Exploring the Role of Leader Subordinate Interactions in the Construction of ORG Positivity

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Leadership

DOI: 10.1177/1742715008098311 2009; 5; 81 Leadership

Miguel Pina e Cunha, Rita Campos e Cunha and Arménio Rego Organizational Positivity

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Leadership

Copyright © 2009 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC)Vol 5(1): 81–101 DOI: 10.1177/1742715008098311 http://lea.sagepub.com

Exploring the Role of Leader–SubordinateInteractions in the Construction ofOrganizational PositivityMiguel Pina e Cunha, Rita Campos e Cunha and Arménio Rego, Faculdade deEconomia, Universidade Nova de Lisbon, Portugal and University of Aveiro,Portugal

Abstract In this article we discuss individual implicit theories of how positive andnegative organizing unfold. The discussion is grounded in data collected from 89individuals working in different organizational contexts. An inductive logic wasfollowed, based on critical incidents of positive and negative processes and outcomespresented by participants, according to how they viewed their professional situation.Through a dialectical process of analysis, we extracted six dimensions that werepresent in different combinations among narratives provided by the participants:recognition/indifference, communication/silence, interaction/separation, confidence/distrust, loyalty/betrayal, and organizational transparency/organizational secrecy.We then analysed how these dimensions fit together and discovered that they couldbe organized around four major patterns combining the clarity/secrecy of organiz-ational rules and the considerate/detached behavior of leaders. We assert thatpositive leaders are essential in the creation of patterns of organizing, regardless ofthe features of the external context.

Keywords leadership; organizational energy; positive organizing

IntroductionThe notion of ‘positive organizations’ has made a triumphant arrival on the scene oforganization studies in very recent years (Cameron et al., 2003; Luthans, 2002;Luthans & Youssef, 2007; Nelson & Cooper, 2007; Spreitzer, 2006). Positive orientedresearchers have focused on topics as unusual in the organizational literature ashappiness (Wright, 2004), hope (Ludema et al., 1997), humility (Vera & Rodriguez-Lopes, 2004), resilience (Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003), positive deviance (Spreitzer &Sonenshein, 2004), compassion (Kanov et al., 2004), forgiveness (Cameron, 2007)and virtuosity (Gavin & Mason, 2004), to mention just a few. Accepting the chal-lenge of positive psychologists such as Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000),positive organizational scholars have suggested that the bias toward the negative(stress, work overload, work–life imbalance, unethical behaviour) should be counter -balanced with more attention to the virtuous side of organizing. With the present

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work, we contribute to the field of positive organization studies by discussing howthe dynamics of positivity (and by contrast, negativity) unfold in organizationalcontexts. An inductive approach is applied to data collected from a sample of 89 individuals working in different jobs and organizations. We start with a brief andgeneral introduction to positive organization studies.

What is positive organizing?Organizations are often approached from a negative perspective, in both the theor-etical and applied domains, as demonstrated by the imbalance between negative andpositive papers published in the organizational behaviour and management literature(Luthans, 2002). Theories have been developed to explain how to manage stress andburnout, how to prevent bullying, how to deal with organizational cynicism and howto energize unmotivated people. Work–life imbalance, organizational misbehaviour,the consequences of massive layoffs and the breach of psychological contracts havealso attained important places in the research agendas. On the contrary, the positivevirtues and strengths of individuals and organizations have been taken as ‘soft’ topicswith minor relevance in the hypercompetitive world of organizations. Even in moreapplied domains, such as consulting, the ‘negative model’ tends to prevail: companiesare ‘diagnosed’ according to a logic of ‘disease’ and consultants mimic physicianswith their prescriptions to ‘cure’ the organization.

Recently, however, important changes have been witnessed in the corporate aswell as the academic landscapes. The eruption of corporate scandals in some of theworld’s leading companies, the September 11th tragedy and the interest in topics suchas positive psychology, positive organizational scholarship and appreciative inquiry,have contributed to the creation of a momentum for a positive approach to work andorganization. Positive theories have flourished and positive forms of interventionhave received increased attention, from both academic and popular authors. Interest-ingly, attention to both good and evil have characterized organizational research.Some authors have devoted attention to the ‘dark side of organizational behavior’(Griffin & O’Leary-Kelly, 2004) and the ‘executive psychopaths’ and ‘snakes insuits’ (Morse, 2004; Spinney, 2004), whereas others have focused on the analysis of‘healing leaders’ and ‘office angels’ (Frost, 2003; Kuper, 2004).

We are interested in the development, rather than the outcomes, of both positive andnegative organizational contexts. We suspect, considering previous research, that theoutcomes generated by positive individual and organizational processes may be favour-able (Fulmer et al., 2003; Judge et al., 2001) but make no claims about them. It is plausible that positive and negative processes mirror each other, but investigating sucha notion demands further empirical analysis. Despite the relevance of this contrast, weembrace the positive movement and strive to contribute to a better understanding of howpositivity grows in organizations. Hence our preferential focus on positive theoriesand interventions, while keeping an eye on the the negative, in order to avoid it.

