Leadership QuarterlyPub Date : 2025-12-01Epub Date: 2025-11-05DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101925
Brett H. Neely Jr , Nathan Eva , Karryna Madison , Mark van Vugt
{"title":"The face of leadership: inferences, impressions, and behavioral consequences","authors":"Brett H. Neely Jr , Nathan Eva , Karryna Madison , Mark van Vugt","doi":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101925","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101925","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Facial cues are powerful inputs in impression formation, yet their role in leadership contexts remains contested. Does a leader’s face offer meaningful insight into their qualities and potential, or merely reflect observers’ stereotypes? To address this question, we conducted a multidisciplinary review of 131 empirical articles spanning psychology, management, political science, and related fields. We organized findings around five guiding research questions: theoretical perspectives, trait inferences, leadership outcomes, contextual moderators, and methodological approaches. Across studies, we find that observers commonly infer competence, dominance, trustworthiness, and warmth from leader faces, and that these impressions predict perceptions of effectiveness, leadership emergence, and behavioral outcomes. However, we also identify critical limitations: many studies rely on Western samples, invoke theory without testing mechanisms, and rarely validate trait inferences against objective data. Contextual factors such as threat or cultural norms are often overlooked, and intersectionality is largely absent. Methodologically, studies vary in rigor and causal inference is often weak. We integrate these insights into a conceptual framework and offer a future research agenda that encourages theory-driven, context-sensitive, and methodologically robust work. By clarifying what faces cue, when these cues matter, and how they are studied, this review advances a more integrated science of leader perception.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48434,"journal":{"name":"Leadership Quarterly","volume":"36 6","pages":"Article 101925"},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145447290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leadership QuarterlyPub Date : 2025-12-01Epub Date: 2025-11-17DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101924
Karryna Madison , Nathan Eva , Helen De Cieri , Zen Goh
{"title":"Social exchange theory in leadership research: A problematizing review","authors":"Karryna Madison , Nathan Eva , Helen De Cieri , Zen Goh","doi":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101924","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101924","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Leadership scholars frequently use social exchange theory to explain leader-follower relations and the influence of leadership behaviors and styles. Yet, the richness of social exchange theory often contrasts with how it is applied in leadership research. Thus, our problematizing review interrogates how leadership research has operationalized social exchange theory and what has been lost in the process. We surfaced six assumptions that structure how leadership research applies the theory: exchange is defined as transactional, unidirectional and leader-initiated, static, inferred through indirect proxies, enacted by identity-neutral actors, and decontextualized. We show how these assumptions depart from social exchange theory’s original emphasis on emergent reciprocity, negotiated power, and structural embeddedness. Building on this critique, we propose a future research agenda that reconnects leadership research with social exchange theory’s sociological roots, which positions exchange as a dynamic, emergent, and uncertain process influenced by individual identities, negotiated through social interactions, and structured by organizational and cultural contexts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48434,"journal":{"name":"Leadership Quarterly","volume":"36 6","pages":"Article 101924"},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145546292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leadership QuarterlyPub Date : 2025-12-01Epub Date: 2025-11-10DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101922
Allan Lee , Alexander Newman , Gregory R. Maio , Rohit S. Piplani , William S. Harvey
{"title":"Leader-follower value congruence: A systematic review of the literature and a future research agenda","authors":"Allan Lee , Alexander Newman , Gregory R. Maio , Rohit S. Piplani , William S. Harvey","doi":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101922","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101922","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Leadership research has increasingly explored the alignment of values between leaders and followers—commonly referred to as leader–follower value congruence. This review critically examines the theoretical foundations, methodological approaches, and empirical findings associated with this construct. We distinguish between perceived and actual value congruence, identifying a disproportionate focus on perceived congruence (60.19%) and less of a focus on actual congruence (37.86%), with only two studies looking at both perceived and actual congruence (1.94%). While both forms assess value alignment, they differ in how they are measured and conceptualized. Perceived