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The importance of personal and professional leadership

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

The Importance of Personal and Professional Leadership

Angelo Mastrangelo, Ph.D.

Binghamton University
State University of New York
PO Box 6000
Binghamton, NY, USA 13902-6000
607.648.5000
[email protected]

Erik R. Eddy, Ph.D.

Siena College
Department of Marketing and Management
515 Loudon Road
Loudonville, NY, USA 12211
518.456.6544
[email protected]

Steven J. Lorenzet, Ph.D.

Rider University
Department of Management and Human Resources
2083 Lawrenceville Road
Lawrenceville, NJ, USA 08648
609.895.5555
[email protected]

Keywords: leadership, willing cooperation, consideration, task orientation

Word Count: 7851

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

Abstract

Organizational viability depends in part on effective leadership. Effective leaders engage in both

professional leadership behaviors (e.g., setting a mission, creating a process for achieving goals,

aligning processes and procedures) and personal leadership behaviors (e.g., building trust, caring

for people, acting morally). A model of professional and personal leadership’s impact on willing

cooperation was developed and tested. Respondents provided perceptions of the leadership of

their organizations and reported the extent they willingly cooperate with their organization’s

leadership. Perceptions of “organizational” leadership as opposed to individual leaders were

measured. Results suggested that professional leadership was related to the presence of willing

cooperation (β = .44) and personal leadership was related to the presence of willing cooperation

(β = .71). Finally, personal leadership was shown to be a mediator of the relationship between

professional leadership and the presence of willing cooperation. Limitations as well as research

and practical implications are discussed.

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

The Importance of Personal and Professional Leadership

Introduction

Organizational viability depends in part on effective leadership. Effective leaders engage

in both professional leadership behaviors (e.g., setting a mission, creating a process for achieving

goals, aligning processes and procedures) and personal leadership behaviors (e.g., building trust,

caring for people, acting morally). Interestingly, most of what we know about leadership comes

from examination of how employees relate to their immediate supervisors. However, examining

individual perceptions of “leadership” at the organization level is an interesting proposition. At

first glance, it may seem that professional leadership behaviors such as aligning processes and

procedures may be more easily conceptualized at the organizational level than personal

leadership behaviors such as acting morally. However, recent events such as Enron and

WorldCom suggest the important impact of personal leadership. In these cases, negative personal

leadership behaviors were present throughout the organizational and the consequences were

dramatic. The premise of the current research is that perceptions of professional and personal

leadership exist at the organizational level and its impact on followers can be examined. Further,

although leaders may come and go, appropriate ways to handle tasks and treat people can and

should be institutionalized in high-performing organizations.

Literature Review

Leadership has been studied from a variety of perspectives. From traits (Stogdill, 1948)

and behaviors (Fleishman, 1953) through contingency theory (Fiedler, 1967) and situational

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

theory (Hersey & Blanchard, 1977) to transformational and charismatic leadership (House,

1977), researchers have long attempted to understand the determinants of effective leadership.

One theme among much of this research is the idea that leader behaviors and actions are

important determinants of effectiveness. Some of the earliest research in this area suggested that

leaders must be concerned with task-related issues and people-related issues. For example, the

Ohio State studies explored initiating structure (i.e., defining and structuring the work) and

consideration (i.e., respect for subordinates and sensitivity to subordinate feelings) (Fleishman,

1953). Michigan studies explored task-oriented and relation-oriented behaviors (Likert, 1961).

Building on this initial research, Blake and Mouton (1964) suggested that managers could be

placed on a “grid” based on their concern for production and concern for people.

More recent theories of leadership continue to explore important leader behaviors and

actions. For example, Fielder’s (1967) LPC model explores many factors, including leader-

member relations and task structure. Hershey and Blanchard’s (1982) situational theory of

leadership suggests that the extent to which leaders engage in relationship behaviors and task

behaviors depends on the maturity of the followers. These are just a few of the many theories

that explore leader behaviors and actions. Although researchers use different terms, it seems

reasonable to conclude from the extant literature that, to be successful, leaders must be

concerned with both task-related and people-related issues in the workplace.

