Today’s business environment is faced with rapid changes and increasing competition. This situation demands new leadership paradigms beyond the traditional management perspectives and practices. The superleadership and self-leadership theories are suggested as alternatives to old approaches.
This study investigates the effects of superleadership on followers’ self-leadership and performance, a mediating effect of self-leadership on the relationship between superleadership and follower performance, and moderating effects of job and organizational characteristics on the relationship between superleadership and self-leadership.
Based on theoretical background, this study drives following hypotheses.
H1 : Leader’s superleadership will positively relate to employees’ self-leadership.
H2 : Leader’s superleadership will positively relate to employees’ job satisfaction.
H3 : Leader’s superleadership will positively relate to employees’ organizational commitment.
H4 : Employees’ self-leadership will mediate the relationship between leader’s superleadership and employees’ job satisfaction.
H5 : Employees’ self-leadership will mediate the relationship between leader’s superleadership and employees’ organizational commitment.
H6 : Job characteristics(task autonomy) will moderate the relationship between leader’s superleadership and employees’ self-leadership.
H7 : Organizational characteristics(execution-as-learning) will moderate the relationship between leader’s superleadership and employees’ self-leadership.
To test these relationships, we have conducted a survey of Korean firms. Questionnaires were sent to 300 employees in ten firms. After excluding unanswered and untrustful questionnaires items, the final sample size for the study is 235 employees in ten firms. Frequency analysis, reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, three-step mediated regression analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis were used to analyze the data.
Findings show that superleadership positively relates to followers’ self-leadership and performance and that followers’ self-leadership moderates the relationship between superleadership and follower performance. The results also show that job characteristics(task autonomy) and organizational characteristics(execution-as-learning) moderate the relationship between superleadership and self-leadership. These results indicate that (1) superleadership is a major factor for enhancing followers’ self-leadership and performance and (2) superleadership increases follower performance through a mechanism that superleadership facilitates followers’ self- leadership. The results also indicate that superleadership facilitates followers’ self-leadership in certain conditions such as high level of task autonomy and execution-as learning. Based on the these findings, implications of the research findings are discussed, and recommendation for future research are provided.