Do Ethical, Authentic, and Servant Leadership Explain Variance Above and Beyond Transformational Leadership? A Meta-Analysis
verifiedrich profile · Journal of Management · 2016
Hoch, Julia E.; Bommer, William H.; Dulebohn, James H.; Wu, Dongyuan
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.
authentic leadership → task performance
servant leadership → job satisfaction
servant leadership → work engagement
servant leadership → leader member exchange lmx
servant leadership → trust in leader
authentic leadership → organizational citizenship behavior ocb
ethical leadership → trust in leader
servant leadership → affective commitment
ethical leadership → affective commitment
ethical leadership → organizational citizenship behavior ocb
ethical leadership → leader member exchange lmx
ethical leadership → counterproductive work behaviours
ethical leadership → job satisfaction
ethical leadership → work engagement
servant leadership → task performance
ethical leadership → task performance
Models this article informs
The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.
authentic leadership predicts counterproductive work behaviours
authentic leadership predicts organizational citizenship behavior ocb
authentic leadership predicts task performance
ethical leadership correlates leader member exchange lmx
ethical leadership predicts affective commitment
ethical leadership predicts counterproductive work behaviours
ethical leadership predicts job satisfaction
ethical leadership predicts organizational citizenship behavior ocb
ethical leadership predicts task performance
ethical leadership predicts trust in leader
ethical leadership predicts work engagement
servant leadership correlates job satisfaction
servant leadership correlates leader member exchange lmx
servant leadership predicts affective commitment
servant leadership predicts job satisfaction
servant leadership predicts task performance
servant leadership predicts trust in leader
servant leadership predicts work engagement
In the authors’ words
The article’s own abstract.
This study compares three emerging forms of positive leadership that emphasize ethical and moral behavior (i.e., authentic leadership, ethical leadership, and servant leadership) with transformational leadership in their associations with a wide range of organizationally relevant measures. While scholars have noted conceptual overlap between transformational leadership and these newer leadership forms, there has been inadequate investigation of the empirical relationships with transformational leadership and the ability (or lack thereof) of these leadership forms to explain incremental variance beyond transformational leadership. In response, we conducted a series of meta-analyses to provide a comprehensive assessment of these emerging leadership forms’ relationships with variables evaluated in the extant literature. Second, we tested the relative performance of each of these leadership forms in explaining incremental variance, beyond transformational leadership, in nine outcomes. We also provide relative weights analyses to further evaluate the relative contributions of the emerging leadership forms versus transformational leadership. The high correlations between both authentic leadership and ethical leadership with transformational leadership coupled with their low amounts of incremental variance suggest that their utility is low unless they are being used to explore very specific outcomes. Servant leadership, however, showed more promise as a stand-alone leadership approach that is capable of helping leadership researchers and practitioners better explain a wide range of outcomes. Guidance regarding future research and the utility of these three ethical/moral values–based leadership forms is provided.
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.
supports “Numerous studies and multiple meta-analyses (Bedi et al., 2016; Hoch et al., 2018; Ng & Feldman, 2015) have firmly established trust in the leader as a robust and enduring result of consistent ethical leadership.”
supports “Third, a recent meta-analysis points out high correlations between these four positive leadership styles and LMX (r = 0.65–0.71; see [66]), showing that they are all related to positive social exchanges with employees.”
supports “As a result, there has been repeated demonstration of servant leadership’s predictive validity over other leadership models on a variety of outcomes (including trust, affective commitment, individual-level task performance, and team-level performance) (Hoch et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2019).”
supports “Bedi et al. (2016) and Hoch et al. (2018) showed in their meta analyses that former research results posit a strong relationship between ethical leadership and organizational commitment.”
supports “[26] in their metaanalysis noted that ethical leadership increases desired employee outcomes like job satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee engagement, and organizational citizenship behavior, while simultaneously playing a vital role in reducing employee deviance and turnover intention.”
supports “Third, a recent meta-analysis points out high correlations between these four positive leadership styles and LMX (r = 0.65–0.71; see [66]), showing that they are all related to positive social exchanges with employees.”
supports “As a result, there has been repeated demonstration of servant leadership’s predictive validity over other leadership models on a variety of outcomes (including trust, affective commitment, individual-level task performance, and team-level performance) (Hoch et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2019).”
supports “Empirically, there are also two meta-analyses (with fewer styles and studies than this one) indicating that work engagement is associated with authentic leadership ([73]), as well as with servant leadership, ethical leadership, authentic leadership, and transformational leadership ([66]).”