The Current Research

The current study attempts to add to the literature in three specific ways. First, we update

the “task” and “people” constructs based on more recent theory and study. We believe that some

of the early conceptualizations of task- and people-related factors (e.g., initiating structure and

consideration), although enlightening, were somewhat narrow. Drawing from recent work, we

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

present two constructs that expand the notion of what is involved in having a concern for the task

at hand and a concern for the people within the organization. Specifically, we define professional

leadership as providing direction, process, and coordination to the members of an organization

for the purpose of attaining the organization’s goals. This encompasses the “formal” part of

leadership – setting the vision and mission for the organization, creating a process for achieving

organizational goals, and aligning processes and procedures, people and infrastructure, to

achieve organizational goals. Although professional leadership has its roots in initiating

structure, it is a broader conceptualization of this task-related construct. We define personal

leadership as the personal behavior of leaders in performing the responsibilities of professional

leadership, including demonstrating expertise, building trust, caring and sharing for people, and

acting in a moral way. Again, though based on earlier conceptualizations such as consideration,

this construct is broader in its reach.

Second, we attempt to extend the literature by exploring the relationship between

professional and personal leadership. Past research has explored the relationship between task-

related and person-related variables with mixed success. Some studies have examined an

additive model while others have explored a multiplicative model. The additive model has

assumed person-oriented and task-oriented behaviors are additive, and thus, have independent

effects. The multiplicative model has assumed an interactive effect, where the effect of one type

of behavior (person- or task-oriented) is facilitated by higher levels of the other type of behavior

(person- or task-oriented) (Yukl, 1998). Conclusions from this research are tenuous at best.

While descriptive research has often concluded that successful leaders are high on both factors,

empirical survey research with questionnaires has provided limited support (Yukl, 1998). We

suggest a third alternative – that personal leadership mediates the relationship between

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

professional leadership and willing cooperation. In essence, personal leadership “carries” the

professional message to the organization, because actions that occur in the process of

professional leadership, will impact personal interactions, which will in turn, impact willing

cooperation. This model is shown in Figure 1, and described in more detail in subsequent

sections.

[take in Figure 1]

Third, we explore perceptions of organizational leadership as opposed to the individual

supervisor. Traditionally, research examining leader behaviors has focused on the behavior of an

individual leader and its impact on his/her followers (Yukl, 1998). While newer approaches such

as charismatic and transformational leadership place an emphasis on inspiring and transforming

the organization, this process is still typically explored from the perspective of a single leader

impacting his/her followers (Yukl. 1998). Additionally, the research examining leadership and

organizational culture (e.g., Schein, 1992; Trice & Beyer, 1991, 1993), while in part emphasizing

the overall organization, has also tended to focus on the impact an individual leader can have on

an organization’s culture.

Elements of the Leadership Model

The Desired Outcome: Willing Cooperation

Organizations need people that will do more than follow the lead set by management;

they need cooperators that will contribute their efforts to realize the goals of the organization.

Willing cooperators who are engaged in the common purpose do more than follow – they

willingly contribute their efforts. A lack of willing cooperation implies that other means of

facilitating “cooperation” (e.g., coercion, material exchange) will have to be implemented to

move the organization forward. Research has shown the use of such forceful and/or transactional

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

methods to achieve cooperation are less successful in the long term than methods that achieve

willing cooperation (Yukl, 1998).

A key element in obtaining willing cooperation is engaging members by creating a

“benefit” for cooperation. According to Barnard (1938) “benefit” is the synergistic effect that

results in output that is greater than the sum of individual efforts. Synergy alone, however, is not

a sufficient “benefit” to engage members in willing cooperation. What is also critical to willing

cooperation is a win/win philosophy. A win/win philosophy ensures that, as the organization

performs well, individuals benefit from organizational success. Win/win goals and outcomes

have been shown to reduce conflict (Covey, 1989; Hill, 1994; Katz & Kahn, 1966) and increase

motivation (Covey, 1989; Katz & Kahn, 1966). For these reasons, we’ve chosen willing

cooperation as our dependent measure. We believe that the willing cooperation of employees is

an important link between leader actions and organization outcomes such as return on investment

and profitability.

Professional Leadership

Developing willing cooperation begins with professional leadership – providing

direction, process, and coordination to the members of an organization for the purpose of

attaining the organization’s goals. This encompasses the “formal” part of leadership – setting the

vision and mission for the organization, creating a process for achieving organizational goals,

and aligning processes and procedures, people and infrastructure, to achieve organizational

goals. The focus of professional leadership is truly at the organizational, rather than the dyadic,

level.

Direction. A main part of leading is being out front and providing direction. Perhaps the

most important direction leaders provide is the function of defining a common purpose (Barnard,

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

1938). It is this desirable and attainable common purpose that engages members (Burns, 1978).

Since organizations are cooperative and coordinated systems (Barnard, 1938), it is direction that

defines “common purpose” which provides a nucleus for an effective system. It is also essential

to success because it begins the leadership process with an end in mind (Covey, 1989, 1990).

