Relative Importance of Leader Influences for Subordinates’ Proactive Behaviors, Prosocial Behaviors, and Task Performance

Abstract

We meta-analytically examine the relationships between three forms of leader influence, contingent reward (transactional), leader-member exchange (LMX; relational), and transformational (change-oriented) on subordinates’ proactive behaviors. Using non-self-reported data from a combined sample of more than 9,000 employees, we confirm positive relationships between leader influences and employee proactive outcomes. We examine the extent to which one leadership influence is stronger than the others in promoting subordinate proactivity. By combining our new meta-analytic data with existing meta-analytic correlations, we further investigate the extent to which various leadership predictors are differentially related to proactive and prosocial contextual performance, and to task performance. For all outcomes, there are only minimal differences between the contingent reward, LMX, and transformational leadership predictors. Using our results, we propose future research directions for the relationship between leader influences and subordinate work effectiveness.