congruence—typically assessed through follower self-reports—is closely tied to relational and attitudinal outcomes yet suffers from conceptual ambiguity and endogeneity bias. In contrast, actual congruence—captured through direct comparisons of leader and follower value profiles—offers more objective insights but remains underutilized. Drawing from the self–other agreement literature, we propose new typological frameworks that consider not only the presence or absence of congruence, but also the accuracy of alignment perceptions. We argue that perceived and actual value congruence are distinct but interrelated constructs whose interaction may shape leadership processes in unique ways. By clarifying these distinctions this review lays the groundwork for a more integrated and methodologically rigorous research agenda on value (mis)alignment in leadership.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48434,"journal":{"name":"Leadership Quarterly","volume":"36 6","pages":"Article 101922"},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145485609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leadership QuarterlyPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-08-05DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101909
Samuel H. Matthews , Thomas K. Kelemen , Bo Shao , Michael J. Matthews , Dawei (David) Wang
{"title":"Leader state emotions in organizations","authors":"Samuel H. Matthews , Thomas K. Kelemen , Bo Shao , Michael J. Matthews , Dawei (David) Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101909","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101909","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As the affective revolution continues to shape the way in which scholars understand applied psychology and organizations, we build upon the central tenets of this movement and explore the nexus of leadership and state emotions. By integrating previous conceptualizations, which have extensively studied the intersection of discrete emotions, we present an integrative framework of leader state emotions that outlines how emotional triggers, leader emotional regulation, and follower reactions relate to one another. Using this framework as a guide, we take stock of the extant research on leader emotions by evaluating research in the last 30 years that has studied the intersection of emotions (ranging from anger to happiness) and leadership (ranging from managers to CEOs). Our synopsis of 101 articles provides insights into ongoing trends (such as frequent application of emotions as social information), relatively stable findings (such as role expectations surrounding emotional expressions for male and female leaders), as well as potential directions for future research (such as employing AI tools to study emotions). To wit, in this integrative review, we provide a consensus-creating contribution by bringing together a rich body of research on this topic, thereby expanding the frontier for future theory-building and theory-testing on leadership and emotions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48434,"journal":{"name":"Leadership Quarterly","volume":"36 5","pages":"Article 101909"},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144771412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leadership QuarterlyPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-21DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101897
Truc Ha-Thanh Nguyen , Mahmoud Zakarneh , Matthew McDonald , Joseph Amankwah-Amoah
{"title":"Reconceptualizing ethical leadership for the global south: An institutional logics perspective","authors":"Truc Ha-Thanh Nguyen , Mahmoud Zakarneh , Matthew McDonald , Joseph Amankwah-Amoah","doi":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101897","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101897","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Research on ethical leadership from an institutional perspective in countries in the Global North has now been established. However, the topic has garnered less attention in regions of the world with markedly different institutional arrangements that are less stable and less predictable, where leaders face a host of ethical problems. The purpose of this study is to address this imbalance by analyzing ethical leadership in the more fluid environment in the Global South, where it is argued that there is a need to move beyond mainstream intrapsychic perspectives, positivist research designs, and binary orientations that have gained widespread currency in the Global North. To this end, the study problematizes the current ethical leadership literature by drawing on the theory of institutional logics. The theory of institutional logics provides a macro- and micro-level perspective, where the interplay of multiple competing institutions shapes ethical leadership. The analysis aims to clarify and intensify the problems of ethical decision-making in the Global South by offering a set of counterpoints that extend on the mainstream literature. The theoretical and practice-based implications of our analysis are discussed, offering insights for organizations and leaders seeking to navigate the ethical challenges in diverse institutional settings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48434,"journal":{"name":"Leadership Quarterly","volume":"36 5","pages":"Article 101897"},"PeriodicalIF":9.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144669769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leadership QuarterlyPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-04-24DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101880
