Zhenyu Yuan, Frederick P.Morgeson, Xiaoyu Wang*

The Journal of applied psychology. 2022, 107(9): 1498-1523

Recommend Reason

The leader–follower relationship is one of the most important work-related relationships a person can have. High-quality relationships can motivate employees’ work performance and also benefit leaders’ career development. Although a wealth of research has been published in this field, there has been a low level of convergence between leader- and follower-reported LMX. Thus, scholars have begun to question whether leaders and followers are even aware of the lack of LMX convergence. If leaders and followers are accurately aware of the lack of convergence, this implies that LMX scholars should seek to further understand why they two parties are not motivated to solve the divergence in their relational experience. Alternatively, if leaders and followers lack awareness of their discrepant relationship perceptions, the bottleneck of leader–follower relationships could then be attributed to the possibility that dyad members are limited by certain factors from having accurate insights about each other. Therefore, investigating the extent to which leaders and followers are accurately aware of the lack of convergence in their relationship perceptions can shed light on an important aspect of LMX theory that has long puzzled leadership scholars.

About the Author

Zhenyu Yuan, Department of Managerial Studies, College of Business Administration, University of Illinois Chicago

Frederick P. Morgeson, Department of Management, Eli Broad College of Business, Michigan State University

Xiaoyu Wang, Advanced Institute of Business, School of Economics and Management, Tongji University

Keywords

leader–member exchange, metaperception, power, dyadic analysis, one-with-many model

Brief Introduction

In this paper, we draw from social psychology research on close relationships to introduce the construct of LMX metaperceptions (i.e., dyad members’ inferences of how the other party feels about their leader–follower relationship) as an important component of LMX accounts. We then utilize the dyadic model of metaperceptions to investigate the accuracy (i.e., the extent to which LMX metaperceptions are consistent with the other dyad member’s LMX ratings) and bias (i.e., the extent to which LMX metaperceptions are colored by the dyad member’s own LMX ratings) of LMX metaperceptions. Our research finds that LMX metaperceptions are not only inaccurate but also biased. Both leaders and followers heavily rely on their own LMX perceptions but fail to discern the other party’s LMX perception. In addition, we also examine power dependence—an inherent feature of leader–follower relationships—and highlight its downside in engendering greater levels of bias for more powerful leaders.