Watch out for Icebergs: An Investigation of Vigilant Leadership, Antecedents, and Consequences

Drawing upon the regulatory focus theory and change-oriented leadership literature, we propose the construct of vigilant leadership and develop hypotheses and theoretical models of its antecedents (leader regulatory foci) and consequences (employee regulatory foci and proactive behaviors). A measure of vigilant leadership was developed using six independent samples comprised of 1378 individuals. We tested our theoretical framework across three field studies involving 1073 leader-follower dyads (a total of 1889 individuals). Results demonstrate that vigilant leadership is primarily predicted by leader’s prevention focus, yet leader’s promotion focus strengthens the predictive effect of prevention focus on vigilant leadership. Vigilant leadership has positive effects on employee’s prevention focus and a set of proactive behaviors, including problem prevention, strategic scanning, feedback inquiry and prohibitive voice, above and beyond the role of transformational leadership. We contribute to the leadership literature by highlighting the need for leaders to capitalize on both regulatory foci and enable a collective search for and response to potential challenges. Practical implications as well as future directions for research are also discussed.