Even when parents want to expand the boundaries of gender, they often feel pressure to teach their
children to do gender “correctly” by conforming to the gender binary (Kane 2012; Ryan 2016;
West and Zimmerman 1987). Yet, parents, authority figures, and other adult role models can also
disrupt gendered beliefs, especially for girls (Rosenthal et al. 2013; Rahilly 2015; Riegle-Crumb,
Farkas, and Muller 2006). Gender socialization has important implications for leadership. The
gender socialization messages children receive and the gendered nature of the resources and
opportunities they have access to affect perceived leadership ability and future leadership oppor-
tunities. For example, boys still spend more time in formal competitions (e.g., sports tournaments,
debate teams, and chess competition) than girls (Friedman 2013). Competition helps children
develop confidence, independence, ambition, and strategizing skills, all of which are associated
348 Sociological Perspectives 62(3)
with leadership (Eagly and Heilman 2016). Because boys compete more frequently, they are more
likely to acquire skills and characteristics associated with strong leadership.
Gender stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination also affect the assessment of leadership
potential (Brescoll 2016; Shields 2013). Authority, agency, rationality, and other characteristics
associated with successful leadership are seen as masculine, contributing to perceptions of men
as more natural leaders than women (Eagly 2007; Hechavarria and Ingram 2016; Hoobler,
Lemmon, and Wayne 2014). We examine what happens when adults attempt to disrupt these
inequalities by teaching boys and girls leadership skills. Do leadership camps that try to teach
children to be strong leaders and challenge gender stereotypes succeed, or do they reproduce
these stereotypes despite their intentions?
Adult Attitudes, Cultural Messages, and Children’s Understanding of Gender (In)
Equality
Even when they do not intend to, adults often socialize children in a gender stereotypical manner
(Kane 2012; Ryan 2016). Emily W. Kane (2012) finds parents can fall into a gender trap, a set of
expectations and structures that inhibit social change and reinforce the limits of gender. Research
on the mothers of gender questioning, nonconforming, and transgender children finds many
mothers provide trans-affirming messages and challenge dominant gender beliefs to a degree
(Ryan 2016). They help children imagine alternative gender possibilities, provide children with
knowledge and confidence to challenge gendered logics, and support their children’s identities
and choices. Yet, the way they talk about gender sends the message that while it is okay for boys
to like “girl” things and vice versa, there are, in fact, boy and girl things, and children normally
like gender-typical things.
In contrast, authority figures and role models can disrupt gendered beliefs, especially for
women (Riegle-Crumb et al. 2006). High school and college women who learn about successful
women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields are more likely to do well
in STEM classes, feel a greater sense of belonging among STEM classmates, and have scientific
career aspirations. Girls who see other women in STEM fields are less likely to associate these
subjects with masculinity and display more confidence in their own abilities (Levy et al. 2013).
Yet, girls must see similarities between themselves and role models to receive these beneficial
effects. When girls do not identify with role models, their aspirations and self-perceptions can be
negatively affected (Asgari, Dasgupta, and Stout 2012).
When they do intentionally address gender, parents are often more interested in lessening
feminine gender socialization (Kane 2012; Messner and Bozada-Deas 2009). One reason for this
may be that masculine characteristics are more frequently associated with professional success
(Alfrey and Twine 2017; Friedman 2013; Kissane and Winslow 2016). Another is that a soft
essentialist understanding of sex and gender frames girls’ nature as more potentially malleable
than boys’ nature, which is understood as more rigid and driven by biology (Messner 2011).
Adults are more likely to see girls as “flexible choosers” with the freedom to decide whether or
not to participate in formerly masculine arenas. This view portrays girls as bridging two realms—
their natural realm of home and family and a chosen public realm of culture, politics, career, and
sports. Boys are more frequently seen as defined by biology. Their participation in sports and
public life is attributed to their rowdy, hyperactive, testosterone-fueled nature. Such beliefs per-
sist into adulthood, as when middle- and upper-class women’s work outside the home is seen as
a choice but men’s (regardless of class) is not (Messner and Bozada-Deas 2009).
Soft essentialism also manifests in cultural messages encouraging girls to cultivate a mix of
stereotypically masculine and feminine attributes. Magazines aimed at teen and preteen girls
encourage readers to conform to some traditional norms of femininity (e.g., being nice and polite)
Trumpy and Elliott 349
while also asserting individuality (McRobbie 1991). Girl power femininity implies girls are pow-
erful and can do anything they want, but also strongly encourages them to appear heterosexual
and feminine to sustain gender complementarity and hierarchy (Budgeon 2014; Ringrose 2006;
Schippers 2007). This understanding of power and femininity emphasizes individual choice and
ability, obscuring the role of broader structural forces in maintaining gender disparities (Acker
1990; Cairns and Johnston 2015; Rauscher and Cooky 2016). Emphasizing individual choice
reconciles the dominant discourse of gender equality with patterned gender outcomes (Volman
and Ten Dam 1998). Gendered inequalities are explained away as different preferences.
While adults’ attitudes, organizational initiatives, and cultural messages influence children,
children can accept, reject, or repurpose what they learn (Moore 2001; Thorne 1993). This com-
bination of accepting, resisting, and repurposing cultural dictates persists across the life course.
