LEADERSHIP STYLES: A COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT AND WAY FORWARD

Abstract

We systematically review eight positive (authentic, charismatic, consideration and initiating structure, empowering, ethical, instrumental, servant, and transformational leadership) and two negative leadership styles (abusive supervision and destructive leadership) and identify valence-based conflation as a limitation common to all ten styles. This limitation rests on specifying behaviors as inherently positive or negative and leads to mixing the description of the content of leadership behaviors with the evaluation of their underlying intentions, quality of execution, or behavioral effects. We outline how this conflation leads to amalgamation, construct redundancy, and most problematically, causal indeterminacy, which calls into question the entire evidence base of leadership style research. These weaknesses are not limited to the ten leadership styles but are inherent in the valenced research logic that has been dominant for seventy years. Thus, the common finding that positive leadership styles lead to positive outcomes and negative styles lead to negative outcomes might be an artifact of conflation rather than a reflection of reality. To address these concerns, we suggest distinguishing between intended and displayed leadership styles, as well as their realized effects. We also call for utilizing a configurational approach. These recommended actions would provide a strong foundation for future research on leadership styles.