Positive theories

Positive theories have been developed at several levels of analysis. The virtues ofpositive individuals have been extolled and individual traits have been shown toproduce favourable results. The traits that constitute a positive self-concept have been

Leadership 5(1) Articles

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found, in a meta-analytic study conducted by Judge et al. (2001), to significantly andpositively impact job satisfaction and job performance. Humility has been presentedas a trait of those leaders who create great companies (Collins, 2001). At the grouplevel, psychologically safe teams where interactions are more honest and genuinehave been demonstrated to be more conducive to learning (Edmondson, 1999). Theyconstitute the ‘holding environments’ that promote rich interpersonal relationships.These, in turn, facilitate collective learning and interpersonal trust (Kahn, 2005). Therole of authentic leaders has also been scrutinized and the positive impacts of authen-tic leaders on their teams have been studied (Luthans & Avolio, 2003). At the organiz-ational level scholars have investigated, for example, ‘truly healthy organizations’(Kriger & Hanson, 1999), ‘authentizotic organizations’ (Kets de Vries, 2001; Rego& Cunha, 2008), ‘virtuous organizations’ (Gavin & Mason, 2004) and ‘organiz-ational virtuousness’ (Cameron et al., 2004). In other words, organizations roughlycorresponding to the profile of the best companies to work for have been held up asan ideal to pursue, and as being more effective economically (Cameron et al., 2004;Fulmer et al., 2003) than a comparable sample of firms.

Positive interventions

Diagnostic and intervention approaches usually seek to locate sources of misfit andto reestablish a state of fit in the organizational system. The logic of diagnosis isemployed by Weisbord (1976), for example, to identify the sources of problems ormisfit and to solve them. Taking organizational systems as configurations,researchers and practitioners try to identify those subsystems that, for some reason,are not aligned with the configuration. In other words, they apply a disease model totheir interventions. The positive appreciative inquiry logic, however, springs from adifferent perspective. Instead of looking at the problems with the organization, itstresses the best of the organizational system (Powley et al., 2004). It suggests theneed to develop an imaginative and progressive view of organizations, based on theirpositive qualities (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987). This positive approach is expectedto reinforce what the organization is already good at, and to trigger a virtuous spiral.Given appreciative inquirers’ assumptions that we create the world we later discover,this positive look at organizations will presumably end up producing positiveorganizations. After this generic introduction, and given the inductive logic followedin this research, we describe the research first and ‘discover’ the theory thereafter.We basically seek to answer the question: where does positivity come from?

MethodTo analyse the dynamics of positive organizing, data were collected from 89 partici-pants through snowballing. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a diver-sity of people in different professions. The conversations were taped and transcribed inorder to facilitate interpretation. Of the participants, 47 were male. Their ages rangedfrom 24 to 61, with a mean age of 34. They worked in a variety of organizations andindustries (e.g. computers, banking, telecommunications, consulting, oil, centraladministration), holding a diversity of jobs (manager, controller, consultant, socialworker, scientific director, director of human resources). They all conducted theirprofessional activity in Portugal. Table 1 presents the characteristics of the sample.

Leadership Exploring the Role of Leader–Subordinate Interactions Cunha et al.

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Table 1 Description of participants

Participant Age Sex Profession Representative quote

1 26 M Manager When they tell me that I have not reached the goalsand when actually I was not informed about anygoals, the question is . . . what exactly did I fail toachieve?

2 27 M Manager It is you, with your initiative that build opportunities.3 35 F Journalist We agreed a salary and that’s what they pay me.

They also promised me a portable computer, but I’mstill waiting for it.

4 49 F Civil Servant We have the civil sector career logic. I cannotchange to the technical career. No surprises!

5 39 F Consultant MNC Everything is very well defined . . . we all know therules.

6 31 M Business Unit There is a lack of balance between benefits andDirector responsibilities.

7 32 M Senior Consultant People here do not put their hands in the fire for you.8 29 M Salesperson, There are no clear criteria for promotions . . . it

Pharmaceutical MNC depends if you are a ‘yes man’. . . . Threats are aconstant.

9 36 M Audiovisual Operator I always have the chance to give my opinion aboutthings.

10 32 F Superior Technician, There is no communication . . . we commit ourselvesCivil Servant very much . . . we show up before our clients and

then, nothing happens! This is all very unfair anddemotivating.

11 54 F Manager I always try to transmit the positive side of what wehave to do.

12 29 F Project Manager I would like my boss to give me spontaneousfeedback. I have to constantly keep asking ifeverything is OK.

13 45 F Accountant The relationship with my supervisor is superficial:good morning, good afternoon, business issues.

14 28 M CRM Consultant Recognition. More often than not it is all aboutrecognition.

15 30 M IT Consultant Yes, I’m happy. They are doing what they’vepromised.

