A meta-analysis of the role of trust in the leadership- performance relationship
verifiedmedium profile · European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology · 2020
Legood, Alison; van der Werff, Lisa; Lee, Allan; Den Hartog, Deanne
How this was studied
A meta-analytic synthesis — it pools many primary studies rather than running a single design, so there is no single-study diagram.
What this article reports
The findings we extracted from this work, normalized into Principia’s relationship form (X → Y). Each feeds the synthesized models below.
trust in organization → task performance
Models this article informs
The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.
trust in organization correlates organizational citizenship behavior ocb
trust in organization predicts organizational citizenship behavior ocb
trust in organization predicts task performance
In the authors’ words
The article’s own abstract.
Trust plays a critical role as a key mechanism through which the positive impact of leadership can be elicited. This meta-analysis examines the incremental validity of eight leadership styles (transformational, transactional, authentic, ethical, servant, abusive, paternalistic and empowering) in predicting affective and cognitive dimensions of trust as mediating mechanisms in the relationship between leadership and performance outcomes. To counter issues of common method variance, we focus on the impact these mediated relationships have on independently measured other ratings of outcomes; task performance and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). We also test whether trust in the leader differs from that of the broader construct of Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) quality. Using 185 independent studies conducted since 1988, we find that contemporary styles, particularly servant and ethical leadership, demonstrate incremental validity over transformational and transactional (contingent reward) leadership in predicting trust in the leader. Meta analytical mediation tests reveal that trust in the leader and LMX play unique roles in mediating the relationship between leadership styles and performance related outcomes. Finally, evidence suggests that affective and cognitive dimensions of trust play a differential role in this mediating process and that affective trust in the leader is a more powerful predictor of performance and OCB.
What the literature says about it
Attributed, open-access quotes from other works that cite this article, plus the citation-graph verdict tally. Corroborations and disputes, in one place — the honest-broker view.
No open-access quotations have been captured yet.
Assembled from Principia’s registry — bibliographic record, extracted effect sizes, the models they inform, and open-access citing literature.