Some current terms for common purpose include “mission,” “vision,” and “philosophy.”

An organization’s “mission statement” should communicate the organization’s primary reason to

exist. Effective “vision” provides a simple and idealistic goal, presents a desirable future (Bennis

& Nanus 1985; Kouzes & Posner, 1995), and creates a “stretch” (Hamel & Prahalad, 1994).

Forward-looking (visionary) was selected by 71% of the respondents in Kouzes and Posner’s

poll of Characteristics of Admired Leaders (1993). This is consistent with prior research that

suggests that vision is a critical element for organizations that have a passion for excellence

(Peters & Austin, 1985). In order for philosophy to be inspiring and engaging it must be

perceived to be mutually beneficial and effective from a strategic focus (Katz & Kahn, 1966).

Such approaches where individuals see both individual and organizational gains are more likely

to lead to willing cooperation.

Process. Critical to the success of leader direction is providing, implementing and

managing a systematic process. Most importantly is that process has, as its goal, the attainment

of the common purpose of the organization (Beer, Eisenstat & Biggadike, 1995). Creating a

“constancy of purpose,” is the first of Deming’s (1982) 14 points for the transformation of

western management, in which he stresses consistent, persistent, and effective implementation of

process designed to attain an organization’s stated common purpose. There are three especially

critical elements of an effective systematic process: members must have confidence that the

process provided by leaders is effective in attaining the “common purpose” of an organization

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

(Barnard, 1938), each member should understand how his job contributes to this effort, and the

process should be focused on continuous improvement. Deming makes this point by

emphasizing the importance of improving constantly and forever the system of production and

service to improve quality and productivity. If through the actions of an organization’s leaders,

members are confident in the organization’s ability to achieve its purpose, are confident in the

process for achieving that purpose, and feel their organization is interested in continuous

improvement, it seems reasonable those members are more likely to willingly cooperate with

their leaders.

Coordination. Coordination is also a critical element of professional leadership. The first

and most basic function of coordinating is the acquiring of essentials necessary to operate an

organization (Barnard, 1938). Coordination as a part of leadership is both individual and

systematic. It is individual, in that each leader must provide leadership to the individuals that he

supervises; it is systematic in that each leader must contribute leadership for the maintenance of

an organization (Barnard, 1938). Perhaps most importantly it is the “strategic alignment” of an

organization, its resources and its members. Relevant to this research, is that alignment has been

found to be effective in the removal of barriers to cooperation (Semler, 1997). Additionally,

there is evidence that strategic alignments are related to job satisfaction (Dennison, 1992; Kotter

& Heskett, 1992) and may be effective in avoiding conflicting goals (Perrow, 1961). However

systematic alignment of efforts of leaders, their goals and the organizational system as a

determinant of effective leadership, has not been fully explored (Sherman, 1989). At the

organizational level, we feel that subordinates are more likely to willingly cooperate when they

perceive their actions to be strategically aligned with the mission and vision of the organization.

9
 Personal and Professional Leadership

Summary of professional leadership. Professional leadership encompasses the “formal”

part of leadership – setting the vision and mission for the organization, creating a process for

achieving organizational goals, and aligning processes and procedures, people and infrastructure,

to achieve organizational goals. Research has shown the importance of having a common

purpose (Peters & Austin, 1985) and a process in place to achieve that purpose (Barnard, 1938).

Although the elements of professional leadership have been shown to enhance job satisfaction

(Kotter & Heskett, 1992) and reduce barriers to cooperation (Semler, 1997), the current study

hypothesizes that professional leadership will also influence the willing cooperation of

organizational members. Similar to previous studies (e.g., House, 1971; House & Dessler, 1974),

individuals will be more likely to contribute their efforts towards achieving organizational goals

when a clear direction is presented and a process for achieving those goals is in place. Therefore,

the following hypothesis was proposed:

Hypothesis 1: Professional leadership (i.e., providing direction, process, and coordination) will

be positively related to willing cooperation.

Personal Leadership – The Carrier of the Message

Personal leadership can be thought of as the personal behavior of leaders in performing

the responsibilities of professional leadership, including expertise, trust, caring, sharing and

morals. It can be thought of as the “people” side of leadership. It is through these personal

behaviors that leaders ensure the success of the professional leadership. In essence, personal

leadership “carries” the professional message to the organization.

