The Effect of Path-Goal Leadership Behaviors

on Subordinates’ Innovativeness

David MorganUniversity of Baltimore

My Interest

Recruiting U.S. Navy

Innovation What is it? What causes it?

Leadership Path-Goal (House & Mitchell, 1974)

Purpose

Specifically, this study presents evidence that House’s path-goal theory can be applied such as to induce innovation in the organizational setting.

The Problem

Explanations of innovativeness in organizationsSize of a companyEducation level and tenure of top

managersPublic v. privateInfluence of leaders (i.e.,

transformational leadership)• Not path-goal theory

The Literature

Organizations undeniably benefit from sufficient leadership, especially in today’s constant pursuit of new and innovative means to reach an industry-leading end.

Successful leaders (Arad, Hanson, & Schneider, 1997; Aragón-Correa, García-Morales, & Cordón-Pozo, 2007; Damanpour & Schneider, 2006; Howell & Higgins, 1990) Motivate employees Effectively evaluate employee behaviors and outcomes Facilitating success Provide a clear mission and Adopt organizational policies and resources in support of a

broader vision

The Literature

Innovation (Arad, Hanson, & Schneider, 1997; Herold, Fedor, & Caldwell, 2007; Sternberg, Pretz, & Kaufman, 2003; Nyström, 1990) Potential outcome of leadership styles that are

conducive to fostering pioneering cultures A product of the interaction between strategy (e.g.,

leadership) and structure, with organizational culture and climate as important intervening variables

Innovative outcomes require effective leadership

House’s (1974; 1996) Path-Goal Theory Effective leaders engage in behaviors that

harmonize with the abilities of subordinates Motivational functions of leaders lead to

personal gain for subordinates via a clear path to the goal

Reducing or eliminating road blocks along that path are important determinants of subordinate satisfaction and motivation

House’s (1974; 1996) Path-Goal Theory Four leader behaviors:

Directive leadership—focuses on coordinating work tasks, and is best used with subordinates with limited job-related abilities

Supportive leadership—concerns subordinates’ well-being through a supportive work environment, and is best demonstrated when characteristics of subordinates’ work environments call for a more “caring” leader

Achievement-oriented leadership—focuses on causing subordinates to have increased confidence in their ability to meet goals, and is best used when it is imperative that subordinates have the resources they need in order to thrive

Participative leadership—directed toward subordinate input with respect to decision-making and influence, and is best utilized when subordinates elicit a great deal of declarative and procedural knowledge

The Study

Research hypothesis Participants assigned to the achievement-

oriented leadership group condition (i.e., the condition where the team leaders have received formal training in using achievement-oriented leadership) would display higher mean innovativeness [acceptance] as compared to those assigned to the control group condition (i.e., the condition where the leaders did not receive formal leadership training)

The Study

IVs type of leadership received by each group leader biological sex leader experience

Covariate leader age—tested for its role as a

concomitant variable DV

a measure of attitudes and beliefs about the innovation(s) employed (Real & Poole, 2005)

Method

Participants n = 195 randomly selected from a Federal

list of current enlisted recruiters, or “subordinates,” in the Navy

• 50% male (23.5 mean age) and 50% female (22.5 mean age)

n = 65 officer-level recruitment “leaders” • 60% male and 40% female • 63% experienced and 37% inexperienced • 98% held Bachelor’s degrees

Design and Procedure

2 pilot studies relationships between three leadership styles the effect of “leader experience” (represented by two levels)

on subordinate innovativeness and three path-goal leadership styles

Subordinates randomly assigned to a group (3-4 participants), with n = 65 groups (to the experimental or control condition)

Leaders randomly assigned to achievement-oriented training condition (a 1 hour training based on House’s [1974; 1996] theory of achievement-oriented leadership) or the control condition (no formal training), and again randomly assigned to lead one of the groups

Administrative leave

Design and Procedure

Each group of subordinates—facilitated by a recruitment leader—given a scenario in which they devised a web-based recruitment strategy given limited instruction no previous exposure to newly a developed

web design software package 2 hours to complete

Questionnaire was used to evaluate subordinate attitudes total “innovation acceptance score” r = .86

Results

Pilot study 1 positive significant relationship between the

achievement-oriented leadership style and innovativeness (r = .44, p = .02)

• as use of achievement-oriented leadership style increases, the potential for organizational innovativeness increases as well

significant negative relationship between the directive leadership style and innovativeness (r = -.37, p = .05)

• as use of directive leadership increases, the potential for organizational innovativeness tends to decrease

Means, Standard Deviations and Correlations for Innovativeness and Three Path-goal Leadership Styles

VariablesM SD 1 2 3 4

Innovativeness

40.33 13.51 - - - -

Achievement

26.00 12.48 .44* - - -

Directive 19.33 11.72 -.37* .64 - -

Supportive

20.67 11.43 .29 .63 -.33 -

Note. n = 30. *p ≤ .05.

