New generation employees’ preferences towards leadership style in China

Abstract

The leadership style preferences of China’s ‘new generation’ employees in the workplace are now, more than ever, important issues in the management field. Our theoretical contribution aims to extend the employee involvement and leadership literatures by illustrating the relationships between different styles of leadership preferences from the follower-centric perspective. The findings highlight that Chinese new generation employees’ need for involvement negatively impacts on their preference for directive leadership and positively on their preference for high relationship-oriented leadership (i.e. participative and coaching leadership). Additionally, trust-in-supervisor is found to moderate the relationship between need for involvement and preference for delegating leadership.