How feedback about leadership potential impacts ambition, organizational commitment, and performance

Abstract

In the present research we report results from two experimental studies that examine how feedback about leadership potential impacts leadership ambition, organizational commitment, and performance. Study 1 used an experimental vignette methodology that controls for prior performance. Results show that individuals who receive feedback that they have low potential to be a future leader have lower ambition and organizational commitment relative to those who receive feedback that they have high potential to be a future leader. Study 2 provides evidence of the causal behavioral effects of feedback about leadership potential using a real task effort environment. Results show that participants informed to be unlikely future leaders display lower performance in a subsequent task than participants informed to be likely future leaders. The findings from the two studies demonstrate that information about leadership potential affects subsequent ambition to become leaders as well as performance. We discuss the implications of these findings for the importance of followership, talent management, and leadership succession.

Introduction

To survive and thrive in the long-term, organizations are faced with the key task of inspiring followers to become the next generation of leaders and to equip them to move into future leadership roles once incumbents move on or new opportunities arise. For this reason, organizations strongly focus on planning and investing into issues of leader successions and development. For example, in PwC's 20th Annual Global CEO Survey, 77% of CEOs identified developing human talent, including leadership, as a top key priority (PwC, 2012). Literature on strategic human resources management defines leadership succession as a set of HR activities that: (1) organizations use to identify talented employees who “show potential to become more than they currently are” (Silzer & Church, 2009, p.4), and (2) provide these potential leaders with guidance and training to become future organizational leaders (Heneman, Judge, & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2015). This literature highlights the positive outcomes of leadership succession planning, since it enables organizations to get “the right person in the right job at the right time” (Cappelli & Keller, 2014, p.306), and invest their scarce resources in those where chances on returns will be the highest (Collings & Mellahi, 2009; Felin & Hesterly, 2007).

Speaking to the above resource-based perspective, prior research has investigated various strategic aspects of leadership succession — primarily at the very top levels of organizations (Garman & Glawe, 2004). For example, research has examined succession as a function of whether the successor (a) originates from within or outside the company (Shen & Cannella, 2002), (b) is similar to, or different from, the previous leader (Ritter & Lord, 2007), (c) is a man or a woman (Ryan & Haslam, 2007), and (d) implements little or significant change (Zhang & Rajagopalan, 2010).

Yet scholars have argued that there is a need to better understand the motivational effects associated with evaluations about leadership potential, especially for individuals at lower organizational levels (Gelens, Dries, Hofmans, & Pepermans, 2013). After all, leadership succession demands the singling out of a chosen few at the expense of the many, since organizations consider only a small proportion (5–20%) of people in a cohort to be eligible for succession programs (Malik & Singh, 2014). Thus, the vast majority of individuals will be excluded from leadership successions, but are still expected to remain motivated followers. Accordingly, in this paper we address the question of how feedback about the lack of leadership potential may impact leadership ambition, organizational commitment, and performance. These three outcomes represent defining features of follower motivation (Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012; Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002).

The present two studies contribute to the literatures on the importance of followership. Notably, followers are generally defined (a) with reference to hierarchical organizational structures, that is, followers as subordinates, and (b) as individuals who display behavior that is influenced by leadership (Uhl-Bien, Riggio, Lowe, & Carsten, 2014). This definition underscores the importance of understanding individuals' motivation to be, and act, as followers. In addition to being an important precursor of the success of followers (Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012; Leroy, Palanski, & Simons, 2012), the motivation of followers also incorporates their willingness to make an effort for others within the organization including their leaders (Malik & Singh, 2014).