Results

Pilot Study 2 significant effect of leader experience on subordinate

innovativeness, F(1, 28) = 4.62, p = .04 • leader experience affects subordinate innovativeness

significant effect of leader experience on achievement-oriented leadership style, F(1, 28) = 4.73, p = .04

ANOVA examined the effects of leader experience on leadership style and subordinate innovativeness

• leader experience affects achievement-oriented leadership style

• no significant effects found for leader experience on either supportive or directive leadership styles

Analysis of Variance for the Effect of Leader Experience on Innovativeness and the Three Path-Goal Leadership Styles

750.000 1 750.000 4.619 .040

4546.667 28 162.381

5296.667 29

653.333 1 653.333 4.731 .038

3866.667 28 138.095

4520.000 29

333.333 1 333.333 2.555 .121

3653.333 28 130.476

3986.667 29

53.333 1 53.333 .400 .532

3733.333 28 133.333

3786.667 29

Between Groups

Within Groups

Total

Between Groups

Within Groups

Total

Between Groups

Within Groups

Total

Between Groups

Within Groups

Total

InnovationImplementation Scores

Achievement-orientedLeadership

Directive Leadership

Supportive Leadership

Sum ofSquares df Mean Square F Sig.

Results

2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects factorial ANCOVA design leader gender and experience, and experimental

condition as IVs, leader age as a covariate advantages over a regular ANOVA design

• with the latter, only cell means can be compared• with the former, cell means can be compared after

covariance—leader age in this case—is adjusted out • between-group differences that do not contribute to the

effects of interest, i.e., differences between leaders experience on subordinate innovativeness, are minimized

• smaller error term—more power to detect a significant effect

Results

after adjusting for the covariates, leadership type varied significantly with subordinate innovativeness F(1, 181) = 4.62, p < .05, η² = .14

subordinate innovativeness did not vary significantly with leader biological sex, F(1, 181) = 3.52, p = .06, η² = .02

subordinate innovativeness, however, was higher for female leaders (M = 41.66, SD = 14.51) than for male leaders (M = 39.22, SD = 12.51)

statistically significant main effect of experience, F(1, 181) = 7.23, p < .05, η² = .12

Results

not a significant three-way interaction between achievement-oriented leadership, leader gender, and leader experience, F(3, 181) = 2.03, p = .11, η² = .01

as a covariate, leader age contributed a significant effect on subordinate innovativeness, F(1, 181) = 11.03, p < .01, η² = .11

Analysis of Covariance for Effects of Types of Leadership, Leader Biological Sex and Leader Experience on Subordinate Innovativeness, with Leader Age as a Covariate

SourceSS df MS F

Leader Age 4.16 1 1.08 11.03**

Leadership Type 3.89 1 1.06 4.62*

Leader Sex 1.89 1 .63 3.52

Leader Experience 1.79 1 .38 7.23*

Type*Sex*Experience 1.89 3 .63 2.03

Error 22.20 181 .20

Total 35.82 193

Note. n = 195. *p < .05. **p < .01.

Discussion

Hypotheses supported leaders’ adoption of an achievement-

oriented leadership results in higher mean subordinate innovativeness than the control (no specific leadership style)

certain leader qualities and characteristics influence organizations’ potential for innovativeness

House’s (1974; 1996) path-goal theory can be applied such as to induce innovation

Discussion

Leaders concerned with setting challenging goals, making sure innovative resources are available, providing development opportunities, etc., share relationships with environments where innovation is present

Amount of leadership experience predicts subordinate innovativeness and achievement-oriented leadership style

Leaders with fewer years of experience in a leadership role tend to cause higher subordinate innovativeness,

why? younger leaders more open to new ideas?

Leaders with fewer years of experience exhibited higher means for achievement-oriented leadership

moderates the relationship between younger leaders and their subordinates’ innovation outputs?

Conclusion

Applications selecting achievement-oriented

leaders to lead subordinates—at least in the realm Naval recruitment—has a substantial impact on innovation

more experienced leaders should be trained to increase their awareness and techniques of achievement-oriented path-goal behaviors

Conclusion

Implications Longitudinal cohort effects taking place, or

some other mechanism not identified?• Further research should be conducted to examine

these effects more closely • Leader experience should be further segmented to

study the experience effects supported in this study and consistently found in other research

Replicate these findings in other workplace settings (addresses a limitation of this study)

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