16 27 F Bank-branch I feel recognized by the organization. As being partemployee of a family.

17 24 F Events Manager He [the supervisor] is a very ambitious person.18 42 M Manager, Consulting We were about 40 . . . when the third person left,

Firm everybody realized that something strange wasgoing on.

19 30 F Sales Director, I feel, from the organization’s hierarchy, that I’mAuto-company treated like a human being.

20 27 F IT Technician He [the supervisor] talks to me through the others.21 27 F Consultant There is a major concern with people . . . good

working environment, interesting projects.22 38 F Ballet Dancer We have an environment of trust, friendship and

mutual esteem.23 42 M Chemical Engineer It is difficult to improve anything, when your

Director does not help you.24 35 F Scientific Manager, On the weekend, I feel as I’m on the clouds, but

MNC Pharmaceutical Sunday afternoon, I start feeling anxious.25 32 F Physician A supervisor must have the same criteria to be fair,

whether it is good or bad for me.26 27 M Customer Support They’ve put me between a rock and a hard place: I

Technician, MNC IT should give up my studies to keep my job. It wassomething like a shock!

Continued

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Table 1 (Continued)


27 30 M Logistics Technician, Being recognized for my effort to help a customerMNC IT led me to consider that it is better to trust people,

rather than keeping a defensive attitude.28 33 F Project Manager If they [the results of performance evaluation] were

published, that would create a lot of conflicts.29 30 M Software Developer I know that sometimes I do a good job, others a bad

one, and I recognize that I have been evaluatedaccordingly.

30 34 M Lawyer I feel that I’m treated with dignity and respect, that Iam not just another one.

31 27 M Quality Consultant He [supervisor] is rude, technically incompetent andpersonally unstable. It is impossible to enjoy workingwith him.

32 49 M Middle Management, The company does not motivate, does not giveCentral Administration opportunities. . . . If the boss does not like you, you

don’t have a chance.33 45 F High School Teacher I am fully satisfied. But I want more!34 31 F Systems Analyst Some people, with good connections, are benefited.35 24 F Systems Quality I do not feel a lack of justice because I’m doing

Technician nothing special: only my job.36 42 M Dental Health I think that what is missing is leadership. Leadership

Technician by a complete professional.37 31 F Psychologist Some people are not competent in some

professional skills, such as interpersonal skills.38 30 M Manager Our credo is ‘work can be fun’!39 55 M Designer They have changed my office to a much worse

place. I don’t know why . . . we have no goals.40 26 F Accountant I have two supervisors. Their behaviors are

completely different. They are not an example.41 26 M Manager I have no doubt that this organization does not treat

people the way it should. But sometimes yoursupervisor does.

42 26 M Investment Banking I was forced to align my thinking with him [theEmployee supervisor].

43 26 F Bank Marketing There is a constant concern with the satisfaction andEmployee preferences of workers.

44 29 F HR Technician I got pregnant after six months in the company andI never heard any comments about it.

45 33 F Media Planner The needs of the company are the only thing thatcounts.

46 27 F Controller We are informed in due time about relevantdecisions and changes.

47 30 M Quality Department The way I was recruited was very impersonal. ICoordinator should have noticed that.

48 29 F Marketing Manager I was attracted by the organization, clarity andplanning showed by this company.

49 30 F IT Technician My supervisor is very direct. Sometimes somefeedback may make you feel uncomfortable, butthere is transparency though.

50 34 F Sustainable I realized that some things that my Director told meDevelopment Manager were not really true.

51 31 M Planning & Control There are some general goals. They told me theyManager wanted me to do this and that. They are realistic but

require hard work.52 30 M Chemical Engineer The management, after a merger with my company,

clearly preferred the team from the company theycame from.

Continued

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Table 1 (Continued)


53 30 M Computer Engineer I remember my boss protected me. Well, not exactlyprotected me, but defended me in front of themarketing people.

54 32 M Inspector, Central There is dialogue, we discuss things.Administration

55 56 F Management Once, they listened to me. Now, it is only betweenAssistant them.

56 27 F Finance Controller There is no discrimination here.57 29 F Project Manager My predecessor in this job had a lighter workload

and one person to help.58 55 F Operations Manager It is important to feel that your commitment is

rewarded.59 41 M Operations Director My new boss is harsh, rude, tends to disrespect

people. She’s a ‘bulldozer’!60 30 M Sales Representative I have many reasons to complain, since the

geeographic separation. I’m in Oporto and mysupervisor in Lisbon. Dialogue is far from fluid. I’mignored up there.

61 30 M Controller Things often come defined from the top. . . . Hisrole often consists in executing his orders.

62 43 M Sales Director Every rule is clear. There are on-line documents, withwarnings when things are not being done withinthe deadlines.

63 35 M Sales Representative Sincerity, in organizations? It is something that mustbe used in the right measure.

64 33 F Nurse Our supervisor rarely leaves her office to see howwe are doing.

65 36 F Nurse Opportunities are well-publicized so that peoplemay apply.

