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Leadership

The new world of work shaped by high flexibilty demands due to digitalization and globalization calls for more complex leadership approaches. Consequently, the traditional focus on leaders needs to be replaced by a perspective on leadership as a social process imbedded in a situational and cultural context.

For us leadership is primarily a group phanomenon. Social identity processes strongy determine who has influence and power within a certain group. Leadership approaches based on the social identity theory and the self-categorization theory inform how leaders can use identity processes to effectively lead their team and/or their organization. One possibilty to use identity prozesses is through actively form the social identity of a group. In this vein we examine how leaders can employ vision communication as a tool to effectively form the social identity of their group.

Effective leadership should facilitate followers' performance, organizational commitment and well-being. In a European research project incorporating an intervention study, we analyzed the role of leadership (behavior) for employees' health. For details please look at the project report.

Selected publications

Otto, K., Thomson, B., & Rigotti, T. (2018). When dark leadership exacerbates the effects of restructuring. Journal of Change Management, 18, 96-115. Availabe from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14697017.2018.1446691

Kampa, J., Rigotti, T., & Otto, K. (2017). Mechanisms linking authentic leadership to emotional exhaustion: The role of procedural justice and emotional demands in a moderated mediation approach. Industrial Health, 55, 1-13. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27818452

Wirtz, N., Rigotti, T., Otto, K., & Loeb, C. (2017). What about the leader? Crossover of emotional exhaustion and work engagement from followers to leaders. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 22, 86-97. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26938080

Abas, N. A. H., & Otto, K. (2016). Interpersonal mistreatment, organizational attitudes and well-being: The impact of instigator’s hierarchical position and demographic characteristics. Organization Management Journal, 13, 5-20. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/15416518.2015.1129307