For example, in their study on women’s participation in fantasy sports, Rebecca Joyce Kissane
and Sarah Winslow (2016) found participants simultaneously resist and reproduce gendered
dynamics by questioning gender stereotypes in some cases and accepting some level of gender
inferiority in others. Players often accepted gender stereotypes about women as a group, but
positioned themselves as atypical women who defied these stereotypes (Kissane and Winslow
2016). Although our research examines the initiatives adults create to teach children about gen-
der and leadership, it is important to remember that children can interpret and react to these initia-
tives in unpredictable ways.
Gender, Emotions, and Perceptions of Leadership Ability
The camps we examine are a response to the growing interest in gender and leadership, as well
as the push for more women to enter leadership positions (Eagly and Heilman 2016). So why,
despite interest in increasing the number of girls and women in leadership positions, are there not
more women leaders (Parker et al. 2017)? Some research focuses on the role leadership capital
plays in selecting leaders. High levels of early leadership capital lead to future opportunities that
give access to further leadership capital and opportunities (Bourdieu 1990; Fitzsimmons and
Callan 2016). Gender affects children’s leadership capital accumulation. Growing up, girls still
spend less time in formal competitions, such as sports tournaments and debates (Friedman 2013).
Competition helps children develop leadership capital in the form of independence, self-
confidence, ambition, and strategic decision-making skills (Eagly and Heilman 2016). Because
boys compete more often, they are more likely to acquire skills and characteristics associated
with strong and decisive leadership.
Other research focuses on how gender stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination affect lead-
ership opportunities (Brescoll 2016; Shields 2013). Cultural beliefs about masculine and femi-
nine characteristics disadvantage women in leadership evaluations (Eagly 2007). Men are more
frequently seen as natural leaders because authority, agency, rationality, emotional self-control,
career motivation, and other characteristics associated with strong leadership are seen as mascu-
line (Hechavarria and Ingram 2016; Hoobler et al. 2014). Many characteristics linked to poor
leadership, such as passivity, low ambition, irrationality, a preoccupation with emotions, and lack
of emotional control, are associated with femininity (Eagly and Heilman 2016; Shields 2013).
Cultural beliefs affect how people are perceived and evaluated. Aspiring women leaders
encounter more skepticism than men about their ability to control emotions, be appropriately
competitive, and make rational decisions (Brescoll 2016). Gendered beliefs also affect how indi-
viduals see themselves and the choices they make (Cech 2013). Hierarchies are created and
sustained through relational dynamics (Schippers 2007). Men and women must see themselves
as sufficiently different in a way that justifies men’s increased power and privilege for gender
inequality to persist (Ridgeway 2011). To achieve a more complete change, gender expectations
must be disrupted. Simply providing new opportunities and positive messaging for girls and
350 Sociological Perspectives 62(3)
women is not enough (Budgeon 2014). If outdated cultural expectations regarding the obliga-
tions for girls and women persist in the face of new opportunities, change will remain elusive and
incomplete (Rauscher and Cooky 2016). Our study helps to uncover how children’s leadership
training, and the presence or lack of gendered messaging associated with this training, can make
change or stasis more likely.
Data and Method
GLEAM and BEAM take place on a Midwestern college campus. Both camps are nonprofit and
affiliated with the college’s educational outreach program, which provides programming for
interested area primary and secondary school students. The director of the educational outreach
program, Courtney, is also a local middle school teacher and the GLEAM camp director. Given
her position as director of all educational outreach programming, she technically oversaw Mike,
the BEAM camp director, and all BEAM activities. Nonetheless, Mike and the BEAM counsel-
ors seemed to have autonomy over BEAM programming and activities. We never heard Mike or
any of the BEAM counselors mention Courtney or any other source of external expectations
placed on them.
GLEAM began in 2009 and BEAM began in 2013. When we started our research in 2015,
GLEAM had 400 campers (200 per session), 12 counselors, and 13 assistant counselors. BEAM
had 150 campers (75 per session), six counselors, and seven assistant counselors.2 All GLEAM
and BEAM staff identified as heterosexual and cisgender. More than 90 percent of the staff at
both camps was white, reflecting the demographics of the surrounding community. GLEAM
counselors were all state-certified teachers in their mid to late 20s, working at elementary and
middle schools during the academic year. Most were in long-term relationships, recently engaged,
or recently married. None had children. GLEAM assistant counselors were local high school and
college students. Many of them planned to become teachers after college.
BEAM counselors were also state-certified teachers, working at local elementary, middle, and
high schools during the academic year. Many coached school sports teams as well. Counselors
ranged in age from their mid-20s to mid-30s. The majority were married and had children. The
assistant counselors were students attending nearby high schools and colleges during the aca-
demic year. These counselors varied in career aspirations. Some had plans to become teachers or
school counselors. Others planned on going into law, medicine, or business. Many of the assistant
counselors went to the same college and learned about the camp because they had run track with
one of the counselors who had graduated the year before and now worked at a local elementary
school.
BEAM and GLEAM campers ranged in age from six to 13 and attended local elementary and
middle schools during the academic year. Because they were not the direct focus of our research,
we did not ask campers about their race, gender, or sexuality, but the majority of campers
appeared to be white. Counselors told us the majority of campers were middle class, reflecting
the demographics of the surrounding community. The names of the camps have been changed,
but were picked deliberately. GLEAM is meant to have a slightly feminine ring to it; BEAM is
meant to have a slightly more masculine connotation. The real names also had these elements.