66 28 M Financial Analyst He (the supervisor) rapidly discovered a favoritewithin the group

67 29 M IT Technician I still give priority, the right of option, so to speak, tothis company.

68 61 F Social Services Worker If they assess us or not, I don’t know. They saynothing about it. . . . It’s all a mystery.

69 31 F Auditor People appreciate well-defined leadership. Withclear ideas.

70 30 F Management Board members have consideration for my opinion.Assistant

71 29 M Auditor What they do to others, they may also do to you.So, it’s better to be careful.

72 27 F Marketing Analyst, My supervisor is a great coach . . . fair,MNC communicates very well, is very transparent, quite a

role model!73 27 M Sales Representative, It was much like speaking to a wall . . . she blames

Pharmaceutical MNC me for her mistakes.74 36 F Product Manager, There is no fair play, it is an open competition.

PharmaceuticalCompany

75 25 F University Researcher I was really angry. I told who needed to be told. Butamong us there is no . . . I think each of us has his/her work to do and that’s all.

76 27 M Consultant I think that the whole context is highly stimulating.77 57 F Manager, They spend a whole day listening to our input. But

State-owned in the end, they have not accepted even a singleOrganization suggestion.

Continued

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The semi-structured interviews followed a predetermined but loose structure. Theinterviewing philosophy was, following Alvesson’s (2002) terminology, more‘romantic’ than ‘neopositivist’. In other words, we were looking for lived experienceand deep meaning rather than for context-free truth. After a brief biographical sketch,participants were invited to think about their professional experience, to classify itas, generally speaking, positive or negative, and then to explain why, using a criticalincident to illustrate their evaluation.

With this critical incident approach we sought to understand the antecedents andthe process leading to situations that people would qualify as positive or negative.We believe that the selection of critical incidents elicits events that are important tothose who lived them. As such, our findings are based on episodes having a majorimpact on people’s view of the paths to positivity/negativity. The retrieval of signifi-cant events led to signs of emotionality, especially during the conversations onnegative events. In some cases, people expressed the anger they were feeling towardthe agent that triggered the negative dynamic and – as we will discuss below – theirsupervisor tended to prevail in this regard. A few people even said that they were onlythen realizing how unfair the situation was, even when it took place some time ago.

As the incidents were being collected, the same stories were repeated over andover, and new information was not being reported to challenge the stability of theinterpretation (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Major sources for guiding data analysisincluded Flanagan (1954), Glaser and Strauss (1967), Mintzberg (1979), Roos (2002)


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Table 1 (Continued)


78 44 M Salesman Yes, I trust the company. It is a stable company witha future, whose decisions take worker well-beinginto account.

79 43 M Middle Management What is missing is dialogue, clear procedures.80 32 M Consultant Job satisfaction is as low as possible. In contrast, the

firm’s communication machine, or better,propaganda machine . . . works. It works so wellthat the company has been considered as one of thenation’s best companies to work for.

81 50 M Hospital Manager This is the profession I chose. . . . Yes, yes, yes, I ama motivated person.

82 27 M Consultant There is a big annual survey aiming to collectpeoples’ assessment of the firm.

83 30 M Engineer, Utility My supervisor often takes rabbits out of the hat.Engineer

84 46 M Consultant It´s better to keep your mouth shut. You never knowwhat his [supervisor] reaction will be.

85 40 M HR Manager, Banking I’m not saying that it is paradise, but the concernwith people is genuine.

86 28 M Assistant to the We have a great proximity, we invade each other’sBoard, Private Hospital office.

87 26 M Financial Analyst When I give my opinion, it tends not to beappreciated, in comparison with other peoples’opinions.

88 36 F Entrepreneur At the company they did not accept it [a debilitatingdisease] and didn’t approve my visits to the doctor.

89 34 M Engineer His nomination was a big shock for me.

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and Alvesson and Deetz (2000). The procedure consisted of three major phases: (1)eliciting critical incidents on the dynamics of organizing; (2) comparing betweentheory and data until the adequate conceptual categories stabilized; and (3) derivingpatterns associating the categories discovered in the previous phase.

In analysing the transcribed interviews, we used a dialectical process (Weston etal., 2001), that is a recursive, iterative process in separating the conceptual categoriesfrom the critical incidents. The first author developed an initial list of categories,which was then sent to the other two researchers. After revisiting the transcripts, wemet to discuss the initial list of categories and, through consensus, some categorieswere dismissed and new categories were proposed, as well as interactions betweenthem. The first author used this new list to make another review of the transcripts andidentify finer meanings and evidence to support or challenge the suggestedcategories. This revised list was fed back to the other researchers, followed by groupdiscussion. The process was repeated until we felt confident that the set of categories,which by now had four meta-categories and six pairs of inherent dimensions, as wellas relational patterns amongst them, had stabilized and this collective process ofsocial construction was mature enough to lead to a sufficiently comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of positive organizing.

