Abstract
The present research examined how self-sacrificial leadership predicts followers' emotional and motivational reactions as a function of how autocratic this leader behaves (i.e., pushing his opinions or not). A scenario experiment and a laboratory experiment were conducted to test the prediction that, in addition to main effects for self-sacrifice and autocratic leadership, the positive effect of self-sacrifice is most strongly when the leader does not act in an autocratic manner. The findings of these two studies supported the predictions. Also, the laboratory experiment showed that the interactive effect on motivation to work with the leader was mediated by followers' emotional reactions. The present results are discussed in light of prior research on self-sacrifice and charismatic leadership in general and suggestions are made that future research needs to focus more on the interactions between different leadership behaviors and the psychological processes underlying these effects.
Group and organizational functioning depends to a large extent on how happy and motivated to pursue the collective welfare its members feel (Kelly & Barsade, 2001; Smith, Caroll, & Ashford, 1995). Indeed, recent research has shown that group and organizational members are affected by emotions (Brief, 2001), and that emotions can also be social in nature (Parkinson, 1996). Further, being intrinsically motivated to pursue the welfare of the group or organization is essential to increase the quality of performance and cooperation (De Cremer & Tyler, 2005). Thus, members’ emotions and motivation appear to have important implications for groups and organizations, and as such, research is needed to examine how to influence group members in such a way that these positive outcomes are promoted. One important source of influence in a group setting is assumed to be leadership (De Cremer & van Knippenberg, 2002; Dirks & Ferrin, 2002). Indeed, Chemers (2001, p. 376) quite clearly states that bleadership is a process of influence.
7. General discussion
The functioning of organizations and groups depend, at least to a certain degree, on how effectively members’ emotions and motivation to work can be influenced (Kelly & Barsade, 2001; Smith et al., 1995). In this respect, leadership as a tool of social influence plays an important role. The present research examined the effectiveness of a leader’s self-sacrifice in affecting followers’ emotions and motivation, a leadership style recently championed as an effective form of leadership (Choi & Mai-Dalton, 1998; De Cremer & van Knippenberg, 2002; Yorges et al., 1999). In addition, because leadership represents a rather complex integration of different behaviors, the moderating effect of an autocratic leadership style was also examined.