Expertise. Expertise is the perceived ability and competence of leaders. Competence has

been found to be a key element of positive perception of leaders by members (Kouzes & Posner,

1993) as well as an important characteristic in effective leaders (Kouzes & Posner, 1993; Yukl

10
 Personal and Professional Leadership

1998). Further, expertise is a major source and method of obtaining power (French & Raven,

1959). Referent power accrues to leaders as a result of identification or admiration of the leader

by employees (French & Raven, 1959). Expert and referent power also have additional benefits

in that they can be substituted for other powers (Katz & Kahn, 1966). It seems reasonable that

employees who are confident in the expertise of their organization’s leadership will be more

likely to willingly cooperate with their leaders’ goals and objectives.

Trust. Trust is the perceived honesty, sincerity and dependability of leaders. It is a natural

and essential component of relationships (Gabarro, 1978; Rempel, Holmes, & Zanna 1985).

Trust is also a powerful force; Covey (1989) considers trust to be the currency for his “emotional

bank account.” The first element of trust is honesty, the number one response (87%) in Kouzes

and Posner’s poll of Characteristics of Admired Leaders (1993: 14). Honesty not only occupies

the number one spot, it has consistently been the leading response in their polls. The “willingness

to rely on another” has also been found to be an important factor in establishing trust (Rousseau,

Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1998). Trust in this perspective has as its basis reliability, which is

enhanced consistency and predictability (Cook & Campbell 1979; Deming, 1982; Kerlinger,

1986). It seems likely that the more trust organization members have in their leaders, the more

likely they will be to willingly cooperate.

Caring. Caring is defined as empathy, listening, and politeness to employees regardless

of the employee’s position in an organization. Caring is similar to consideration, an outcome

measure used in countless leadership studies (Bass, 1990; Fisher & Edwards, 1988; Yukl, 1998),

but more comprehensive. Consideration has empirical support when correlated with job

satisfaction (Yukl, 1998). Supportive behavior, another construct similar to caring although also

not as comprehensive, is the core of considerate behavior (Bowers & Seashore, 1966; Fleishman,

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

1953; House & Mitchell, 1974; Stogdill, 1974). Greenleaf (1996) explains that most caring in the

past was viewed as person to person. Now, most caring is institutional. The key to the perception

of “organizational caring” by the members of the organization is establishing a collective,

systematic attitude of caring (Covey, 1990). We feel that an organization’s members are more

likely to willingly cooperate when they perceive that the leadership truly cares about them.

Sharing. Sharing is defined as sharing authority and information. The sharing of authority

is the basis for empowerment, a key component of participative leadership, which has been

found to be related to effective leadership (Likert, 1961). Empowerment is effective in that it is

the utilization of referent and expert power of members (Katz & Kahn, 1966). The failure to

share authority can be very damaging to employee morale. In this regard, it is responsible for a

sense of powerlessness and helplessness in American employees (Ashforth, 1989). Sharing

pertinent information is an effective tool in communication (Barnard, 1938; Stinchombe, 1990)

since the control of information is considered to be a basis for power (Yukl, 1998). It is also seen

as an important aspect of control in the “leader member relationship” (Stinchcombe, 1990).

Simply put, if organization members believe that relevant information is being shared with them,

they are more likely to cooperate. Alternatively, employees who feel kept in the dark are less

likely to willingly cooperate.

Morals. Moral behavior is defined as providing a moral code that is a guide for the

behavior of leaders and members in performing their responsibilities in an organization. An

effective moral code is based on generally accepted principles such as treating others the way

one would like to be treated, integrity, fairness, and justice. In the case of this research, we focus

on principles generally accepted by employees. Principles are essential to enduring leadership,

because they provide a compass for moral behavior (Covey, 1990). The morals of leaders

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

suddenly have become a “hot” topic as a result of recent scandals (e.g., Enron, WorldCom). It is

most significant for this research that current events have provided empirical and pragmatic

support for the relationship between the moral code of leaders and organizational performance in

the field of business. The moral code of the leaders involved in the current scandals impacted all

of the stakeholders of their organizations by destroying their credibility and their organization’s

credibility. So powerful was the impact of the moral code of these leaders that it had a negative

impact on the entire stock market.

Summary of personal leadership. Personal leadership encompasses the personal behavior

of leaders in performing the responsibilities of professional leadership, including expertise, trust,

caring, sharing and morals. Organizational members must have confidence in the expertise of

their leaders, and must trust that the leaders are doing what is best for everyone. Leaders must

also demonstrate that they care about organizational members, must share authority and

information with organizational members, and must act in a moral way. Engaging in these

behaviors has been shown to contribute to effective leadership (Likert, 1961). The current study

hypothesizes that personal leadership will motivate individuals to willingly contribute their

efforts towards organizational success. Therefore, the following hypothesis was proposed:

Hypothesis 2: Personal leadership (i.e., demonstrating expertise, trust, caring, sharing and

morals) will be positively related to willing cooperation.

