Introverted Personality Traits of Leaders and Organization Citizenship Behaviour of Followers: A Moderating Effect of Leader-Member Relationship

Abstract

Research on the relationship between personality and leadership supports the notion that individual differences may be the predictors of leadership effectiveness in contemporary organizations. Extant studies stress that each of the Big-Five broad personality dimensions is related to leader criteria. In general, the main differences between effective leaders and less effective ones are that effective leaders describe themselves from their personality traits and the relationship building with followers. However, relatively few studies have tested how and why a leader's personality traits relate to follower behaviors, and if so, the mechanisms through which a leader's personality traits relate to follower behaviors. Accordingly, the main aims of the present study are to examine whether the introverted personality traits of leaders affect the organizational citizenship behavior of followers and to examine the role of leader-member relationship as a moderator in social exchange process in the relationship between leader personality and organizational citizenship behavior of followers. To advance the understanding of these, simple regression analysis and moderator regression were used to test hypotheses in the present study with the sample size of 98introvert managers as leaders and 196 subordinates as their followers. The study found that there is no positive direct effect of introverted traits of leaders on organizational citizenship behavior of followers. Yet, leader-member relationship moderates the relationship between introverted personality traits of leaders and organizational citizenship behavior of followers. The present study makes several theoretical and managerial contributions to make organizations success.