(In)Congruence in Claims and Grants and Multi-Domain Leader Identity: A Response Surface Modeling Test of Multi-Domain Leader Identity Construction Theory

Research on leader identity construction has long highlighted an individual's internalization of a leadership schema into their own identity as an important predictor of leader development and leadership outcomes. At the core of this process is the idea that a leader identity is constructed via concurrent experiences associated with leader identity claims and perceived leader identity grants. Although empirical research has begun to investigate how leadership claims and grants influence various leadership outcomes (e.g., endorsement as a leader, leader development), the fundamental propositions around the joint effects of these two core leadership experiences have largely been taken for granted within the literature. In a two-study design, we propose a multi-domain leader identity construction framework to test the joint effects of leadership claiming and granting on leader identity across the work, personal, and community domains. Through the application of multi-level and traditional response surface modeling, we examine the effects of congruence in claims and grants on leader identity construction using a sample of 79 employed MBA students across 8 weeks (Study 1) and a cross-sectional panel of 528 working adults (Study 2). Results suggest that across the two studies, there is a significant relationship between congruence in claiming-granting and leader identity within all domains—when claims and grants are higher and more congruent individual leader identity is also high. Incongruence effects were only significant within the work domain and cross-domain effects highlight some evidence for non-work to work identity construction.