The Effects of Leader Identity Threat and Perceived Organizational Support on Leader Behaviors

Follower-centric approaches to leadership emphasize the importance of understanding how leadership affects followers’ cognitions, motives, and desires. Yet, there is a very limited understanding of how leaders respond to followers’ assessment about their leadership. Drawing from research on identity, we propose that when leaders feel that followers are viewing their leadership in ways that are inconsistent with their own view of their leadership (assessment divergence in leadership), they will experience leader identity threat. This experience of identity threat will then cause leaders to be less effective, be more antisocial, and engage in a laissez-faire leadership style. In addition, we assert that the effects of leader identity threat will be negated when leaders feel greater perceived organizational support. This moderated mediation model was tested at multiple points in time with leaders and followers in 91 organizational work groups from a variety of industries. The results generally support the predictions, and the implications for theory and practice are discussed.