The Relationship between Professional and Personal Leadership

A great deal of research has examined (in one form or another) these two broad

categories of leader behavior (Fleishman, 1953; Halpin &Winer, 1957; Hemphill & Coons,

1957; Likert, 1961) with mostly controversial and inconclusive results. One consistent and

moderately strong finding is that considerate leaders have more satisfied employees (Yukl,

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

1998). Additionally, Likert (1961) found that effective managers focus on both of these factors

rather than one exclusively. Blake and Mouton (1964) proposed that effective leaders have a

high concern for both, and recent research suggests that effective leaders have at least a moderate

level of both (Yukl, 1998).

Given that managers should focus on both factors (i.e., the professional and personal

relationship), we wanted to further explore how these two factors relate to each other. As we

previously discussed, past research on additive and multiplicative models has been inconclusive

(Yukl, 1998), providing even more reason to further examine the relationship between the two

factors.

Since our focus is the perception of the organization’s leadership, we propose that

personal leadership mediates the relationship between professional leadership and willing

cooperation. We suggest the presence of professional leadership leads to successful leadership-

employee interactions, which in turn leads to willing cooperation. In essence, when an

organization has created a direction that promotes both individual and organizational success;

has established a process that values continuous improvement and makes it clear to employees

what their role is in helping achieve organizational success; and has coordinated efforts to create

strategic alignment between employee activities and organizational outcomes; this will likely

lead to perceptions of expertise, trust, caring, sharing, and morality – the components of personal

leadership. It seems likely that when employees feel the professional side of the organization is

in order, it will be easier to make favorable judgments about such things as the expertise of and

trust in organizational leadership. Our rationale is that members of the organization interact on a

daily basis with the personal side of leadership. It may be the case that through these interactions

is how professional leadership truly impacts willing cooperation. In essence, the leadership’s

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

professional vision is delivered to the membership through personal and tangible actions and

interactions. In this conceptualization, both personal and professional leadership are important,

but it is the personal side of leadership that gets the professional message to the organization’s

members. In effect, the professional message (professional leadership) travels through personal

leadership. Therefore, the following hypothesis was proposed:

Hypothesis 3: Personal leadership will mediate the relationship between professional leadership

and willing cooperation.

METHOD

Overview

A pilot study was conducted to identify reliable and valid items for several scales

developed specifically for this study. Next, a main study was conducted to explore the

relationship among measures of professional leadership, personal leadership, and willing

cooperation.

Pilot Study for Scale Development

One hundred thirty one items were developed to measure the professional relationship

(i.e., based on direction, process and coordination), the personal relationship (i.e., expertise, trust,

caring, sharing, and morals), and willing cooperation. These items were administered to a sample

of 40 full-time employed individuals attending evening classes at a local community college.

An 8-item social desirability measure (Paulhus, 1984) was included in the pilot

administration. This instrument had two subscales, (1) good impression, which indicates lying so

as to create a good impression and (2) self deception, which indicates an unrealistically high

opinion of one’s personal attributes. Items were rejected if they were too highly correlated with

this social desirability measure.

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

A 5-item job satisfaction scale (Hackman & Oldman, 1975) and a 15-item organizational

commitment scale (Porter & Smith, 1970) were included in the pilot administration to evaluate

construct validity of the willing cooperation measure. The validity and internal consistency of

these scales have been found to be consistently high in past research (Cook, Hepworth, Wall, &

Warr, 1981). Willing cooperation was found to be correlated with both job satisfaction (r = .56, p

< .01) and organizational commitment (r = .73, p < .01). This provides initial evidence of the

construct validity of this new measure.

The entire set of original items was analyzed for base rate problems, internal consistency,

discriminant validity with the social desirability scale, and construct validity with the job

satisfaction and organizational commitment constructs. An item was rejected for base rate

reasons if it was endorsed strongly or rejected strongly by 90% of the sample or more. An item

was rejected for lack of discriminant validity if it shared 10% variance with either of the social

desirability indices (i.e., was correlated 0.33 with either measure). For the remaining items

representing a given construct, the correlation matrix among the items was examined to identify

items that showed high levels of homogeneity with each other. The five items with the highest

intercorrelations and which seemed to be faithful to the theoretical underpinnings of the

construct were retained for the final scale.