There are at least two sets of theories that may provide insight into the effects of feedback about leadership potential. Theorizing on the importance of follower- and group-centered perspectives argues that leadership and followership are both intertwined and reciprocally related (e.g., Day, Gronn, & Salas, 2006; Morgeson, DeRue, & Karam, 2010; Oc & Bashshur, 2013; Uhl-Bien et al., 2014; Yammarino, Salas, Serban, Shirreffs, & Shuffler, 2012; Zaccaro, Rittman, & Marks, 2002) and that there is no leadership without followership (e.g., Haslam, Reicher, & Platow, 2011; Steffens et al., 2014). Drawing from this perspective, we propose that just as being seen as a likely future leader may motivate individuals, individuals may also be discouraged when they are seen as an unlikely future leader, because such a process sets leaders and followers apart. We further use justice theory as an underlying framework to provide insight into why potential as a future leader may affect individuals. This theory suggests that people develop fairness sentiments based not only on the outcome of resource allocations (as predicted by equity theory; Adams, 1965) but also on basis of the procedure that lead to those outcomes (Cropanzano & Folger, 1989; Greenberg, 1987). Thus, being seen as having potential to be a future a leader is likely to be motivating because becoming a leader provides people with valuable resources, such as higher status and higher financial rewards. Just as importantly, not being seen as having leadership potential should be demotivating, because of the associated lack of such resources. Moreover, decisions about leadership potential are typically made behind closed doors by leaders in higher-level positions with little input from those who are to be led (followers), and so, other things being equal, followers who are not seen to have leadership potential are likely to regard the process as unfair.

It is noteworthy that, to date, few scholars have included follower responses in empirical work on leadership successions (for a review, see Hutzschenreuter, Kleindienst, & Greger, 2012). Two notable exceptions include a cross-sectional study by Björkman, Ehrnrooth, Mäkelä, Smale, and Sumelius (2013) showing that individuals who perceive themselves as being part of their organizational talent pool report greater determination to develop their competencies and lower turnover intentions. Furthermore, they include a cross-sectional study by Gelens, Hofmans, Dries, and Pepermans (2014) finding that individuals not identified as having high potential report lower organizational justice. These findings are insightful because they show that perceptions of being seen to have potential (or not) are associated with the motivational responses of individuals.

Yet the implications we can draw from the above two studies are somewhat limited, in that they do not inform us about at least two important issues that are key for understanding followers' motivational responses to feedback about leadership potential. First, it remains to be addressed whether the obtained responses relate uniquely to leadership potential. That is, we must distinguish effects of feedback about leadership potential from those of follower performance by examining whether being seen (or not being seen) as having leadership potential affects the motivation of followers whose baseline levels of motivation and performance are similar prior to receiving information about leadership potential (Balzer & Sulsky, 1992; Briscoe & Hall, 1999). Second, it is possible that followers with more motivation are perceived to have higher leadership potential (cf. Dries & Pepermans, 2012). To determine the consequential impact of leadership potential, we need to rule out endogeneity in relationships and establish causality of the effects (Antonakis et al., 2010, Antonakis et al., 2014) by examining the extent to which feedback about leadership potential impacts actual behavioral indicators of motivation. We address these issues in the present research. Before we turn to our studies, we will develop our hypotheses in more detail.

Even though there is little empirical research on how followers respond to leadership succession, there is abundant evidence demonstrating that formal performance appraisals have an impact on followers' willingness to work for their organization — both when these appraisals are favorable and when they are unfavorable (e.g., Fletcher, 2001; Pearce & Porter, 1986). In part, this impact may be attributable to the instrumental gains or losses directly attached to formal performance appraisals (e.g., salary increases or decreases and more or less task autonomy). However, studies have shown that performance appraisals also affect followers because they signal to followers how well they do relative to their peers, and hence, how central they are to their organization (Cleveland, Murphy, & Williams, 1989; Levy & Williams, 2004).

Moreover, research on performance appraisals tends to focus on follower responses to evaluations of their objective task outcomes in their current jobs or organizational ranks — not on their responses to estimations of their potential to be a future leader at higher levels of the organization. In this regard too, it is worth noting the conceptual similarities (and differences) between our hypothesized effects of perceived leadership potential on motivation and those described by research on performance expectations and the Pygmalion effect (e.g., Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968; see also, the self-fulfilling prophecy effect; Eden, 2014; Jussim, Eccles, & Madon, 1996). Both examine how the appraisals of others impact upon a person's subsequent attitudes and behaviors. At the same time, we identify two key different ways in which the current research goes beyond past research.