Shilaan Alzahawi, Francis J. Flynn
{"title":"Does expressing uncertainty help or harm leaders?","authors":"Shilaan Alzahawi, Francis J. Flynn","doi":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101880","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101880","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Can leaders benefit from vocalizing uncertainty? Past research outlines two opposing positions. On one hand, individuals who express confidence signal competence and, as a result, attain greater influence in social groups. On the other hand, research on leader humility, authenticity, and self-disclosure suggests that leaders who express vulnerability, not conviction, achieve greater social influence. In this work, we attempt to reconcile these competing positions by considering two additional hypotheses. First, expressing uncertainty may be beneficial in moderate doses, but detrimental in especially small or large doses. Second, followers’ intolerance of uncertainty (i.e., “need for closure”) may be a critical moderator of the relationship between leader-expressed uncertainty and social influence. We conducted five experimental studies to determine whether the link between expressed uncertainty and leader influence may be negative, positive, curvilinear (i.e., inverse U-shaped), and/or moderated by follower’s tolerance of uncertainty. We find overwhelming evidence that the link between expressed uncertainty and leader influence is negative. Leaders who express uncertainty are perceived as less effective, less warm, and less competent. Beyond these subjective evaluations, leader-expressed uncertainty has behavioral consequences, reducing advice-taking, leader selection, and reward allocation. We find no evidence of positive, curvilinear, or interaction effects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48434,"journal":{"name":"Leadership Quarterly","volume":"36 5","pages":"Article 101880"},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143909815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leadership QuarterlyPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-28DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101908
Dean Xu , Helen Wei Hu , Laszlo Tihanyi
{"title":"Political promotion of CEOs of state-controlled firms in China: A state capitalism view","authors":"Dean Xu , Helen Wei Hu , Laszlo Tihanyi","doi":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101908","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101908","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Previous research views political promotions of CEOs of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as an incentive that compensates for weak monetary rewards. Taking a state capitalism perspective, we suggest that the government uses political promotions as a mechanism to reallocate human capital resources for its economic and political objectives. This approach entails potential trade-offs between macro-level gains and micro-level losses, as valuable and rare human capital is diverted from SOE management to political posts. Based on 1,077 CEO-year observations of 226 listed Chinese SOEs, we find that both financial and political performance have a positive effect on the political promotions of CEOs. However, when the SOE is more in need of the CEO’s managerial skills—specifically, when the SOE’s industry has a private-firm leader or the SOE holds higher prominence within its enterprise group—the positive relationship between financial performance and political promotion is weakened. In comparison, the positive relationship between political performance and political promotion is weakened to a lesser extent. Additional analysis reveals that SOEs whose former CEOs received political promotions tend to experience a decline in performance in the years following the promotions, compared to pre-promotion years, as well as to firms whose former CEOs have been demoted.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48434,"journal":{"name":"Leadership Quarterly","volume":"36 5","pages":"Article 101908"},"PeriodicalIF":9.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144713913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leadership QuarterlyPub Date : 2025-07-01Epub Date: 2025-05-30DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101884
Miriam K. Zehnter , Christoph U. Wolfmayr , Leona A. Andriopoulos , Erich Kirchler , Martin Voracek , Michelle K. Ryan
{"title":"Text-mining obituaries between 1953 and 2019 revealed that women leaders are described increasingly like men leaders, but yet evaluated differently","authors":"Miriam K. Zehnter , Christoph U. Wolfmayr , Leona A. Andriopoulos , Erich Kirchler , Martin Voracek , Michelle K. Ryan","doi":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101884","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101884","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Replicating and extending previous research on changes in gender stereotypes in the context of leadership (<span><span>Zehnter et al, 2018</span></span>), we text-mined 2,283 obituaries of leaders published between 1953 and 2019 in (Western) Germany. Using a rigorously developed dictionary with substantial internal reliability, coverage, convergent, and predictive validity, we counted descriptive words signifying agency, competence, and communality alongside evaluative words signifying likability and respectability. Over time, women leaders were described more like men leaders in terms of agency and competence, but continued to be described as more communal. Moreover, women leaders were evaluated as increasingly likable, but continued to be evaluated as less respectable than men leaders. Penalizations of agency with reduced likability initially disappeared, but re-emerged after the millennial shift. Ultimately, these results highlight that despite some changes towards greater equality, disparaging views of women and men leaders persist.