To improve the adequacy of our argument, several additional measures weretaken. We used triangulation by collecting data from a very diverse sample, in termsof age, gender, economic sector, organization and type of job. Moreover, someparticipants were able and willing to read the first draft of the paper and commenton or question the meaningfulness of our interpretation. Furthermore, the researchwas presented in workshops and executive education sessions. The interpretation wasconsidered acceptable in these various feedback exercises. In the following section,we discuss the two major phases of the data analysis:

Step 1: the extraction of conceptual categories from the critical incidents.

Step 2: grounded theorizing for combining the themes extracted in Step 1, intopatterns able to uncover the more salient explanations.

Results and discussionWe start this section with a presentation of the themes that emerged as the moresalient and stable ones from the interviews.

Step 1: critical themes

Six themes emerged that captured the essence of most of the episodes – positive andnegative – revealed by our subjects. Interestingly, they can be understood as ‘pairs’,with one of the elements typically appearing in positive elements, and the other inthe negative ones. These conceptual pairs are, in no special order, recognition/indifference, communication/silence, interaction/separation, confidence/distrust,loyalty/betrayal and organizational transparency/organizational secrecy. Despite thevariation in the stories we heard, some of the following elements were present inmany episodes. As such, we interpreted this finding as an indication that they play asignificant role in how the paths to positivity and negativity progress.


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Recognition/indifferenceThis dimension refers to the feeling of being recognized as making a contribution tothe organization versus the lack of interest of the supervisor toward what peopleviewed as a contribution. Recognition, both emotional and intellectual, has been indi-cated as associated with organizational justice and fair process (Kim & Mauborgne,1998). When people feel that the organization does not provide the adequate recog-nition, they express some form of psychological suffering. The following quote isillustrative: ‘I have worked hard, really hard, sometimes I didn’t even have the timeto have lunch or to take care of the family. . . . I feel I’ve been used. My heart isbleeding’ (Participant number 57, or P57). Recognition, on the contrary, stimulatespositive feelings: ‘I feel from the hierarchy that I’m treated as a human being, thatwhat I do is appreciated. It all starts in the top managers themselves. They transmitin a very informal, yet very explicit way, the recognition for the effort people put intheir work’ (P70).

Communication/silenceThis dimension refers to how the supervisor communicates with people. Some super-visors use honest communication and provide valuable information and feedback,whereas others keep the group in a state of ignorance regarding relevant issues (e.g.the employee’s performance assessment). Communication is sometimes usedconstructively. As reported by a 27-year-old consultant in a large multinationalconsulting firm (P21), when feedback is based on rigorous facts, not on impressions,and when negative feedback is provided with constructive intentions (e.g. accom-panied by coaching and support), people feel that the company really cares aboutthem. The reason why clear and honest communication is valued has to do with thefact that it signals care, authenticity and transparency, limits competition and disputesinside the organization and fosters psychological safety (Brown & Leigh, 1996). Inthese situations, as a participant pointed out, people ‘don’t have to adopt defensivetactics’. When silence prevails, people feel confused and lost: ‘I have many reasonsto complain, since the geographic separation. I’m here and my supervisor 300kmaway. Dialogue is far from fluid. I’m ignored up there’ (P60).

Interaction/separationThis theme refers to the quality of the interpersonal relationships and describes theextent to which a leader is accessible and interacts frequently with team members.Some leaders are viewed as accessible, others as detached and isolated. Interactionwith the supervisor translates organizational rules into daily practices. Good inter-actions buffer people from bad policies. Bad interactions amplify bad rules andneutralize the advantages of good ones (Cameron, et al., 2004); and small causes mayturn into big consequences (Plowman et al., 2007). Consider, for example, the following case:

My supervisor does not act like a leader. Recently, he sent an email to everysalesperson saying that we are paid to sell and that if we do not sell, we willsuffer the consequences. There are many ways to say this very same thing. Hecould have sent the same message with a positive tone. That way, the messagewould have a positive effect, it would have energized us, it would signal that he


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was on our side. Given the way he put things, we could only think that he wasgoing to fire us the next month. (P73)

If sometimes managers actively produce negative results, on other occasions they dothe same passively. This may occur when people approach managers looking for helpand do not receive it – something that tends to damage the relationship betweensupervisor and subordinate (Cunha, 2002). The same sales representative mentionedabove described a conversation with his supervisor as ‘speaking to a wall’ (P73). Themost positive situations in terms of learning and feeling respected occur when resultsare not satisfactory but the treatment is perceived as fair and respectful. On thecontrary, anger was triggered by unfair treatment and offences from above, a findingthat supports the results of Fitness (2000) and the evidence about organizationaljustice (Colquitt et al., 2001; Cropanzano & Greenberg, 1997; Weiss et al., 1999). Asa consequence, some companies slide into contexts that limit the commitmentbetween people and their organizations.

