HP4281 Psychology of Leadership
Individual Assignment
Leadership is a practical phenomenon that has been commonly examined in the social science research (Bass, 2008). As effective organizational and societal functioning requires effective leadership, researchers have tried to explain the psychology of leadership phenomenon by creating and examining theoretical frameworks for it (Day & Antonakis, 2012).
Theoretical frameworks help to improve our understanding of the psychology of leadership as they systematically present the key elements of the psychology of leadership phenomenon and factors that are key to facilitating or may impede the influencing process of leadership, as well as the interactions between leaders and their followers that ultimately resulting in goal achievement (Day, 2012).
Since the 19th century, the psychology of leadership was commonly examined via quantitative research approaches, marginalizing qualitative research approaches (Levitt, Bamberg, Creswell, Frost, Josselson, Suárez-Orozco, 2018). The quantitative approach is more preferred over the qualitative approach to scientific inquiry because it focuses on measuring the leadership phenomenon through the examination of theoretical frameworks and testing of hypotheses, therefore enabling derivation of interpretable outcomes with a high degree of objectivity. This objectivity allows for the generalizability of findings, whereas qualitative approaches were higher in subjectivity and thus perceived as less credible in comparison (Kroeck, Lowe, & Brown, 2004). As the psychology of leadership is a practical phenomenon, quantitative research could be applied and used to develop effective leadership in real-world settings, where qualitative research have yet to demonstrate (Kroeck, Lowe, & Brown, 2004). Additionally, qualitative approaches were not used due to the assumption that they produced less credible research in psychology (Levitt et al., 2018).
Despite being commonly applied in the psychology of leadership, quantitative approaches were criticized for assuming that the psychology of leadership phenomenon can be observed in the same conditions across time and settings, and hence be easily separated into segments that can be studied independently. This does not account for the changing environment of the leadership process, that can potentially affect and lead to different results (Kroeck, Lowe, & Brown, 2004).
Hence, despite qualitative approaches’ focus on post-positivist naturalistic inquiry, which could be possibly biased due to its constructivist nature, more researchers in the field of psychology of leadership are using qualitative approaches because they give interpretive and evaluative depth to the advancement of psychology of leadership research where quantitative research is unable to provide (Antonakis, Schriesheim, Donovan, Gopalakrishna-Pillai, Pellegrini, Rossomme, 2003).
As quantitative research offers strengths such as reliability, internal and external validity, and objectivity whereas qualitative approaches offer transferability, credibility, dependability, and confirmability of results. Thus, the American Psychological Association (APA) has introduced new reporting standards in both of these approaches to guide the development of psychology of leadership (Levitt et al., 2018; Appelbaum, Cooper, Kline, Mayo-Wilson, Nezu, & Rao, 2018). These new reporting standards would not only increase the scientific rigor in both approaches but also standardize the approaches, leading to more transparency in the science, while further developing research concerning the psychology of leadership. This would boost the credibility of both quantitative and qualitative approaches, enabling us to tap on their strengths to develop effective leadership.
Qualitative approaches
Qualitative methods used in psychology of leadership research include interview, ethnography and observation. One of the more popular qualitative methods used was the interview method, as it easily enabled collection of large amounts of data due to its open-ended and unstructured form (Kroeck, Lowe, & Brown, 2004). However, as interviews are social situation-specific, the leader-member relationship on the job may be subjected to situational cues during the interviews, which reduces this method’s generalizability.
The ethnography method was also typically used in psychology leadership research as it focuses on gathering large amounts of information via interviews and prolonged observations within a specific context (Kroeck, Lowe, & Brown, 2004). Its emphasis on observations would incur lesser participant bias as compared to interviews. However, because of its time-consuming and expensive nature, organizations may be unwilling to invest in this method. Additionally, the immersive nature of ethnography may limit the number of perspectives and result in research development with more depth than breadth.
The observation method was also a core element in the development of many leadership theories due to its examination of social reality of leadership within situational contexts. Nonetheless, observation has been argued to be simplistic in nature as it shows the participants’ behaviors but does not offer insights into their motivations behind such actions (Kroeck, Lowe, & Brown, 2004).
An important theory that focuses on the use of the above-mentioned qualitative approaches is the charismatic leadership and transformational leadership theory by Burns (1978), as demonstrated in several studies (Roberts, 1985; Roberts and Bradley, 1988; Gaines, 1993; Beyer and Browning, 1999; Bryman, Gillingwater, & McGuinness, 1996).