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48434,"journal":{"name":"Leadership Quarterly","volume":"36 4","pages":"Article 101884"},"PeriodicalIF":9.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144595316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leadership QuarterlyPub Date : 2025-07-01Epub Date: 2025-07-05DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101895
Niels Van Quaquebeke , Scott Tonidandel , George C. Banks
{"title":"Beyond efficiency: How artificial intelligence (AI) will reshape scientific inquiry and the publication process","authors":"Niels Van Quaquebeke , Scott Tonidandel , George C. Banks","doi":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101895","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101895","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming how research is conceived, executed, published, and shared. This editorial examines the “elephant in the room”: the integration of AI across every stage of the research life cycle and publication pipeline. We trace AI’s expanding footprint on the author side, from sparking novel research ideas, mapping literature, and designing studies, to simulating data, analyzing results, and drafting manuscripts. We also consider AI’s growing role on the journal side, including automated manuscript triage, AI-assisted peer review, decision synthesis, and revision checks. And we discuss AI’s impact on research dissemination. Throughout, we highlight not only the unprecedented opportunities for creativity, efficiency, and accessibility, but also the ethical risks, such as epistemic homogenization, challenges to accountability, and the loss of scholarly craft. We urge researchers, editors, and institutions not to fall into the false binary of blind optimism or blanket skepticism. Instead, we call for deliberate engagement: a principled, transparent, and reflexive partnership between human scholars and machine collaborators. The question is no longer whether we want AI to shape the future of scholarship—it already is. The challenge now is to ensure that what it amplifies is not only our productivity, but our judgment, imagination, and collective responsibility in knowledge creation and dissemination.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48434,"journal":{"name":"Leadership Quarterly","volume":"36 4","pages":"Article 101895"},"PeriodicalIF":9.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144595360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leadership QuarterlyPub Date : 2025-07-01Epub Date: 2025-04-18DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101879
Andrew C. Loignon , Diane M. Bergeron , Michael A. Johnson , Alexandra M. Dunn , Christina S. Li , Hector Martinez , Sabrina L. Speights , Haley M. Woznyj
{"title":"Signaling with babble? Exploring the effects of gender and speaking time on leader emergence","authors":"Andrew C. Loignon , Diane M. Bergeron , Michael A. Johnson , Alexandra M. Dunn , Christina S. Li , Hector Martinez , Sabrina L. Speights , Haley M. Woznyj","doi":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101879","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101879","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We revisit the “babble hypothesis,” which refers to the positive relationships between speaking time and leader emergence. By drawing on signaling theory, we ask three inter-related questions: (1) Is speaking time an observable signal? (2) Does the dynamism that is inherent in speech affect leadership outcomes? (3) Can speaking time elicit different perceptions based on one’s gender? Using data from 38 teams consisting of over 190 team members, we replicate earlier studies showing that average speaking time causes increased perceptions of leader emergence. We extend these findings by presenting evidence that average speaking time also causes increases in perceived rates of speaking time and perceived speaking time is associated with leader emergence. We also find that one’s gender has limited effects on leader emergence and perceived speaking time after accounting for their average level of speaking time. Interestingly, the consistency in one’s speaking time over the course of a group’s interactions is only weakly affected by role assignment, which limits our ability to test the causal effects of dynamic speech. Our findings underscore the importance of distinguishing between actual leader behaviors and perceptions of those behaviors, suggest new approaches for studying the causal effects of changes over time in speech, and raise new questions for how gender biases can emerge in perceptions of leaders.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48434,"journal":{"name":"Leadership Quarterly","volume":"36 4","pages":"Article 101879"},"PeriodicalIF":9.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144596176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}