Confidence/distrustThis dimension describes the emotional atmosphere experienced during the processleading to the episode. Feelings of confidence or flow contrasted with climates ofdistrust, fear and oppression. ‘Repression works’, said a 30-year-old controller in aconstruction company (P61). Invited to explain the meaning of ‘repression’ hementioned a constellation of factors such as the lack of clear goals, deficit ofcommunication with the supervisor, lack of clear criteria for evaluation, and thesupervisor’s style, characterized as ‘old school type’. As a result, he reports situationssuch as the difficulty in uncovering errors (‘If we were not afraid of repression, errorscould be seen as a stimulus, we would report them easily and confidently’) and thediscretionary use of power, namely in terms of performance assessment, where the‘momentary sensitivity of the supervisor’ plays a significant role. Similar remarksabout what an interviewee described as ‘bulldozer-style leadership’ were cited (P59).The style often results, as a principal in a professional services company pointed out,in aggressive organizational climates: ‘We are always waiting to be attacked’ (P84).The scientific director of a pharmaceutical firm said that her supervisor was so threatening that every Sunday afternoon she started to feel the anxiety (P24). As aconsequence of this leadership behaviour, as one participant put it, ‘I always try toprotect myself from being beaten’ (P84).

Other examples of leadership by fear suggest that some leader behaviours actuallydirect teams onto a negative path: ‘He is not polite, is technically incompetent andlacks emotional intelligence. He is very insecure and is always defending himself.Sometimes he deceives people. For example, he appropriates other people’s merits.In that sense, he is dishonest’ (P31). Other subjects report their dissatisfaction withthe lack of coaching and support from supervisors: ‘They are only concerned withprofits and the bottom line. Nothing else matters. They don’t care about the qualityof work, if things are well done or not. Technical support is zero’ (P12). These effectsare in stark contrast with the consequences of confidence: ‘I have been treated fairlywhen I did something wrong. These situations have a special impact because theyare the most valuable from a learning perspective’ (P29).


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Loyalty/betrayalTwo contrary types of attachment with the organization emerged: loyalty andbetrayal. An interesting aspect of this dimension resides in the fact that the sense ofloyalty or betrayal is often expressed toward the organization but is stimulated by theleader’s role. Thus, feelings toward the leader may spill over to the organization. Aconsultant felt betrayed when his former supervisor left the firm to launch a newbusiness with some of his former subordinates. This consultant was left behind. Helater pointed out that, ‘It was not being left behind. It was the lack of honesty. He [thesupervisor] left and then people started to leave, one after the other’ (P18). He claimsthat the supervisor developed a sense of ‘family’ within his team, and that the ‘family’was destroyed by the same person who created it. Another example: when the partici-pant asked his supervisor’s permission to study management in a universityprogramme at the end of the day, he met with strong resistance. He was surprisedbecause the opportunity had been discussed before and approval was promised. Thisnew attitude was perceived as a broken promise, a disruption of expectations, asevidence that the supervisor should not be trusted.

Organizational cynicism, resulting from the perception that managers should notbe trusted (Dean et al., 1998) also erupted as a result of the perception that the rulesof the organization had been changed while people were ‘playing the game’. Aconsultant for a multinational professional services firm felt that the organizationalclimate in the company was negative because a new career system had been imple-mented. The system held back career movements and was perceived, again, as abroken promise (people worked hard because they expected rapid advancement).Additionally, people knew what to expect. After the new system was implemented,they did not: ‘job satisfaction is as low as possible. In contrast, the firm’s communi-cation machine, or better, propaganda machine . . . works. It works so well that thecompany has been considered as one of the nation’s best companies to work for’(P80). In contrast, organizations may build good intentions and feelings of loyalty

In my first year in the company I was invited on the annual trip – to Brazil, thatyear. . . . At the time, I did not deserve that prize, but the fact is that the companyconquered me at that very moment. This feeling has lasted until today (P2).

Organizational transparency/organizational secrecyThis refers to the clarity of the organization’s rules and polices. In some cases theywere viewed as clear, whereas in others they were taken as obscure: ‘everything is amystery. We are simply not informed’ (P68), and she adds: ‘everything could changewith open communication. Presently, people are afraid to talk’. Secrets and myster-ies are also mentioned with regard to performance management. As an engineer in autilities firm observed, the assessment process is ‘merely theatrical’ and the result isdependent on the supervisor’s criteria (P83). As the process at the company level isviewed as ‘merely bureaucratic’, supervisors have a great deal of discretion. They donot have to justify their decisions and, as the same person remarked, sometimes they‘pull some rabbits out of the magic hat’, meaning that they have access to informationthat no one else has and that this information can be used at will: ‘when they tell methat I have not reached the goals and when actually I was not informed about anygoals, the question is... what exactly did I fail to achieve?’ (P1).