All GLEAM and BEAM activities were chosen and planned by the camp director and camp
counselors during a series of planning meetings. At these meetings, the director and counselors
planned each week’s activities and events. They also decided the age of the campers each coun-
selor would work with, who their assistant counselor(s) would be, and what extra activities they
were responsible for (beyond the general activities every counselor and assistant counselor did
with their primary group of campers). At both camps, counselors began and ended the day with
their “core” group of campers. They also did activities with their core group before and after
lunch. During the rest of the day, assistant counselors would accompany campers from activity
Trumpy and Elliott 351
to activity, while counselors would stay in the same room or area to run an activity with rotating
groups of campers. At GLEAM, these activities were divided into the themes of (1) math and
science, (2) technology, (3) drama, and (4) expression (activities related to speaking up and
expressing feelings). At BEAM, the activities were divided into (1) strategic games and problem
solving, (2) physical games and activities, (3) engineering, math, and science projects, and (4)
leadership skills.3 Each counselor was in charge of one of these four sets of activities and would
implement an activity with various groups of campers (adjusting the difficulty of the activity
based on the age of the group) throughout each day.
Camps were an ideal site for this research for many reasons. First, the camps we observed
were explicitly focused on leadership. Second, the camps encompassed a mix of formal learning-
based activities, social activities, project-based activities, and physical activities, allowing us to
see approaches to leadership across a variety of contexts. Finally, we were able to watch many
counselors and many groups of campers do the same things multiple times over multiple weeks.
This gave us a sense of which exchanges were idiosyncratic or anomalous and which were more
patterned and pervasive in a relatively brief amount of time.
We engaged in more than 200 hours of participant observation. We primarily observed camp
sessions held in June and July of 2015 and 2016. We also observed camp planning meetings held
four weeks and two weeks prior to the first camp session each year and counselor debriefing ses-
sions, which occurred at the end of the day throughout the first week of each camp. We supple-
ment this with information gained from camp Web sites, lesson plans, the daily e-mails sent
home to parents summarizing each day’s major activities, and camp social media posts.
We took a grounded theory approach to our observation and analysis. Both authors recorded
their observations. These notes were read multiple times, and memos were written to help iden-
tify significant events and patterns. Memos and notes were then coded according to themes that
inductively emerged throughout the research process (Glaser and Strauss 1967). As research
progressed, we began to narrow our focus to examine how gender influenced the leadership les-
sons taught at the camps.
Gender is our primary focus. Although relevant, less significance was placed on camper age,
class, race, or sexuality. While we often refer to campers’ ages in activity descriptions, age is not
a major focus of this research.4 There were situations where age, class, and sexuality became
more salient in interactions, and we describe a few such occurrences. It is possible our position
as white, heterosexual, middle class, cisgender women influenced what we observed, as well as
what camp staff and participants revealed to us, making us less sensitive to issues of class, race,
and sexuality (Bonilla-Silva 2010; Musto 2014). It is also likely that race, class, age, and sexual-
ity appeared less relevant because while camps were gender segregated, the race, class, age, and
sexual orientations of staff and participants were largely similar across camps.
Counselors generally seemed untroubled by our presence. There are likely a few reasons for
this. First, despite the extensive amount of planning and organization that went into the camps,
parts of each day could also be hectic and unpredictable. Early on in each camp session, counsel-
ors did not have much spare time to think about our presence, and once things slowed down and
routines were better established, we had become familiar and unremarkable. In addition, camp
activities occurred across the college campus. College faculty and staff frequently slowed or
stopped to briefly observe camp activities as they walked by. Although our presence was more
consistent, campers and counselors were used to being observed by outsiders.
The major difference we observed in counselor reception was that BEAM counselors were
more likely to initiate conversations with us while campers were busy with activities. They asked
follow-up questions about our research and shared their perspectives on the camp and campers.
This is probably partly because as cisgender women researchers, we stuck out more at BEAM.
Another likely contributing factor is that BEAM counselors frequently talked to each other when
campers were doing activities, whereas GLEAM counselors typically participated in activities
352 Sociological Perspectives 62(3)
with the campers or circulated among the campers and talked to them. BEAM counselors were
also more likely to assume we were bored,5 and a few seemed to initially feel an obligation to
entertain us, as if they were our hosts. Nothing we observed at GLEAM suggested that counsel-
ors worried about whether we were bored or felt any need to entertain us.
Campers initially took more interest in us. We each followed a different group of campers
every day. While our presence was less noticed and commented on at GLEAM, campers at both
camps were initially curious. We found the best strategy was to introduce ourselves to the group
we were shadowing first thing in the morning. We told them we were doing research on the
camps and said we would be following their group for the day and that they could ignore us or
ask questions if they wanted. Most campers at GLEAM treated us like a cross between an older
camper and temporary visitor. Campers did not assume we were experts on camp, and many were
eager to tell us about it (especially those that had come for multiple years). They never asked us
questions about camp rules, schedules, or expectations, suggesting that they did not see us as
authority figures.
At BEAM, we were treated like outside observers but typically quickly ignored once we intro-
duced ourselves. There were a few exceptions. For example, one boy came up to the second
author and asked how she was allowed at camp as she was a girl. Another time, a counselor told
boys not to make jokes about “nuts” in front of a lady (the second author). Finally, when one boy
became separated from his group and distressed, he approached the first author and asked for
help. He looked like he was holding back tears, and we suspect he approached her because he did
not want boys or men to see him cry, not because he saw the researcher as an authority figure.
Before the first author could do anything, a counselor saw the interaction and intervened. All of
these interactions happened on the first day of camp. We became less of a source of novelty for
campers and were accepted as an unremarkable feature of the camp as each week progressed.