Main Study

Participants. Participants were 248 persons from a variety of backgrounds (118 males,

127 females, and 3 who did not specify gender). The average age of the participants was 36.22

(SD = 14.22) years; the range of particpant age was 17 years to 79 years. These participants had

an average of 14.86 (SD = 12.82) years of full-time work experience in a variety of positions.

Participants had been with their respective employers an average of 7.55 years (SD = 8.89).

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

Procedure. The authors were able to gather a large portion of respondents in a single

location. These respondents were asked to complete the questionnaire and hand it back to the

researcher. Of the 150 questionnaires distributed, 131 or 87% were returned and deemed

acceptable. Other respondents were mailed a questionnaire and asked to complete the surveys

and return them to the project director either in person or by mail using a self-addressed stamped

envelope. Of the 410 questionnaires distributed, 117 or 28% were returned and deemed

acceptable. Analysis of the two groups showed no statistically significant differences in

responses to the scales included on the questionnaire.

Mail Response Bias. In order to test for possible response bias in return rates, a short,

anonymous questionnaire consisting of a 5-item job satisfaction scale and a 15-item

organizational commitment scale, along with questions regarding demographic variables, was

provided to all individuals at the time the questionnaire was distributed. These same questions

were included on the main self-administered questionnaire that respondents mailed in to the

investigator. If only certain types of people were mailing in the questionnaire (e.g., individuals

who were particularly satisfied or particularly dissatisfied with their jobs), then the response

distributions for the common questions should be different in the two sets of data. This was not

the case. Across a wide range of comparisons, there were no statistically significant differences

between respondents of the short questionnaire and those who returned the full questionnaire.

Measures

General. The objective of the survey instrument was to gather information regarding

perceptions of professional leadership, personal leadership, and the individuals rating of willing

cooperation. Scales were developed (see below) to gather information on each of these

constructs.

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

Willing Cooperation. A 6-item measure was used to assess willing cooperation, which is

defined as putting the “want to” into cooperation, by engaging members in a manner that results

in willing cooperation. Some examples of items are: “I cooperate with the leaders because I

believe in the leaders’ vision for our future,” and “I cooperate with the leaders because I am

excited about the leaders’ vision for our company.” Subjects responded on a 5-point Likert-type

scale with response anchors of “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5). For this measure,

the higher the score, the greater the engaged, willing cooperation. Coefficient alpha for this

measure was .90.

Professional Leadership. A 15-item measure was used to assess professional leadership,

which is defined as providing the functions of leadership, which are direction, process, and

coordination. Factor analysis suggests that these subfactors load onto a single higher-order factor

we termed “professional leadership.”

Eight items were used to measure leader direction, which includes mission, vision and

philosophy. Some examples of items are: “The leaders explain our organization’s mission,” “The

leaders explain our organization’s vision,” “The leaders explain how members will benefit if an

organization is successful,” and “The leaders explain why attaining the leaders vision is in the

best interest of the employees.” Three items were used to assess process. Some example process

items are, “The leaders explain how our programs are designed to improve customer

satisfaction,” and “The leaders explain how our processes are designed to maintain our

organization’s mission.” Four items were used to assess coordination. Some example

coordination items are, “The leaders explain how my job contributes to attaining the leaders’

vision,” and “The leaders explain how our department contributes to attaining the leaders’

18
 Personal and Professional Leadership

vision.” Subjects responded on a 5-point Likert-type scale with response anchors of “strongly

disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5). Coefficient alpha for this measure was .96.

Personal Leadership. A twenty-five item measure was used to assess personal leadership,

which is defined as the personal behavior of leaders with members in performing the

responsibilities of professional leadership which include expertise, trust, caring, sharing, and

morals. Factor analysis suggests that these subfactors load onto a single higher-order factor we

termed “personal leadership.”

There are five-items for each of these five subfactors. Some examples used to assess

expertise include: “The leaders are able to make their programs work,” and “The leaders

demonstrate considerable skills when doing their jobs.” Some examples of items used to assess

trust are: “The leaders are honest when performing their jobs,” and “The leaders do what they

say they will do, when they say they will do it.” Some examples of items used to assess caring

are: “The leaders make every effort to understand what we mean when discussing important

issues,” and “The leaders respect the rights of the employees.” Some examples of items used to

assess sharing are: “The leaders are willing to share authority with employees regarding daily

decisions affecting employees,” and “The leaders allow employees to be a part of establishing

objectives.” Some examples of items used to assess morals are: “The members can always count

on receiving justice when there is a problem”, and “The leaders are mostly interested in doing

the right thing.” Subjects responded on a 5-point Likert-type scale with response anchors of

“strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5). Coefficient alpha for this measure was .97.