Hence, new guidelines in qualitative approaches such as the new reporting standards of qualitative approaches would help to counter the subjectivity of qualitative approaches by generating more objective, structured, and interpretable data. These new reporting standards include the standardization of key terms, namely approach to integrity, data collection strategies, research design, and data-analytic strategies (Levitt et al., 2018). This will ensure that a wide range of perspectives is covered and terminology is clearly defined for readers to better comprehend the research, with reference to leadership theories. Furthermore, rigor in research was established via methodological integrity with the increased fidelity of the procedures to the subject matter, and the provision of relevant approaches to inquiry and study characteristics and utility of data in achieving research goals of identifying effective leaders. This allows for the alignment of the researcher’s contextual embeddedness with the research claims, offering transparency in the reporting of data-collection, data-analytic strategies and ethical procedures, and resulting in more credible leadership research claims. Hence, organizations would be more likely to implement these theories in their leadership training programs.
However, a weakness in the new guidelines in qualitative approaches is that they lack detailed standards for evaluating the methodological integrity as the article focuses on the reporting of research (Levitt et al., 2018). This may possibly result in procedures that are irrelevant to research design, which may erode the methodological integrity of the research, which complicates the leadership theories which may make it more difficult for organizations to implement in their leadership training programs despite the leadership research credible claims.
Quantitative approaches
Quantitative methods used in psychology of leadership research include paper-and-pencil questionnaire and assessment centers. The paper-and-pencil questionnaire method remains as a a prevalent quantitative approach used in psychology of leadership since the 20th century due to its ease of application and interpretation, as well as validity and reliability in measuring leadership (Kroeck, Lowe, & Brown, 2004). This questionnaire was typically used as the format to guide many leadership theories including the Leader-Member Exchange Theory, Grid Theory, and the Vertical-Dyad Linkage Theory (Schriesheim, Neider, Scandura, and Tepper, 1992; Hersey and Blanchard, 1974; Liden and Maslyn, 1998). Nevertheless, paper-and-pencil questionnaires are limited in depth of analysis, because they emphasise on single-level analysis of leadership behaviors, discounting the effects of contextual factors. Furthermore, the questionnaires provide a limited range of responses that do not provide insights behind the participant’s responses (Kroeck, Lowe, & Brown, 2004).
Assessment centers are currently popular methods for management personnel selection and promotion. With multiple instruments used for real-world participant samples (organizational employees), assessment centers have been reliable in predicting leaders’ performance. However, assessment centers are more time-consuming and expensive alternatives compared to other qualitative approaches such as paper-and-pencil questionnaires. In addition, it is debatable whether assessment centers are worth organizations’ investments in assessing leadership performance due to the lack of standardization in how they are determined, as well as its applicability in only certain situations, suggesting that there is an issue of the construct validity of assessment center ratings (Kroeck, Lowe, & Brown, 2004).
Therefore, new guidelines for quantitative approaches are established to counter the weaknesses present in the quantitative approaches for psychology of leadership research. A study by Appelbaum et al. in 2018 suggests the standardization of specific experimental designs based on the purpose of the experiment to give a guiding format for the reporting of all studies. The study suggests that researchers refer to their tables 1 to 6 for ‘the nature of researchers’ inquiry reported’, ‘statistical-quantitative analysis’ in tables 7 and 8, and the ‘reporting standards for research syntheses and meta-analyses’ in table 9. New reporting standards for the method section across all quantitative research designs include the data diagnostics to inform the reader of the modifications of data analysis, supplemented by the unmodified data set, to allow the reader to verify the changes in data analysis. The terms used in psychometrics for quantitative measures were also standardized to allow for application of terms across contexts. Therefore, the standardization of experimental measures reported allows for leadership researchers to replicate or improve past studies so as to advance the research in psychology of leadership.
There were many types of reporting standards that were revised in the study by Appelbaum et al. in 2018, namely those for longitudinal studies, meta-analyses and statistical methods. In recent quantitative research approaches, reporting standards for longitudinal studies were added. Key strengths of these standards comprise of enabling the experienced reader to evaluate the validity and application of longitudinal studies to the psychology of leadership phenomenon, and understanding it in relation to the constant changes in the real-world setting. Standards for external replication of past studies were also added to ensure that replicated studies also enable readers to understand the development of the research and evaluate the studies’ claims.
Another type of reporting standard revised in the aforementioned study, the meta-analysis reporting standards, increases the coder reliability, and the credibility and validity of the results and methods. Thereafter, the reporting standards for statistical methods such as the Structural-Equation Modeling was revised, with the theoretical or statistical bases for modifying an initial model, detailed description of the data preparation, the justification for the selected statistical method or model testing strategies, as well as the reporting of the results. Following that, the Single-Case Reporting guideline in BEhavioral interventions (SCRIBE) was developed to address reporting guidelines for behavioral science research, with four prototypical designs (withdrawal-reversal, multiple baseline, alternating simultaneous treatments, and changing criterion) used in single-case experiments, methodology of the development of the study and the items used in the study’s measurements. The prototypical design’s correspondence to the respective research study would ensure clear and accurate reporting of the trial and its outcomes.
