Multilevel – Analyses

Organisations have a multi-level structure as followers are nested within teams and supervised by leaders of different hierarchical levels. This multi-level structure has important consequences for scientific research and makes the investigation of inter-esting effects possible. Followers from the same team share important characteristics such as tasks, team climate, autonomy, meaning of work, or workload. Moreover, they report to the same leader which may of course influence followers as well. Two types of research questions can be answered by means of the design of the ReSuLead study. First, the mean perception of leadership and work characteristics by all followers in a team (aggregated values) can be related to followers’ wellbeing.

This approach reveals if there is a kind of shared perception regarding leadership behaviour or work characteristics among team members which goes beyond individ-ual perceptions of these variables. Second, it is possible to relate leaders’ ratings of the leadership behaviour of their superiors to the ratings of their own leadership be-haviour provided by their followers. This makes it possible to assess if trickle-down effects can be observed regarding leadership behaviour, work characteristics, work-related attitudes or wellbeing. Trickle-down effects would, for example, imply that leaders’ leadership behaviour is influenced by the leadership behaviour they experi-ence. Moreover, these effects can also be investigated for other variables than lead-ership, such as work characteristics and personal characteristics.

The first step into the analyses is to assess if there is variance on team-level for all variables. We computed intra-class-correlations (ICC) to answer this question (BLIESE, 2000). We found some variance on team-level for all variables. However, the amount of variance differed considerably (see table 6.26 for results). While only small amounts of variance on team-level were found for abusive supervision, about a

third of the total variance of transformational leadership was related to the team. It can be concluded, that transformational leadership seems to be a group phenome-non as followers are affected in a similar way. Contrary, abusive supervision seems to depend on the individual relationship between leader and follower to a higher de-gree.

6.2.1 Aggregated leadership ratings and follower wellbeing

In a sample of 2020 followers nested within 271 teams from Sweden, Finland, and Germany we found several significant team-level effects of aggregated leadership variables and work characteristics on followers’ work engagement (BAKKER &

DEMEROUTI, 2008) and emotional exhaustion, the core component of burnout (MASLACH, JACKSON, & LEITER, 1996). Results are displayed in table 6.26. Over-all, we found team-level leadership ratings to explain additional variance in follower wellbeing beyond individual leadership perceptions. This result indicates that there might be some kind of shared perception of leadership behaviour in a team and that leadership ratings seem to be somewhat similar in teams though there seems to be a strong individual component as well. This individual component may of course also stem from different treatment of different followers by a leader and does not neces-sarily represent biased perceptions. Regarding work characteristics, we also found team-level effects of autonomy, meaning of work, and workload. The degree of au-tonomy employees have, the meaning they can see in their jobs, and the workload they experience obviously differ between teams.

Tab. 6.26 Relations between aggregated leadership ratings and followers’ work engagement and job exhaustion

Independent Variable ICC Criterion Coefficient Transformational leader- 0.35 Work engagement .19***

Job exhaustion -.08 Authentic leadership 0.29 Work engagement .17***

Job exhaustion -.12*

Fair leadership 0.18 Work engagement .08*

Job exhaustion -.19***

Abusive supervision 0.09 Work engagement -.16***

Job exhaustion .22***

Autonomy 0.29 Work engagement .15***

Job exhaustion -.18***

Meaning of Work 0.25 Work engagement .25***

Job exhaustion -.18***

Workload 0.21 Work engagement .03

Job exhaustion .28***

Work engagement 0.33

Job exhaustion 0.17

Note. N₁ = 2020 followers, N₂ = 271 teams, ICC = Inter-Class-Correlation, * p <.05, ** p <.01,

*** p <.001.

6.2.2 Trickle-down effects

The analyses of trickle-down effects of leadership, work and personal characteristics are based on a German sample as the necessary data was collected in Germany only. The sample consists of 105 leaders and 750 followers. All followers were as-signed to their leader. Controlling for the duration of the leadership relation, the anal-yses did not reveal any evidence of trickle-down effects of leadership behaviour (see table 6.27). It can be concluded that leaders seem not to adapt their leadership be-haviour from their actual superior. However, it is possible that leaders take over lead-ership behaviour from other leaders than their direct supervisor. This makes sense as leaders may experience better role models in their organization or may have ex-perienced more influential leaders in their career than their actual superior.

Tab. 6.27 Trickle-down effects of leadership behaviour on subordinate leaders Independent Variable Criterion Data source

criterion Coefficient Superiors’ transformational

leadership behaviour Subordinate transforma-tional leadership behav-iour

Follower .06

Superiors’ authentic

leader-ship Subordinate authentic

leadership behaviour Follower .10 Superiors’ fair leadership Subordinate fair

leader-ship behaviour

Follower -.02

Superiors’ abusive supervi-sion

Subordinate abusive su-pervision

Follower -.01

Note. N1 = 750 followers, N2 = 105 leaders.

Regarding job resources we found weak evidence for trickle-down effects of autono-my whereas no such effects were found for meaning of work (see table 6.28). Thus, leaders who get a high degree of autonomy from their supervisor tend to provide more autonomy to their followers, too. We found a significant trickle-down effect for self-efficacy which can be considered a personal resource. If leaders’ supervisors display high levels of self-efficacy, they tend to have high self-efficacy themselves.

The same was confirmed for organizational trust. For job demands, we found lead-ers’ emotional demands to relate positively to the emotional demands of their follow-ers. This may of course be due to similar tasks and working conditions but may also indicate that leaders tend to pass emotional demands on to their subordinates. We also found a marginally significant effect for workload indicating that leaders with a high workload tend to assign a higher workload to their followers, too. Moreover, we found that exhausted leaders also tend to have a higher mean of emotional exhaus-tion in their teams.

Tab. 6.28 Trickle-down effects of leaders’ work characteristics, attitudes, and wellbeing on followers’ work characteristics, attitudes, and wellbeing Independent Variable Criterion Coefficient Autonomy of the leader Autonomy of the follower .12+

Meaning of Work of the leader Meaning of Work of the follower -.02 Workload of the leader Workload of the follower .13+

Emotional demands of the leader Emotional demands of the follower .23**

Commitment of the leader Commitment of the follower .02 Occupational self-efficacy of the

leader

Occupational self-efficacy of the follower

.14**

Organisational trust of the leader Organisational trust of the follower .12*

Work engagement of the leader Work engagement of the follower .12+

Job exhaustion of the leader Job exhaustion of the follower .17*

Note. N₁ = 750 followers, N₂ = 105 leaders, + p <.1, * p <.05, ** p <.01.

6.2.3 Summary

Overall, it can be concluded that there is some evidence of team-level effects of shared perceptions of leadership and work characteristics on follower wellbeing. This supports the validity of self-ratings and indicates that differences in leadership ratings and evaluations of work characteristics are not only in the eye of the beholder. More-over, we found evidence of trickle-down effects of work characteristics, attitudes, and wellbeing from higher organizational levels to subordinate positions. However, such effects could not be confirmed for leadership characteristics.