RESULTS

Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations for all measures are reported in Table I.

Coefficient alpha estimates are reported along the diagonal. Tables II and III present the results

19
 Personal and Professional Leadership

for Hypotheses 1 through 3. Hypothesis 1 suggested that professional leadership would be

related to the presence of willing cooperation. Table II shows the relevant beta weight (β = .44).

The overall R2 was .19 (F(1, 206) = 48.32, p < .01; standard error of the estimate = .69), thus

supporting Hypothesis 1.

[take in Table I]

[take in Table II]

Hypothesis 2 suggested that personal leadership would be related to the presence of

willing cooperation. Table II shows the relevant beta weight (β = .71). The overall R2 was .50

(F(1, 204) = 203.52, p < .01; standard error of the estimate = .54), thus supporting Hypothesis 2.

Personal Leadership as a Mediating Variable

Hypothesis 3 suggested that personal leadership would mediate the relationship between

professional leadership and willing cooperation. To test this hypothesis, mediated regression

analysis was performed based on the three-step process described by Baron & Kenny (1986).

Step 1. The mediating variable is regressed onto the independent variable. This

relationship should be statistically significant.

Step 2. The dependent variable is regressed onto the independent variable. This

relationship should also be statistically significant.

Step 3: The dependent variable is regressed onto both the mediating and independent

variables. The mediator should be statistically significant, and the relationship between

the independent variable and dependent variable should be reduced from Step 2. If the

relationship between the independent variable and dependent variable is reduced to zero,

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

the mediating variable can be considered a complete mediator. A more likely finding is

that the relationship between the independent variable and dependent variable is

substantially reduced (but not to zero) suggesting that the mediating variable is a partial

mediator.

The three-step process described by Baron & Kenny (1986) was used to test whether

personal leadership is a mediator of the relationship between professional leadership and willing

cooperation (see Table III for details at each step). At Step 1, personal leadership was regressed

onto professional leadership (β =.58, p < .01). The R2 was .34 (F(1, 214) = 110.90, p < .01;

standard error of the estimate = .82). At Step 2, willing cooperation was regressed onto

professional leadership (β =.44, p < .01). This part of the analysis is identical to the analysis that

tested Hypothesis 1. The R2 was .19 (F(1, 206) = 48.32, p < .01; standard error of the estimate =

.69). At Step 3, willing cooperation was regressed onto both personal leadership (β = .68 p < .01)

and professional leadership (β = .05, n/s). The R2 was .51 (F(2, 194) = 101.54, p < .01; standard

error of the estimate = .54). From the regression results, it is clear that in step three of the

analysis, personal leadership emerges as a statistically significant predictor of willing

cooperation and professional leadership’s impact on willing cooperation drops off to a

statistically non-significant level. According to Baron and Kenny (1986), this suggests personal

leadership mediates the relationship between professional leadership and willing cooperation,

thus supporting Hypothesis 3.

[take in Table III]

DISCUSSION

Our findings suggest that professional leadership is an essential first step in the leadership

process. It provides a foundation that leads to willing cooperation. Professional leadership is

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

providing direction, process, and coordination to the members of an organization for the purpose

of attaining the organization’s goals. This encompasses the “formal” part of leadership – setting

the vision and mission for the organization, creating a process for achieving organizational goals,

and aligning processes and procedures, people and infrastructure, to achieve organizational

goals. Our results suggest that leaders who rely on the components of professional leadership to

establish the mission and vision of the organization are likely to have employees who willingly

cooperate.

Our findings also suggest that personal leadership is an essential contributor to willing

cooperation. Personal leadership is the personal behavior of leaders in performing the

responsibilities of professional leadership, including the expertise, trust, caring, sharing and

morals of the leadership team. Personal leadership provides an excellent opportunity for people

to evaluate the credibility of leaders, which helps determine whether employees “willingly”

accept and contribute their efforts. The outcomes of this study suggest the evaluations

organization member make about their organization’s leadership contribute to their engaging in

willing cooperation. Specifically, organizations with top management that is perceived favorably

from a personal, or human side, are more likely to enjoy the willing cooperation of employees.

Perhaps the most interesting finding is the mediating effect of personal leadership on the

relationship between professional leadership and willing cooperation. The personal qualities of

leaders appear to be impacted by the quality and acceptance of the formal leadership message.