Findings and Discussion
Gender and Conceptualizations of Barriers to Leadership
GLEAM and BEAM had similar objectives, including building leadership skills, developing
self-confidence, fostering an understanding of diversity and respect for others, and promoting
healthy lifestyles. Yet campers’ gender influenced how counselors thought about leadership.
GLEAM counselors confidently discussed their perceptions of the biggest leadership obstacles
girls faced—low self-esteem, “mean girls” and bullies, shyness and the inability to express one’s
thoughts, and blatant gender stereotypes. BEAM counselors rarely linked leadership obstacles to
gender. They saw goofing off, being disrespectful, and lacking initiative as genderless leadership
impediments. The absence of an involved father was the only gendered barrier BEAM counselors
discussed. This emphasis on uninvolved fathers allowed BEAM counselors to reconcile their
views of boys as natural leaders with their participation in a boys’ leadership camp. Despite dif-
fering perspectives, counselors at both camps suggested simplistic individual-level solutions for
overcoming leadership obstacles. These solutions imply leadership deficits are best conquered by
cultivating a positive attitude and finding a strong role model. All campers were elementary and
middle-school-aged, limiting the complexity of gender-related discussions. Yet, these simplistic,
individual-level portrayals of gender obstacles inaccurately frame gender as largely inconse-
quential and the barriers to gender inequality as minimal and easily overcome.
The individual-level focus emerged during the pre-camp planning meetings. Here, counselors
chose daily themes (e.g., “brave,” “friendship and kindness” “teamwork”), brainstormed role
models and activities to pair with each theme, selected the role models and activities they liked
best, and then spent the majority of their time ironing out details related to when activities would
occur, how much time was needed, and what supplies were necessary. The specifics of each camp
Trumpy and Elliott 353
day were extremely well organized as a result. Yet, there was no discussion of systemic social or
political issues affecting gender inequality in leadership. Counselors capitalized on their preex-
isting knowledge of cultural role models, children’s books, and educational activities …
Vision
20(2) 111–120
© 2016 MDI
SAGE Publications
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DOI: 10.1177/0972262916637260
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Leadership Styles, Leader’s Effectiveness
and Well-being: Exploring Collective
Efficacy as a Mediator
Kiran Sakkar Sudha1
M. G. Shahnawaz2
Anam Farhat3
Abstract
The present study explored the relationships among leadership styles, leader’s effectiveness and well-being directly as well as indirectly
through collective efficacy among the employees of the education industry, the latest entrant on the Indian scene. Ninety full-time
employees participated in the study. They were administered the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ; Bass & Avolio, 2004.
The multifactor leadership questionnaire: Third edition manual and sampler set), Job-related Affective Well-being Scale (JAWS; Van Katwyk,
Fox, Spector & Kelloway, 2000. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5[2], 219–230) and Collective Efficacy scale (Karrasch, 2003.
Lessons learnt on collective efficacy in multinational teams. Alexandria, VA: United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and
Social Sciences). Mediation regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The results revealed that transactional style has influ-
enced both the outcome variables directly as well as indirectly more than the other two leadership styles. The study contributes to
the scantly explored indirect linkages of collective efficacy on leadership styles, effectiveness and well-being.
Key Words
Leadership styles, MLQ, Leader’s effectiveness, Well-being, Collective efficacy and Mediation analysis
Article
1 IILM School of Business and Management, Gurgaon, Haryana, India.
2 Department of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India.
3 Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
Corresponding author:
M.G. Shahnawaz, Department of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 110 025, India.
E-mail: [email protected]
Introduction
In the contemporary flat networked organizations, individ-
ual resources and affective states are not sufficient to attain
competitive advantage; therefore, there is a need to explore
team/group-related constructs (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000).
Collective efficacy is one such construct, as it represents
values, beliefs, affective states and emotions, as exhibited
by the group members with reference to ‘the performance
capability of a social system as a whole’ (Bandura, 1997,
p. 469). Leadership plays an important role in the develop-
ment of collective efficacy. There are studies to support
that transformational leadership is positively related to
trust in team leaders, collective efficacy and team perfor-
mance (Hoyt & Blascovich, 2003). Hannah and Luthans
(2008) opined that positive psychological states (such as
well-being, affect and happiness) and efficacy processes
directly promote effective leader engagement, flexibility
and adaptability across the varying situations which lead
to attainment of the goals. The role of emotions, affect,
positive emotional states, happiness and well-being has
received considerable attention in the past few years
as there are strong linkages between one’s affective states
and outcome variables. Job-related affective well-being or
well-being at workplace in simple terms is the experience
of volleys of emotions at workplace in response to work-
place stimulus. There is a strong association between
measures of employees wellbeing and job performance
(Wright, Cropanzano & Bonnett, 2007), leading to enhance-
ment of personal resources (affect, efficacy, happiness,
satisfaction etc.); however, there is a need to explore these
linkages at the group level.
In the organizational context, direct one-to-one relation-
ship between constructs negates the complexities of the
organization. Therefore, it is essential to understand the
strength of indirect linkages among the work-related con-
structs and beyond. There are relatively fewer empirical
studies conducted to explore the indirect role of collective
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F0972262916637260&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2016-05-24
112 Vision 20(2)
efficacy on leadership styles, leaders’ effectiveness and
job affect, even though there are many which explored
the direct one-to-one linkages in general as well as in the
context of teams (Chou, Lin, Chang & Chuang, 2013). The
present article is an attempt to provide some insight in
the so far neglected area of research by exploring the
indirect/mediating role of collective efficacy on leader-
ship styles, leader’s effectiveness and well-being among
employees from the education industry in India.