disputes “A comparative analysis of Authentic, ethical, servant leadership versus Transformational Leadership showed that real leadership is much less about workplace performance and more focused on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and emotional commitment, which can generate results [10].”
supports “[26] in their metaanalysis noted that ethical leadership increases desired employee outcomes like job satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee engagement, and organizational citizenship behavior, while simultaneously playing a vital role in reducing employee deviance and turnover intention.”
supports “A comparative analysis of Authentic, ethical, servant leadership versus Transformational Leadership showed that real leadership is much less about workplace performance and more focused on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and emotional commitment, which can generate results [10].”
supports “…with an array of outcomes, such as higher trust, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and lower turnover intentions even over and above other leadership constructs, including transformational, authentic, and ethical leadership (Eva et al., 2019; Hoch et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2020).”
supports “A comparative analysis of Authentic, ethical, servant leadership versus Transformational Leadership showed that real leadership is much less about workplace performance and more focused on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and emotional commitment, which can generate results [10].”
disputes “…but they also explain little additional variance beyond transformational leadership in various outcomes related to behaviour (e.g. job performance), attitudes (e.g. job satisfaction, commitment), and relational perceptions (i.e. trust in supervisor, leader-member exchange) (Hoch et al. 2018).”
supports “[26] in their metaanalysis noted that ethical leadership increases desired employee outcomes like job satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee engagement, and organizational citizenship behavior, while simultaneously playing a vital role in reducing employee deviance and turnover intention.”
supports “Compared to authentic, transformational, and ethical leadership, servant leadership seems to explain better the various outcomes (e.g., a climate of trust, work engagement, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviours) (Hoch et al., 2018; Ling et al., 2017).”
supports “[26] in their metaanalysis noted that ethical leadership increases desired employee outcomes like job satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee engagement, and organizational citizenship behavior, while simultaneously playing a vital role in reducing employee deviance and turnover intention.”
supports “Our findings are very consistent with previous findings highlighting the positive relationships of ethical leadership and trust (Bedi et al., 2016; Hoch et al., 2018; Ng & Feldman, 2015) and we show evidence that these relationships extend within the friends/family domain.”
disputes “A comparative analysis of Authentic, ethical, servant leadership versus Transformational Leadership showed that real leadership is much less about workplace performance and more focused on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and emotional commitment, which can generate results [10].”
supports “We chose authentic leadership because it fosters organizational commitment and trust in leaders (above other leadership forms, such as trans-formational leadership), thereby promoting behaviors that contribute to collective interests (see the meta -analyses by Banks et al., 2016; Hoch et al., 2016).”
supports “According to Hoch, Bommer [40], the empirical power of SL is higher than other positive leadership styles, and it has emerged as one of the most important leadership styles for producing numerous positive outcomes including improving employees’ commitment [41], engagement [42], motivation and job performance [43], creativity and innovations [44], work-related wellbeing [45], innovative work behavior [46], citizenship behaviors [47], positive deviance [48], productive voice behavior [49] and pro-social behaviors [50].”
supports “According to Hoch, Bommer [40], the empirical power of SL is higher than other positive leadership styles, and it has emerged as one of the most important leadership styles for producing numerous positive outcomes including improving employees’ commitment [41], engagement [42], motivation and job performance [43], creativity and innovations [44], work-related wellbeing [45], innovative work behavior [46], citizenship behaviors [47], positive deviance [48], productive voice behavior [49] and pro-social behaviors [50].”
supports “…with an array of outcomes, such as higher trust, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and lower turnover intentions even over and above other leadership constructs, including transformational, authentic, and ethical leadership (Eva et al., 2019; Hoch et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2020).”
supports “Servant leadership is built on the principle that by nurturing, empowering, and address ing the needs of followers, an organization’s longterm objectives can be achieved through the commitment of these followers [29].”
supports “A comparative analysis of Authentic, ethical, servant leadership versus Transformational Leadership showed that real leadership is much less about workplace performance and more focused on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and emotional commitment, which can generate results [10].”
supports “Compared to authentic, transformational, and ethical leadership, servant leadership seems to explain better the various outcomes (e.g., a climate of trust, work engagement, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviours) (Hoch et al., 2018; Ling et al., 2017).”
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Assembled from Principia’s registry — bibliographic record, extracted effect sizes, the models they inform, and open-access citing literature.