This paper shall demonstrate a critical understanding on the various different perspectives on the definition of leadership and shall assess what is authentic leadership, leader-member exchange and the psychological capital of the employees. It shall shed light on the relationship in between these three variables by analysing and assessing different literary works of different scholars and researchers. Furthermore, the paper shall also elaborate on the process of building psychological capital of different types of employees such as the professional employees, administrative employees, emotional labor, blue collar employees, white collar employees, different generational cohort or different ethnicities. Lastly, the impact of emotions on the overall performance of the employees in their workplace shall also be assessed critically in this paper.
The definition of leadership has been explained differently by different scholars. According to Renko et al. (2015), “leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal achievement”. Also, as per Chemers (2014), leadership is the ability of a person to achieve a common goal by encouraging joint efforts of his own self and his followers. Furthermore, Thoroughgood et al. (2018) have claimed that leadership is “the art of inducing compliance”. Hence, there are different point of view and perspectives on leadership. However, the most common of all is that- leadership is action of leading a team of members to achieve a common goal.
As stated by Shamir and Eilam-Shamir (2018), authentic leadership refers to the style of management in which an individual act in genuine, sincere and real way and is true to who he or she is as an individual. Authentic leadership is said to be the type of leadership which is best positioned for inspiring loyalty, trust and a very strong performances from the part of the employees. Also, as per many scholars, the authentic leaders are genuine and self-aware. They are the self-actualised people who are well-aware of their own strengths and weaknesses as well as their emotions towards a certain things. Moreover, according to Top et al. (2015), it is a “higher-order, multidimensional construct, comprised of self-awareness, balanced processing, relational transparency, and internalization of a moral or ethical perspective”. It is to note that the authentic leadership has been emerged as one of the very important components in the studies of positive leadership. Its theoretical extension is one of the key construct in the theory of leadership. As per Leroy et al. (2015), it is one of the important elements of a positive organisational behaviour in any firm and is therefore, referred to as the “pattern of leadership behaviour, responsible for the promotion of positive psychological capabilities and productive ethical environment in organisations”.
Leader-Member Exchange also known as the vertical Dyad Linkage theory, is a relationship based approach towards leadership. It focuses on a two way or dyadic relationship in between the leaders and followers. According to Choi, Kraimer and Seibert (2018), “Leader-Member Exchange is a multidimensional construct and propose that LMX relationships may develop in many ways and the relationships are based on three varying amounts of “currencies of exchange”. It was first developed by Dansereau, Graen, and Haga in the year 1975 in their paper named, “A Vertical Dyad approach to leadership within formal organizations”. According to Martin et al. (2016), LMX is intuitive in nature and it is something that could be expected from the leader-group structure. With the same, this is a theory that points out what the people could do for strengthening and weakening the dynamics of leadership. This also explains the dynamics of the old issues of cronyism along with the corruption and the mechanics of loyalty to a leader. However, it is to note that LMX has a significant influence on the experiences of the subordinates in their workplace. It entails the extent to which any leader and his follower succeed to develop a mutually advantageous and a trusting relationship in between them. There are many scholars who have stated that the social processes in the organisations results into a vertically dynamic relationship.
According to Gu, Tang and Jiang (2015), Psychological Capital of an employee is his “positive psychological state of development”, that is characterised by possessing high degrees of HERO- Hope, Self- Efficacy, Resilience and Optimism. These are the four positive capabilities or the four fundamental characteristics within an individual which deals in developing his or her psychological capital. As stated by Marstand, Martin and Epitropaki (2017), Psychological Capital can be defined as “a positive situation for personal development with the features of self-reliance while dealing with the challenges (self-efficacy), positive expectations for the future success (optimism), being full of determination (hope), and accomplishment in spite of obstacles (resilience). Efficacy refers to the view point or belief about one’s own abilities. While Hope on the other hand, is related to the attitude of the way a person thinks and it pays a directive part in his overall performance in his work. Optimism refers to the positive expectation of an individual and hence, it is not connected with his or her actual ability. Lastly, resiliency within an individual is concerned with his positive and productive acceptance and the ability of his to bounce back from the problem or crisis.
It is to note that Psychological Capital has been proved to provide a conceptual model on how the psychological resources of a person allow him or her along with their organisation to perform in effective and more productive way. It represents a positive and productive state of mind which aids to high levels of flourishing and efficiency among the employees within their workplace. With the same, it has also been found that the Psychological Capital has a very positive and significant impact on the sustainable competitiveness of the employees. It reduced the costs as well as mitigate the negative impact in any organisation.