When employees are confident in the professional leadership of the organization, it leads to

favorable views of personal aspects of leadership (e.g., trust, caring), which in turn leads to

employees engaging in willing cooperation. This makes sense when considering that people

likely find it easier to get along with their organization’s leaders, when they perceive their

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

leaders to be engaging in effective practices that will enhance business outcomes as well as

employee outcomes. This also implies that leaders carry an extra burden to make sure their

actions are indeed moral and just. If the members of an organization perceive their leadership as

taking their interests into account and the leadership does not live up to that expectation (e.g.,

Enron), severe negative outcomes are likely. In essence, an expectation will have been created

and then not met. Research examining the impact of unmet expectations has consistently shown

negative organizational results in a variety of settings (Hoiberg & Berry, 1978; Tannenbaum,

Mathieu, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 1991, Wanous, Poland, Premach, & Davis, 1992).

Limitations and Implications for Future Research

As with any study, ours is not without limitations. First, our predictors and our outcome

data all came from the same respondents, which could lead to same-source bias. Second, all of

our measures were collected through survey, which could contribute to common method bias

(Cook & Campbell, 1979). Future research should seek to collect data from additional sources

(e.g., leaders) and use alternative methods (e.g., observation) to collect data. Third, there is the

issue of the relatively small sample size of the pilot study used for scale development. Although

the scales utilized in this study demonstrated good psychometric properties, additional validation

work is appropriate.

From a theoretical standpoint, our results are intriguing and suggest the theory tested in

this study is worthy of additional research. Longitudinal studies may provide interesting insight

into some of the subtler and long-term processes involved with professional and personal

leadership’s impact on willing cooperation. Such studies may also be helpful in examining the

limitations and facilitating conditions of the approach. Studies that utilize intervention strategies

based on the approach would also be illuminating by providing a basis for causal inference. It

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

would also be useful to link cooperation measures to performance, preferably utilizing credible

existing performance measures of the organization. Cooperation may be the missing link

between organizational performance measures (e.g. increased net worth through increased

market share, efficiency, productivity, profits) and effective leadership. Without willing

cooperation, we believe that an organization cannot consistently achieve these goals. Future

research should expand the initial model tested in this study to include a link from willing

cooperation to organizational performance.

The present research is a promising first step in establishing the external validity of this

theory. The results are particularly encouraging because the study included a diverse sample of

regularly employed members of organizations. While the participants in our study represented

approximately two hundred different organizations, a useful next step would be to apply the

theory in one or two organizations, evaluating entire sets of leaders.

Implications for Practice

Our findings suggest that professional leadership and personal leadership are related to

the development of willing cooperation. Especially important to leadership is the power of the

personal leadership construct. Our findings suggest that professional leadership works through

the personal leadership to impact willing cooperation. It appears that the professional message of

the leadership is carried to employees through personal leadership. This is especially relevant

considering current events (e.g., Enron, Anderson) and the impact of ineffective personal

leadership on organizations, their members, and the entire stock market.

Interesting, “leadership development” often focuses on the professional side of

leadership. Classes that focus on communication, time management, and performance

management are just a few examples. However, this research suggests that organizations would

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

benefit from training and development in the personal side of leadership – for example, how to

care for organizational members, share with them, and act with morals. These are much more

difficult topics to cover, but the benefits for those organizations that take the time and effort to

develop such classes could be substantial.

Although we did not measure performance, it is logical and plausible to assume that

willing cooperation will impact performance measures. It is unlikely that an organization can

sustain organizational success in the long run without a focus on personal and professional

leadership. In the end, organizations will likely benefit by utilizing professional and personal

leadership to obtain willing cooperation, and potentially increased organizational performance.

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

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Figure 1: Personal Leadership as a Mediator of Professional Leadership and Willing

Cooperation

Personal Leadership
• Expertise
Professional Leadership
• Trust
• Direction
• Caring Willing Cooperation
• Process
• Sharing
• Coordination
• Morals

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

Table I: Correlation Coefficients Among Relevant Variables

Mean SD 1 2 3

Professional Leadership 3.22 .83 (.96)

Personal Leadership 3.23 .99 .58 * (.97)

Willing Cooperation 3.48 .75 .44 * .71 * (.90)

Note: * p < .01

Note: Coefficient alphas are presented in the diagonal.

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 Personal and Professional Leadership

Table II: Regression Analyses for Leadership’s Effect on Willing Cooperation

β SE t 95% CI

Professional Leadership .44 .06 6.95* .28 to .51

R2 = .19

Personal Leadership .71 .04 14.27* .47 to .62

R2 = .50
Note: * p < .01

33

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