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A man in a hygiene products company, who felt unfairly treated, said that theinformation he had access to was ‘broadcast’ via the so-called ‘Radio Corridor’(P79). As a result, he informed his supervisor six years ago that he felt his salaryshould be increased. As a response he was told that ‘the company’s door is reallybig . . .’. From that moment on he did not raise the issue again. He added that theabove situation showed him that the company considered that ‘my value is zero’.When questioned about how he dealt with this, the answer was, ‘I just don’t care’.The literature suggests that positive organizing thrives on clarity (Cohen and Prusak,2001), not on mystery, as seems to be the case with the situations mentioned by theseinterviewees.

Another consequence of the lack of clarity is the increase in organizational politicking. A product manager in a pharmaceutical company described how politi-cal games thrived in the absence of transparency: ‘there is a lot of politics. Relation-ships are informal but not transparent. The atmosphere is really bad. But on thesurface we have . . . la vie en rose. Everybody invites everybody for a coffee’ (P75).In other cases, the organization created clear rules and enforced their application.When these rules were perceived as aimed at benefitting the employees, their effectcould be especially positive: ‘we have long and demanding work days. To reward oureffort, the company gives us some extra days off. These days, once defined, cannotbe changed. That is very important because in this business there is a lot of pressureto respect deadlines and therefore there is some tendency to align private life withthe company’s interest’ (P14).

Step 2: Patterns

Having described the major themes in our data, we next present the relational patternsamongst them. As stated in the method section, the iterative process we used toanalyse the transcripts of the critical incidents, in which we collectively sought tofind the underlying dynamics of positive organizing, led us to the identification ofpairs of dimensions associated with the six categories, as well as to the relationalpatterns amongst them. These patterns are not dissociated from the dimensions, butfor clarity purposes, we must describe them separately. Four distinct relationalpatterns emerged, two leading to positivity and the other two to negativity. It isimportant to observe that the previous conceptual themes organize in a stable way:the themes mentioned by an interviewee tended to be strongly associated in terms oftheir sign. For example, recognition tended to be coupled with confidence or loyalty,but not with fear or feelings of betrayal. In the same vein, indifference was associ-ated with fear or betrayal but not with confidence or loyalty. Organizational trans-parency or secrecy was not subjected to the same kind of relationship found in theother conceptual themes. In other words, more or less, transparency was not necess-arily associated with positive or negative incidents. This allows us to consider that,broadly speaking, there is one organizational category (organizational transparencyor secrecy) and five leadership-related categories (Table 2) that reflect a detached ora considerate style of leadership.

The two main factors (leadership and organizational rules) can then be taken asindependent, but the concepts composing each of these factors are interdependent(i.e. confidence tends to appear together with loyalty, but not with isolation). We


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continue the discussions with the presentation of the four patterns that were identi-fied, which were the following:

Path 1: clear rules + considerate leader → positive organizing

Path 2: clear rules + detached leader → negative organizing

Path 3: secretive rules + considerate leader → positive organizing

Path 4: secretive rules + detached leader → negative organizing

Path 1: clear rules + considerate leader → positive organizingThe situation identified as the most favourable by the participants was the one involv-ing considerate leaders acting with clear and fair organizational rules. This patternwas characterized by the presence of most of the positive categories identified above:individual recognition, honest communication, easy interaction, confidence, a senseof loyalty and clear rules. This dynamic has similarities with the contexts describedby Lawler (2003) as ‘virtuous spirals’: considerate leaders apply a set of clear rulesleading to a cycle where people feel energized, involved and sometimes in a state offlow, thus fostering organizational health (Quick & Macik-Frey, 2007) and collectivethriving (Spreitzer & Sutcliffe, 2007). This was described by our interviewees as thesituation that best utilized their skills and talents. This virtuous combination corre-sponds to what may be best described as positive organizing. People felt engaged bya common goal, the leader was viewed as a facilitator, politicking was not a majorissue, and personal defenses were dormant. In other words, considerate leaders andclear rules create energetic and intensely positive environments.

Path 2: clear rules + detached leader → negative organizingA second path, associated with negativity, was characterized by the combination ofclear rules and a detached leader. Despite the existence of clear organizational rules,people did not show such feelings as confidence, loyalty and so forth. Relationshipswith the leader were distant and defensive. The result of this dynamic was perceivedby people as frustrating and negative. Employees did not express a highly intensenegative emotion but a mild negativity. This state can be interpreted according to thetheories of organizational justice (Colquitt et al., 2001): rule clarity guaranteed areasonable degree of procedural fairness, but the detached behaviour of the leaderproduced feelings of injustice due to the lack of interactional fairness.