According to Wang et al. (2014), the cohesion of the relation in between LMX and authentic leadership is based on the several different judgements of the different attributions which are been made by the leaders and their followers regarding certain authenticity and intentions of other people. Also, Banks et al. (2016) in this context have claimed that the level of authenticity is very strongly related to how effective a leader is. With the same, they have also stated that the LMX plays the role of a mediator in between the relationship in between authenticity of a leader and his effectiveness. A leader who is considered to be very genuine, authentic and effective is capable of developing a positive relation in the organisation with his or her direct report. Therefore, such leaders are always regarded as efficient and effective leaders. Moreover, Shamir and Eilam-Shamir (2018) have expressed their view-point on this subject stating that when the relationship of a leader and his follower is authentic and genuine, it is likely to promote an open as well as an honest communication in between them. This is due to the fact that there is a deep held shared bond and values in between them and therefore, they promote those achievement and pursuit of those shared goals. With the same, the authentic leadership is something that describes the relation in between the leaders, followers and the rest other people of the organisation. The relationship that is mutually reciprocal permits the self-development process among them. Along with this, it also encourages a deep understanding of the inter-relations of the other professional associations.
It is also to mention that an organisational behaviour that is positive, is very necessary for enhancing the Psychological Capital within the employees working in the organisation. It fosters growth and development within them and also motivates them to give their best performance in the workplace. Employees always seek for positive organisational behaviour at their organisations as such a climate and such a climate is only developed by means of authentic leadership. According to Hirst et al. (2016), it is the authentic leadership of a leader that foster and enhances the performance of his team and followers at workplace. This in turn, automatically develop their Psychological Capital and enhances the level of trust towards the leader. As stated by Renko et al. (2015), Psychological Capital is associated with transformation and authentic leadership. There is a always a positive relation in between these two variables.
There are several different types of employees in different work settings. Some are professional employees, some are administrative, some are emotional labour and some are blue and white collars. Different employees have different working environment and their job roles, too differ from each other. However, their requirements of resources for building their psychological capital is more or less same. The professional employees are the ones like teachers, lawyers and doctors who perform the works that needs advanced education and several trainings to gain expertise on. On the other hand, there are administrative employees such as the human resource and accounting staffs whose main responsibility is to involve the support of their businesses. However, both these types of employees have a strong psychological relation with the rate of satisfaction they have with their respective works. According to Karatepe and Karadas (2015), the Psychological Capital of such employees are built on the basis of job satisfaction, appraisals and the development opportunities that they get in their work settings. While, emotional labour is the process of emotion regulation in which the workers are engaged in the process of management of their own feelings and emotions for achieving their emotional need of job. According to Kwok, Cheng and Wong (2015), “Positive psychological capital is a moderator between emotional labour, burnout and job satisfaction”. This moderate the relation among the emotional labour and resulted variables. Also, for the blue collar employees like the mechanics and plumbers, who work with their hands and for the white collar employees who perform their work in office setting, building of the psychological Capital needs- HERO (Hope, Self-Efficacy, Resilience and Optimism). Moreover, generational cohort in workplace is categorised into Baby Boomer, Traditionalist, Gen Z, Generation X and Millennials. For each one of them, all the above four factors are very important to build their Psychological capital.
Desmet (2018) has defined the term emotion as “a stirred up condition involving subjective) experience and affective reactions”. They might be pleasant or unpleasant. It is related to the level of motivation, encouragement, personality, mood, motivation and temperament of an individual. It is one of the very pure human psychological phenomenon that each and every individual possess for certain things and affected by certain things. Employees in organisations are also influenced by the way their peers and leaders behave towards them at the workplace. More often, it results in negative performance and low level of engagement in the workplace. According to Inzlicht, Barthlow and Hirsh (2015), the emotions of the employees have a strong relations with their overall job performance. It influences their decision making skills and also their attitude towards their peers. Their leadership style is also affected by how deeply their emotions are hurt. In turn, most of the time, the rate of turnover in the organisations, too, get increased and this led to low team spirit as well. With the same, it is also to note that emotions influence the way in which people think or react in the workplace.