First, whereas the Pygmalion effect demonstrates that individual performance is impacted by others' performance expectations, we suggest that effects due to leadership potential need not be driven by performance expectations, but rather by the potential to be a leader, that is, to occupy a leadership position and be able to influence the people they work with so that they are motivated to contribute to collective goals. After all, followers may receive positive appraisals of their current task performance, but yet still not be seen as possessing leadership potential. Second, based on procedural justice theory (Cropanzano & Folger, 1989), we argue that followers' responses to feedback about their leadership potential will impact their general work motivation, which includes their primary task efforts, but also their ambition to become a leader and their organizational commitment. In this way, we suggest that individual responses will extend beyond direct task performance to willingness to contribute to shared goals. Accordingly, it needs to be investigated whether, and if so how, information about leadership potential impacts followers over and above effects of appraisals of current performance.

The limited existing literature on the responses of followers to prospective leadership successions remains inconclusive. Several scholars argue that followers who are seen as likely future leaders and are included in leadership programs should demonstrate increased levels of motivation because organizations explicitly value them (Becker, Huselid, Pickus, & Spratt, 1997; Björkman et al., 2013; Collings & Mellahi, 2009; Malik & Singh, 2014) and accommodate to their intellectual and psychological needs (McClean & Collins, 2011). But others have warned that when chosen leaders attribute their selection to their own capabilities, they may not necessarily become more motivated to work for the organization, but rather become more demanding instead (i.e., in terms of further assistance with career progression; Call, Nyberg, & Thatcher, 2015).

As for those followers who are not seen as future leaders, they might remain motivated to work for the organization because increased efforts and the setting of more challenging goals may improve their future prospects and their leadership potential (Malik & Singh, 2014). However, several scholars have argued that followers regarded to have little leadership potential are likely to demonstrate a drop in motivation because (a) they are rejected on the basis of an estimated skill that they cannot demonstrate in their current job (Björkman et al., 2013; Marescaux, De Winne, & Sels, 2013) which they may perceive as unfair, and (b) inclusion in future leadership programs becomes increasingly difficult for them because they are allocated fewer resources and opportunities than those who are chosen (Dries, Van Acker, & Verbruggen, 2012), leading to a greater divergence in possibilities and opportunities between the those who are chosen and those who are not. These arguments are in line with procedural justice theory (Cropanzano & Folger, 1989; Greenberg, 1987) and findings from group research, where differential leadership behavior towards followers (Tee, Paulsen, & Ashkanasy, 2013; Zhang, Li, Ullrich, & van Dick, 2013) and the use of selection procedures that create a competitive environment (Haslam et al., 1998), can undermine collaboration by emphasizing the distinction between those who are seen as worth attending to (i.e., potential leaders) and those who are not.

In sum, as argued above, perceptions of followers' reduced potential as future leaders may have the unintended negative effect of distancing followers from their organization. Specifically, being singled out for a future leadership position may motivate those who are chosen to some degree. However, to the extent that a given follower is regarded to have reduced leadership potential, that follower is far more likely to respond unfavorably to the collective enterprise to which they belong and to leadership in particular. As such, we predict that evaluations of followers' potential as a future leader will be related to followers' motivation in terms of both their leadership ambition and their commitment to the organization. More precisely, we predict:

Followers who receive feedback that they have low, rather than high, leadership potential will show lower leadership ambition (H1a) and lower organizational commitment (H1b).

The present research extends our understanding of the way in which feedback about followers' leadership potential are associated with differences in follower motivation. We test our hypotheses in two experimental studies. In Study 1 we present an experimental vignette study that enables us to establish the isolated effect of feedback about leadership potential (i.e., the degree to which an individual is regarded to have potential to be a future leader) on individuals' leadership ambition and organizational commitment in a diverse sample of people with work experience. In Study 2, to rule out endogeneity-related issues and to establish the causal effect of feedback about leadership potential on motivation, we present a behavioral economics experiment in a real effort task environment (Charness & Kuhn, 2011) in which members of a team are randomly assigned to a condition of likely or unlikely leaders. In Study 2, we extend findings from Study 1 by examining how leadership potential affects changes in participants' (objective) behavioral effect on a team-related performance task.