Collective Efficacy
Collective efficacy is a recent addition to the growing body
of research in the area of self-efficacy. Collective efficacy is
‘a group’s shared belief in its conjoint capabilities to organ-
ize and execute the courses of action required to produce
given levels of attainments’ (Bandura, 1997, p. 477).
Collective efficacy is manifested through shared goals
and collaborative decision-making in the organization
(Maddux, 2002). Research on collective efficacy is not as
extensive as on personal efficacy, and there still exists
empirical evidence that collective efficacy is related to
team-effectiveness and motivation (Prussia & Kinicki,
1996), transformational leadership, potency and high unit
performance (Bass, Avolio, Jung & Berson, 2003) and so
on. The link between collective efficacy and performance
has been reported across industries such as corporate,
educational, sports, nursing and military (Bandura, 2000;
Zaccaro, Blair, Peterson & Zazanis, 1995). Collective
efficacy also contributes to well-being and is instrumental
in the achievement of long-term goals (Bandura, 1997;
Blecharz, Luszczynska, Tenenbaum, Scholz & Cieslak,
2014). The indirect role of self-efficacy on well-being,
studied by Pomaki, Karoly and Maes (2009), revealed that
self-efficacy impacts work behaviours, which in turn influ-
ence well-being and happiness at work. However, there
are not many studies which explored indirect linkages. As
leadership plays a very important role in the organizational
context, the present article is an attempt to explore the
mediating role of leadership styles between collective effi-
cacy and some outcome variables.
Leadership Styles
Leadership is one of the widely studied and ever-advancing
concepts. Leadership researches have historically evolved
across three eras—trait, behaviour and contingency (Chemer,
2000; Yukl, 2002) and they are also considered as three
approaches to leadership. However, there are many more
new developments which are coming up (Yukl, 2006),
which is beyond the scope of this article; hence, a widely
used notion of leadership was used in the current study. The
‘Multifactor Leadership’ (Bass & Avolio, 1994, 2004)
is one of the important models of leadership which is
also referred to as ‘full-scale leadership’ as it identifies
transactional, transformational and laissez-faire or passive/
avoidant leadership. There is a famous tool, Multifactor
Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), which is based on this
conceptualization and the present research followed this
tradition. A brief description of these three is as follows:
1. Transformation leadership is associated with most
positive connotations where behavioural facets such
as motivation, emotional connect and sense of effi-
cacy are contributory factors and has significant
impact on performance and other organizational
outcomes (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978). Idealized influ-
ence or charisma, intellectual stimulation and indi-
vidual consideration are some of the key factors
associated with transformational style. Transforma-
tional leadership style is based on mutual admira-
tion with common vision, and creative exchange
of ideas. Reviews suggest that the worldview of
leaders affects transformational leadership and lead-
ers’ effectiveness (Kejriwal & Krishnan, 2004).
Singh and Krishnan (2005) found that 44 per cent of
the universal construct of transformational leader-
ship is valid in India and the rest 56 per cent of
the construct consists of unique formulations of
transformational leadership.
2. Transactional leadership style operates as a kind of
social exchange between the leaders and the follow-
ers (Bass & Avolio, 1993). It is a kind of leadership
in which compliance from the follower is obtained
through the use of reward and punishment. The
focus of this style is to supervise, organize and
perform individually as well as a group. The leader
closely monitors the work of the followers and
ensures that he/she follows the prescribed paths.
3. Laissez-faire leadership style has been explained
as ‘abdicates responsibilities and avoids making
decisions’ (Luthans, 2005, p. 562; Robbins, Judge &
Sanghi, 2007, p. 475) or a failure of taking a manag-
ing responsibility (Avolio, 1999; Bass, 1998). For
many researchers it has negative connotations
and therefore it is also called as avoidant or non-
leadership style (Harland, Jones & Rieter-Palmon,
2005; Kurfi, 2009). This style has been found to be
less effective compared to the transformational and
transactional leadership styles (Goodnight, 2004).
According to Avolio (1999), laissez-faire style
is ‘poor, ineffective and highly dissatisfying for
followers’ (p. 55).
Leadership and leadership styles are fertile areas of
research and previous researchers have reported direct
linkage between leadership styles and effectiveness
(Sadeghi & Pihie, 2012), efficacy (Jung & Sosik, 2002)
and well-being (Nielsen & Daniel, 2012; Renehan, 2007).
While indirect linkages have not been explored much,
some studies report indirect relationship between leader-
ship style and collective efficacy (Chou et al., 2013), as
Sudha et al. 113
well as leadership style and well-being (Lee, Kim, Son &
Lee, 2011; Ogbonna & Harris, 2000).
Leadership Effectiveness
Leadership effectiveness is a significant concept in the area
of leadership. Bass and Stogdill (1990) catalogued more
than five thousand definitions of the same. In a nutshell,
leadership effectiveness focuses largely on output measur-
ability and accomplishment of shared goals. Cooper and
Nirenberg (2004) see it as coping with changing demands
so as to establish successful relationship at the level of cus-
tomer, employee and organizational purpose and building
strong positive relationships. The leadership style is the
most essential factor which influences leadership effective-
ness (Bruno & Lay, 2006; Hur, Van den Berg & Wilderom,
2011). In the context of multifactor leadership taxonomy
(Bass & Avolio, 1995), transformational leadership style is
more effective leadership style than transactional and
laissez-faire (Judge & Piccolo, 2004). Transformational and
transactional styles generally share positive relations with
effectiveness while laissez-faire shares a negative one.