Similar to the standardization of experimental measures reported by Appelbaum et al. in 2018, transparency in all of the reporting standards mentioned above would enable the reader to have clarity in understanding, assessing and evaluating the scientific claims in psychology of leadership, and be able to replicate study that accurately follow the trajectory of past studies.
However, while these new reporting standards increased the validity of results and reliability of measurement, they have two weaknesses. Due to the usage of similar reporting standards in many other fields, some aspects of the reporting standards may not apply to the psychology of leadership. Additionally, the slow process of implementing these new reporting standards would result in differing quantitative research approaches before these standards are established.
Discussion
Despite the strengths of new guidelines in quantitative and qualitative research approaches, the development of psychology of leadership may not be adequate without either approach as both approaches help to counter each other’s weaknesses. As current research in the psychology of leadership focuses on experimental studies to examine the causal relations between variables, mixed methods are used to offer breadth and depth in the corroboration of laboratory and fieldwork contexts of psychology of leadership research (Antonakis et al., 2003). In fact, mixed methods reporting standards try to integrate the unique elements of both qualitative and qualitative approaches’ reporting standards. The integration of both methods can establish more scientific rigor through the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods, generate more data and new insights, and enable the use of philosophical assumptions or theoretical models to build research design. The new reporting standards in both quantitative and qualitative research, can advance the research of psychology of leadership if either methods are used, or enable new insights from the integration of both. An example of a mixed-method approach is the grounded theory.
Grounded theory
In view of the criticism of qualitative research approaches’ lack of scientific rigor, grounded theory can be used to shape the foundations of psychology of leadership (Kempster & Parry, 2011). To build a good theory, researchers would have to first look at the relational and processual elements that contribute to manifestation of leadership within a particular context. Secondly, researchers can use grounded theory by using qualitative analysis to interpret quantitative data. In this process, assumptions of the theory and the specification of the system in which the theory operates need to be stated as the issue of validity can occur when other researchers examining the same data have different interpretations can interpret it differently, assumptions of the theory and the specification of the system in which the theory operates need to be stated. Thirdly, as the psychology of leadership adopts a critical realist principle, which recognizing that no two organizational contexts are exactly the same, the integrative theory has to be conceptualized at the highest abstraction level. This would allow the theory and its accompanying practices to be modified across time and contexts. Lastly, the grounded theory has to be continuously modified according to existing literature, for to be more relevance to the real-world setting (Antonakis et al., 2003; Kempster & Parry, 2011).
As the initial phase of grounded theory takes on an exploratory sequential design, it focuses on first using qualitative approaches, it would take on an exploratory sequential design (where qualitative approaches are first used to collect and analyzed data, before using quantitative data is used to substantiate the initial qualitative results), as this sequence is opposite of an explanatory sequential design (where quantitative approaches are used before qualitative analysis) because the exploratory sequential design would be able to focus on the depths of psychology of leadership research via qualitative approach, followed by substantiation via the quantitative approach. The choice of an exploratory sequential design was chosen due to the limited number of qualitative approaches in leadership before the 1980s, where only after which qualitative approaches gained foothold (Bryman, 2004). An exploratory sequential design would be able to focus on the depths of psychology of leadership research via qualitative approach, followed by substantiation via the quantitative approach.
A study by Anderson, Krajewski, Goffin, & Jackson in (2008) demonstrated the use of exploratory sequential design in trait theory by first collecting and analyzing qualitative data for leadership behavior, for creating a leadership taxonomy. Thereafter, they used quantitative data such as multi-source effectiveness ratings and canonical analyses, to create a leadership self-efficacy measure.
Hence, like the ground theory approach, qualitative and quantitative approaches in the psychology of leadership can also apply the exploratory sequential design to develop research and build theories in the psychology of leadership.
Possible implications & Future directions
Overall, due to the new guidelines in qualitative and quantitative approaches, organizations apply the mixed-method approach via many leadership theories, such as the trait theory. For example, organizations can assess current leaders in their organization by conducting interviews and giving paper-and-pencil questionnaires to understand the motivations behind their effective leadership. Following that, organizations can implement psychometric tests that are suitable for identifying future leaders with high intelligence and fluency amongst current employees, because similar traits found in effective leaders such as Steve Jobs, who managed to successfully revolutionize the information technology industry by creating a startup and successfully turning it into a successful conglomerate through his effective leadership (Time, 2016). Finally, organizations can cultivate better leaders via training programs that will help to grow their organization.
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