The relationship between enduring leadership and organizational performance

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to replicate previous findings exploring the mediating effect of personal leadership on professional leadership and intentions to cooperate, and to extend the model by examining organizational performance. Design/methodology/approach – Employees from two school districts (one high performing, the other low performing) in New York State completed a survey designed to gather their perceptions of study variables. Findings – Professional and personal leadership are positively related to employee intentions to cooperate, personal leadership mediates the effect of professional leadership on employee intentions to cooperate, and employees in the high-performing organization rated all study variables higher than employees in the low-performing organization. Research limitations/implications – Limitations include predictor and outcome data both collected from the same respondents and all measures collected via survey. Both of these issues raise concerns with regards to common method bias, though actual performance data was gained from a separate source. Practical implications – Managers should focus on developing both professional (i.e. providing direction, process, and coordination to members) and personal (i.e. demonstrating expertise, trust, caring, sharing, and ethics) behaviors to enhance. Social implications – The current study's findings are compelling and supportive of prior research (Mastrangelo et al., 2004; Eddy et al., 2008). Both professional and personal leadership have an important impact on employee intentions to cooperate, and personal leadership mediates the relationship between professional leadership and employee intentions to cooperate. Leaders should focus on enhancing these behaviors in order to positively impact organizational success. Most compelling is the power of personal leadership. A greater emphasis on expertise, trust, caring, sharing, and ethical behavior in teaching and practicing leadership will undoubtedly lead to more enduring leadership. Originality/value – The paper provides confirmatory evidence for the value of the leadership model put forth by Mastrangelo et al. (2004) and extends the model to include other important outcomes. An examination of leader behaviors at high-performing organization and low-performing organization uncovers ways managers can enhance their leadership behaviors.