Leadership effectiveness has also been studied as a direct
and positive predictor of collective efficacy (Walumbwa,
Wang & Lawler, 2003). Some studies have explored the
indirect relationship among the constructs and found that
collective efficacy mediated relationship between transform-
ational leadership style (Ross & Gray, 2004) and outcome
variables, as well as between leadership effectiveness and
well-being (Krishnan, 2012; Tabbodi & Prahallada, 2009).
In the present research, leadership effectiveness has been
assessed with the help of nine items of MLQ.
Job-related Well-being
Job-related well-being refers to a variety of emotional
experiences at work and how they influence personal and
organization related outcomes. The construct of well-being
is quite old; however, it has got momentum in the past few
years, especially with the advent of the positive psycho-
logy movement. There are many conceptualizations of
well-being and Warr (1987, 1990) gave one of the earliest
conceptualizations of the construct in the context of work.
For Warr, well-being is a two-dimensional construct:
arousal and pleasure, the various combinations of these
two would result in many work-related affect. Van Katwyk
et al. (2000) extended the work of Warr and developed a
construct and a tool known as job-related affective well-
being scale (JAWS) using the same two dimensions of
Warr. It has four sub-dimensions (based on the original two
dimensions of arousal and pleasure) and 30 work-related
affects. The conceptualization of Van Katwyk et al. (2000)
was used in the present research. Extensive literature exists
on the relationship among affect, emotions, collective effi-
cacy, performance, effectivity, group dynamics and so on
(Lent & Schmidt, 2005). Kuoppala, Lamminpac, Liira and
Vaino (2008) conducted a meta-analytic review of the con-
struct and reported that there existed small to moderate
impact of good leadership on employee well-being across
thousands of studies. A number of studies show that trans-
formational leadership is positively related to health and
well-being (Hetland, Sandal & Johnsen, 2007; Walumbwa,
Wang, Lawler, & Shi 2004). In recent years, besides these
direct relationships, many indirect/meditational models
have been examined showing the relationship between
transformational leadership and outcomes, such as (a) trust
and value congruence on performance (Jung & Avolio,
2000) and (b) empowerment, cohesiveness and collective
efficacy on performance (Jung & Sosik, 2002). In the present
research, we have used not only transformational leader-
ship but also transactional as well as laissez-faire to see
how these styles influence job-related well-being and
leaders’ effectiveness directly as well as indirectly through
collective self-efficacy.
Hence, on the basis of the review, the following hypoth-
eses were formulated:
H1: Collective efficacy would be related differently to
three leadership styles (transformational, transac-
tional and laissez-faire), leader’s effectiveness and
well-being.
H2: Collective efficacy would mediate the relationship
between three leadership styles (transformational,
transactional and laissez-faire) and leader’s effec-
tiveness and well-being.
Research Context: Education
Management Industry
Spending on education in an average Indian household has
increased manifold as a result of globalization (Indian
Brand Equity Foundation, 2014). It is presumed that Indian
education sector’s market size will rise up to ` 6,024.1
billion (US$100.23 billion) by 2015 (Ministry of Finance,
Press Information Bureau (PIB), Media Report, Ministry
of Education, Department of Industrial Policy & Promo-
tion (DIPP). The education management industry is not
blossoming in the area of education or research alone, cor-
porate investments are among the new trends as many
leading industrial houses such as HCL, Wipro, Hero Corp,
Jindals and so on are trying their fortune in the booming
educational industry. As this is one of the emerging new
wave industries, stakes are very high and there is an urgent
need to empirically explore the linkages among leader-
ship styles, collective efficacy, well-being at work, leadership
effectiveness, just to mention a few of the constructs. As
these constructs have already been explored in other organ-
izational contexts and proved to be vital for their survival
and growth, there is a need to take them to new industries
such as ‘education’. Like any other industry, the ‘educa-
tion’ industry would also be complex entity, so indirect
linkages would be explored among the constructs, as
114 Vision 20(2)
already mentioned in the text besides the direct relation-
ship. The education industry is also organized around
teams; therefore, it is believed that collective efficacy
would be mediating the relationship between leadership
styles and effectiveness as well as with well-being. The
present study is a modest attempt to explore these linkages
in a new form of industry in the Indian context.
Method
Sample
The data were collected from 90 management employees
from an education management organization situated in
Delhi/National Capital Region (NCR). Minimum qualifi-
cation was a master’s degree and with at least four years’
work experience. Participants were informed about the
aims and objective of the research and had the freedom
to withdraw any time from the research process. All the
participants were in the age group of 28 to 32 years, 30.22
years being the mean.
Design
The present study is designed to examine the direct and
indirect relationship among the variables collective effi-
cacy, leadership styles (transformational, transactional and
laissez-faire), leader’s effectiveness and job affect follow-
ing a correlation design. Leadership styles were treated as
the predictors, leaders’ effectiveness and wellbeing were
the criterion and collective efficacy worked as the mediator
between the two. For mediation, ‘process’ of Hayes (2012)
was used. ‘Process’ is the latest software available to test
moderation-mediation which follows the bootstrapping
method.
