Leadership and credition: Followers' neural response to leaders who are perceived as transformational
Transformational leadership (TL) has gained much attention in current leadership research (Zhao & Li, 2019) as it results in superior organizational, team and individual performance (Wang et al., 2011). According to the follower-centric leadership approach, a leader’s level of transformational behavior does not only dependent on the leader’s action but also on the follower’s perception and belief (Brown, 2018). For instance, followers who believe their leader to be more transformational - irrespective of the leader’s actual behavior - show higher commitment and extra effort at work (Felfe & Schyns, 2010). This suggests that TL is also in the eye of the beholder and affected by follower beliefs (Howell & Shamir, 2005). This fMRI-study is the first to investigate the followers’ neural reaction to perceived transformational leadership and provides novel insights on the question why TL matters. It examines the neural patterns which are activated when followers believe a leader to be transformational and examines whether these activations vary systematically with the level of perceived TL. Furthermore, it investigates whether these activations predict follower motivation at work.
Bergner, S., Rybnicek, R. und Koschutnig, K. (2022): Leadership and credition: Followers' neural response to leaders who are perceived as transformational, in: Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, pp. 1-7, doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.943896 [23.8.2022].
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