Personality, Leader-Member Exchanges, and Work Outcomes

Abstract

Cumulative research has found leader-member exchange (LMX), the quality of the relationships between supervisors and subordinates, to be a significant predictor of a number of important outcomes. However, relatively minimal work has been performed on variables that predict LMX, with even less attention paid to subordinate personality serving as an antecedent. This study tested the relationship between a number of personality variables and LMX. It further examined the potential for LMX to mediate the associations between different personality variables and organizational outcomes. We tested our hypotheses in a sample of 136 lottery workers and found support for the majority of our predictions.