Measures
The following tools were used:
1. MLQ (Bass & Avolio, 2004) is a 45-item question-
naire (5-point) that identifies key aspects of leadership
behaviour, namely transactional, transformational and
laissez-faire leadership style as well as leader’s effec-
tiveness. The first 36 items measure three leader-
ship styles and the last nine items measure leader’s
effectiveness. MLQ is a widely used tool to measure
leadership styles, and many published studies have
reported reliability and validity of the tool (Ackermann,
Schepers, Lessing & Dannhauser 2000; Bass &
Avolio, 1997; Yammarino & Bass, 1990). On the cur-
rent sample, Cronbach alpha (a) was reported as 0.94
for transformational (20 items) and for transactional
(12 items) as 0.54, lasseiz-faire (4 items) as 0.51 and
leader’s effectiveness (9 items) as 0.90.
2. JAWS (Van Katwyk et al., 2000) is a 30-item (full
version) and 20-item (short version) scale designed
to assess people’s emotional reactions to their job
on a 5-point scale. Internal consistency reliability
estimates are available from at least three studies
(Bruk-Lee & Spector, 2006; Spector, Fox, Goh &
Bruursema, 2003; Van Katwyk, et al., 2000) using
the different versions with heterogeneous working
samples. On the current sample, Cronbach alpha
(a) was reported to be 0.93.
3. Collective efficacy: A 15-item scale was developed
to assess the collective efficacy of the teams to assess
the team members’ efficacy on the recommend-
ations based on considerable points of Karrasch
(2003). In accordance with recommendations by
Bandura and Adams (1977), the items were tailored
to capture the essence of the team tasks. Responses
are rated on a 5-point Likert scale. The inter-item
reliability for this scale as reported by the author
was 0.93. On the current sample, Cronbach alpha (a)
was reported to be 0.96.
Results
The aim of the study was to explore the relationships
among collective efficacy, leadership styles (transform-
ational, transactional and laissez-faire), leader’s effective-
ness and well-being and to examine the role of collective
efficacy as the mediator between leadership styles, leader’s
effectiveness and well-being. The sample was taken from
the education industry, and mediated regression analysis
was used to make inferences from the obtained data. As
different constructs of the present study have different
numbers of questions to assess them, all the obtained mean
values for all the variables were divided by the number of
items to obtain the scale values.
As is evident from Table 1, the lowest mean score was
obtained for laissez-faire style, followed by transactional
style, and the maximum mean value was for transform-
ation style. Means for transformational and transactional
leadership are 2.59 and 2.19, indicating that the scale
response of ‘sometimes’ and that of laissez-faire is 0.71,
indicating the response towards ‘once in a while’. These
results imply that laissez-faire is the least-preferred style as
compared to the other two styles for the participants of the
current sample. Although transformational style appeared
to be the most preferred style, there was higher variability
in the scores (SD = 0.83) than that in transactional styles
(SD = 0.49), indicating the high concentration of scores
around the mean value in the latter. The mean values for
collective efficacy and job affect are 3.90 and 3.84 (close
to 4), indicating responses as ‘very confident’ whereas
for leader’s effectivity, the mean value is 2.77 (or 3) which
is towards a ‘fairly often’ response.
Sudha et al. 115
Table 1. Mean and SD Values of 90 Employees from Education Management Industry
Variables Minimum Maximum Mean SD
Collective Efficacy 1.27 5 3.90 0.74
Transformational Leadership Style 0.50 4.42 2.59 0.83
Transactional Leadership Style 0.97 3.25 2.19 0.49
Laissez-faire Leadership Style 0.00 3.00 0.71 0.73
Leader’s Effectiveness 0.33 4.00 2.77 0.88
Job-related Well-being 2.63 4.8 3.84 0.58
Source: Result output by IBM SPSS.
Table 2. Correlation Among Collective Efficacy, Leadership Styles, Leader’s Effectiveness and Well-being
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Collective Efficacy 1
2. Transformational Leadership Style 0.50* 1
3. Transactional Leadership Style 0.52* 0.72* 1
4. Laissez-faire Leadership Style –0.40* –0.52* –0.37* 1
5. Leader’s Effectiveness 0.50* 0.82* 0.64* –0.49* 1 0.
6. Well-being 0.55* 0.63* 0.53* –0.39* 0.61* 1
Source: Result output by IBM SPSS.
Note: *p < 0.01.
The results show that transformational and transactional
leadership styles were positively and significantly related to
collective efficacy (p < 0.01), whereas laissez-faire leader-
ship style was negatively related to collective efficacy
(p < 0.01). Collective efficacy was significantly and posi-
tively related to the leader’s effectiveness (p < 0.01) as well
as with well-being (p < 0.01). Transformational and trans-
actional leadership styles were positively related to each
other (p < 0.01); however, both these dimensions were neg-
atively related to laissez-faire leadership style (p < 0.01).
And lastly, leader’s effectiveness was negatively correlated
with laissez-faire leadership style (p < 0.01) and positively
with well-being (p < 0.01).
It is evident from Table 3 that (a) collective efficacy
significantly mediates the relationship between transac-
tional style and leader’s effectiveness, Beta = 1.79, 95%
boot strapping CI {0.40, 3.61}, representing medium effect
size as K2 = 0.14, 95% boot strapping Ca CI {0.02, 0.23);
Table 3. Direct and Indirect Regression Coefficients for Leadership Styles (Predictor/s) and Leadership Effectiveness (Outcome
Variables) Through Collective Efficacy
Predictor
Variable
Mediating
Variable
Outcome
Variable
Direct
Effect
Indirect
Effect
Effect
Size
Leadership
Styles
Collective
Efficacy (b)
Leadership
Effectiveness (b) Leadership Styles and Leadership Effectiveness
LS & CE CE & LE Beta With Bootstrapping CI Kappa Square
Transformational 0.50* 1.13* 6.63*** b = 0.51, 95% CI (–0.13, 1.32} K2 = 0.10, 95% BCa CI {0.01, 0.21)
Transactional 0.79* 2.25* 7.71*** b = 1.79, 95% CI {0.40, 3.61} K2 = 0.14, 95% BCa CI {0.02, 0.23)
Laissez-faire 0.40* 3.61* 3.38*** b = –1.47, 95% CI {–2.79, –0.74} K2 = 0.15, 95% BCa CI {0.08, 0.27}.