Also, according to Etkin, Buchel and Gross (2015), the withdrawal by the emotionally exhausted workers in the workplace could manifest itself by the rate of employee turnover. They have also supported this view that emotions influence the job performance of the employees. To this, they have set out a total of five general tips for a better management of emotions in the workplace- a) Instead of seeing the jobs as some of the purely rational undertaking, the managers and the leaders should analyse the “emotional impact: of the job of each employee and should design certain job assignments which that it into consideration, 2) Managers should encourage positive emotional environment by means of compensation and reward system in the workplace, 3) the selection process of the teams and the employees should be dependent on positive emotional attitudes, 4) Managers should work towards encouraging and creating friendly and emotional climate and they should model it through their self-behaviours, 5) Managers should train the employees for improving their skills of emotional intelligence and should engage in emotion expression at the workplace.
References:
Banks, G.C., McCauley, K.D., Gardner, W.L. and Guler, C.E., 2016. A meta-analytic review of authentic and transformational leadership: A test for redundancy. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(4), pp.634-652.
Chemers, M., 2014. An integrative theory of leadership. Psychology Press.
Choi, D., Kraimer, M. and Seibert, S., 2018, July. Toward Building a Multilevel Model of Perceived Leader-member Exchange Differentiation. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2018, No. 1, p. 13192). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
Desmet, P., 2018. Measuring emotion: Development and application of an instrument to measure emotional responses to products. In Funology 2 (pp. 391-404). Springer, Cham.
Etkin, A., Büchel, C. and Gross, J.J., 2015. The neural bases of emotion regulation. Nature reviews neuroscience, 16(11), p.693.
Gu, Q., Tang, T.L.P. and Jiang, W., 2015. Does moral leadership enhance employee creativity? Employee identification with leader and leader–member exchange (LMX) in the Chinese context. Journal of Business Ethics, 126(3), pp.513-529.
Hirst, G., Walumbwa, F., Aryee, S., Butarbutar, I. and Chen, C.J.H., 2016. A multi-level investigation of authentic leadership as an antecedent of helping behavior. Journal of Business Ethics, 139(3), pp.485-499.
Inzlicht, M., Bartholow, B.D. and Hirsh, J.B., 2015. Emotional foundations of cognitive control. Trends in cognitive sciences, 19(3), pp.126-132.
Karatepe, O.M. and Karadas, G., 2015. Do psychological capital and work engagement foster frontline employees’ satisfaction? A study in the hotel industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(6), pp.1254-1278.
Kwok, S.Y., Cheng, L. and Wong, D.F., 2015. Family emotional support, positive psychological capital and job satisfaction among Chinese white-collar workers. Journal of Happiness Studies, 16(3), pp.561-582.
Leroy, H., Anseel, F., Gardner, W.L. and Sels, L., 2015. Authentic leadership, authentic followership, basic need satisfaction, and work role performance: A cross-level study. Journal of Management, 41(6), pp.1677-1697.
Marstand, A.F., Martin, R. and Epitropaki, O., 2017. Complementary person-supervisor fit: An investigation of supplies-values (SV) fit, leader-member exchange (LMX) and work outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(3), pp.418-437.
Martin, R., Guillaume, Y., Thomas, G., Lee, A. and Epitropaki, O., 2016. Leader–member exchange (LMX) and performance: A meta?analytic review. Personnel Psychology, 69(1), pp.67-121.
Renko, M., El Tarabishy, A., Carsrud, A.L. and Brännback, M., 2015. Understanding and measuring entrepreneurial leadership style. Journal of Small Business Management, 53(1), pp.54-74.
Shamir, B. and Eilam-Shamir, G., 2018. “What’s your story?” A life-stories approach to authentic leadership development. In Leadership Now: Reflections on the Legacy of Boas Shamir(pp. 51-76). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Shamir, B. and Eilam-Shamir, G., 2018. “What’s your story?” A life-stories approach to authentic leadership development. In Leadership Now: Reflections on the Legacy of Boas Shamir(pp. 51-76). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Thoroughgood, C.N., Sawyer, K.B., Padilla, A. and Lunsford, L., 2018. Destructive leadership: A critique of leader-centric perspectives and toward a more holistic definition. Journal of Business Ethics, 151(3), pp.627-649.
Top, S., Öge, E., Atan, Ö. and Gümü?, S., 2015. Investigation relational levels of intensity between paternalistic and servant leadership styles and national culture, organizational commitment and subordinate responses or reactions to the leaders style. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 181, pp.12-22.
Wang, H., Sui, Y., Luthans, F., Wang, D. and Wu, Y., 2014. Impact of authentic leadership on performance: Role of followers’ positive psychological capital and relational processes. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(1), pp.5-21.
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.
Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order form
Once we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignment
As soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download