Source: Result output by IBM SPSS.
Note: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. BCa= Bias Corrected and accelerated.
(b) however, collective efficacy failed to mediate the rela-
tionship of transformational and laissez-faire styles with
leadership effectiveness. In order to make the mediation sig-
nificant, it is necessary that bootstrapping confidence inter-
vals should not contain zero (Field, 2013); and (c) all the
three direct effect regression coefficients were significant.
Table 4 regression coefficients, the indirect effect and
the bootstrapped confidence intervals of collective efficacy
on transformational leadership style and well-being (a) It is
observed that there is a significant indirect effect of trans-
formational leadership style on well-being through collec-
tive efficacy, Beta = 0.11, 95% bootstrapping CI {0.05,
0.19}. This represents high effect size as K2= 0.18, 95%
boot strapping CI {0.09, 0.29). (b) There was a significant
indirect effect of transactional leadership style on well-
being through collective efficacy, b = 0.24, 95% CI {0.11,
0.38}. This again represents high effect size as K2= 0.20,
95% bootstrapping CI {0.10, 0.31). (c) However, the
116 Vision 20(2)
laissez-faire style again failed to mediate the relationship
collective efficacy and well-being. (d) The direct effect of
leadership styles on wellbeing was positive and significant
except for laissez-faire style.
Discussion
The current study explored the direct and indirect linkages
of collective efficacy and leader’s effectiveness with job-
related well-being through three leadership styles. There
are many ways to test indirect/mediation paths, the most
recent one being the Hayes process mediation model
(2012), which is used in the present research. Two hypoth-
eses were formulated: one explored the direct relationship
among the constructs while the second explored the indi-
rect linkages among the constructs, three leadership styles
being the mediators independently.
Table 1 depicted the descriptive statistics for all the con-
structs used in the study. It is evident that among the three
leadership styles, transformational style (M = 2.77) was the
most dominant pattern, followed by transactional, and
laissez-faire being the least-preferred style. This reflects a
very promising kind of scenario as transformational and
even in some cases transactional patterns have been associ-
ated with positive organizational outcomes. The review
indicates that the transformational leadership style is stim-
ulating where there is certain transcendence in terms of
self-interest leading towards the sharing of goals, shared
mission and vision as well as the experience of positive
affective states by the employees (Bono & Ilies, 2006). The
results also show that the respondents have scored reason-
ably high on collective efficacy and well-being. These two
results have important implications as they are linked to
many positive individual and organizational outcomes,
reviewed above. Table 2 showed correlation coefficients
among the constructs of the study. It was observed that
collective efficacy is significantly related to all the three
leadership styles undertaken in the study (p < 0.01), as well
as with leader’s effectiveness and job-related affective
well-being (p < 0.01), all the relationships being positive
except the one with laissez-faire style. The results are along
Table 4. Direct and Indirect Regression Coefficients for Leadership Styles (Predictor/s) and Job-related Well-being (Outcome
Variables) Through Collective Efficacy
Predictor
Variable
Mediating
Variable
Outcome
Variable
Direct
Effect Indirect Effect Effect Size
Leadership
Styles
Collective
Efficacy (b)
Job-related
Affective Well-
being (b) Leadership Styles and Job-related Affective Well-being
LS and CE CE and Well-being Beta With Bootstrapping CI Kappa Square
Transformational 0.50* 0.25*** 0.32*** b = 0.11, 95/CI {0.05, 0.19} K2 = 0.18, 95% BCa CI {0.09, 0.29)
Transactional 0.79* 0.30*** 0.38** b = 0.24, 95/CI {0.11, 0.38} K2 = 0.20, 95% BCa CI {0.10, 0.31)
Laissez-faire 0.40* 0.37*** –0.16 b = 0.15, 95/CI {–0.25, –0.07} K2 = 0.19, 95% BCa CI {0.10, 0.29).
Source: Result output by IBM SPSS.
Note: *p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0 .001.
expected lines as many previous studies have reported
these relationships (Krishnan, 2001, 2012; Nielsen &
Daniel, 2012; Sadeghi & Pihie, 2012). Transactional lead-
ership style was also found to be related to collective
efficacy. Review from previous studies suggests that since
a transactional leader is task oriented, there is a possibility
of locating some commonalities on the basis of mutual
tasks/goals between the leader and the followers (Howell
& Avolio, 1993) which would pave the way for collective
efficacy. Kahai, Sosik and Avolio (2003) found that transac-
tional leadership style was directly linked to higher group
efficacy. Rowold and Rohmann (2009) found that positive
emotions are associated directly with both transactional and
transformational leadership styles. There are studies link-
ing well-being facets directly to the leader’s functioning/
effectiveness (Nguni, Sleegers & Denessen, 2006).
Laissez-faire leadership style was found to have negative
relationships with all the variables of the study. Several
studies report that this leadership style inversely impacts
satisfaction and performance criteria, leading to experience
of negative emotions and poor …