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Table 2 Leadership behaviours and organizational rules: the two factors leading topositivity/negativity

Leadership Organizational rules

Considerate Detached Clear Secret

Recognition Indifference Organizational OrganizationalCommunication Silence Transparency SecrecyInteraction IsolationConfidence DistrustLoyalty Betrayal

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Path 3: secretive rules + considerate leader → positive organizingThe third path we identified was characterized by a combination of unclear, secre-tive organizational rules and a considerate leader. It mirrors the previous path: despitethe lack of an adequate context, the leader does what he or she can to produce apositive organizational setting. Given the difficulties of such a task, people tended toexpress appreciation toward the leader and the situation was labelled by intervieweesas positive (P61). When this description was provided, people did not express a greatenthusiasm toward the organization; hence, the energetic levels were low but, withinthe group, feelings of recognition, honest communication, easy interaction, confi-dence and loyalty were expressed. People viewed the leader as a buffer, someonewho defended the group against external adversity (Gabriel, 1999; see also quote ofP5 in Table 1) and who provided adequate and fair explanations (Cropanzano &Greenberg, 1997). This created a positive attitude toward the leader and a sense ofbelonging to a team that prevailed over the secrecy of the rules and the contextprovided by the organization, which is congruent with data suggesting that inter -actional justice can reduce the negative impact of procedural injustice (Skarlicki andFolger, 1997). This pattern, and the previous one, reveal the role of leaders in theconstruction of positive organizations. Considerate leaders protect the group from anegative context, whereas detached leaders neutralize the positive context aroundthem. Leaders, in this sense, may play a particularly important role in their sub -ordinates’ construction of the positive organization. Given the ‘ambiguity’ and‘symbolism’ associated with leadership (Pfeffer, 1977), people’s perceptions ofpositive or negative organizing may be a consequence of their interpretation of leaderbehaviour. Hence, the associations between ‘good’ leaders/positive organizations and‘bad’ leaders/negative organizations.

Path 4: secretive rules + detached leader → negative organizingThis is the situation that elicited negative emotionality during the interviews.People’s stories and ex post reactions evoked the notion of destructive emotionsproduced by toxic leaders (Frost, 2003). When subjects felt that the situation wastainted with generalized injustice, their feelings were the most negative and, in somecases, surfaced during the interviews. There was, they said, no reason to express anykind of gratitude toward the organization or the leader. Secrecy was practiced by theimmediate leader and dominated the organization. People expressed anger and, asmentioned above, sometimes the dormant feelings were clearly evident when theepisode was narrated. The consequences of negativity have been explored by otherauthors: ‘much employee disengagement and lack of performance results fromfeeling cheated, of feeling they have not been actively involved and consulted indecisions, such as those relating to benefits, that they believe are crucial to them’(Gratton, 2004: 23). Lack of participation and the feeling of being cheated were thesource of negative attitudes and emotions and constituted an inevitable path to negativity.

These four patterns resonate Bruch and Ghoshal’s (2003) description of theseveral forms of organizational energy. Clear rules and considerate leaders tend tofocus people’s attention on goals. This may facilitate the creation of a productive orpassionate organization. Clear rules and detached leaders may create a feeling ofresignation, characterized by low intensity negative energy, at least in collectivist and


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high-power distance cultures, such as the one in which this study was conducted, inwhich ‘obeying a paternalistic leader may be more crucial than following specificprocedures’ (McFarlin & Sweeney, 2001: 86). Secretive rules and considerate leadersmay create a comfort zone: people feel protected but are not enthusiastic about theorganization. Secretive rules and detached leaders create aggressive organizationalclimates, marked by high-intensity negative energy. If our interpretation is correct,organizational energy results from the way in which individuals ‘read’ the organiz-ational context, and particularly a highly salient element in that context: theirimmediate leader. Positive leaders are the agents of virtuous organizing. As depictedin Figure 1, the path from more negative to more positive zones can be a result of anincrease in the levels of leadership consideration and organizational clarity. Theirimpact, however, may be leveraged or inhibited by the context surrounding the team,namely organizational policies and their impacts on feelings of justice or injustice.

ConclusionSome organizations establish relationships with their members that are so negativethat negativity can spread within the company even to non-work-related events. Forexample, one of our subjects attributed the dissolution of his marriage to thecompany: ‘we worked so hard! Some days I almost didn’t go home. Result: mymarriage failed and my life lost its meaning’ (P23). Other companies, on the contrary,add meaning to the life of their members. According to our findings, a major influ-ence on the development of a positive or negative process is leader behaviour. Thisis in line with research showing that the immediate supervisor is the major stimulusfor positive or negative action (e.g., Bateman & Organ, 1983; Cardona, 2000;Moorman, 1991). Farh et al. (1990) also stressed that the supervisor has a determin-ing or mediating role in many of the returns to the subordinate. He or she enacts both


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Figure 1 The Z path to positive organizing

Leadership

Detached

Opaque

OrganizationalRules

+ + +

–– –

Clear

Considerate

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formal and informal procedures or organized activities that influence a person’s senseof fairness in the social contract. Supervisors’ behaviours are the main indicator usedby employees to evaluate how the organization treats and appreciates them. As Wongand Lui (2007) pointed out, employees ‘leave managers, not organizations’.

Leader behaviour is able to buffer the team from secretive rules or to neutralizethe positive effects of clear rules. When leaders express a reduced willingness tolisten to their team members, they create a process that may be difficult to reverse.When questioned about how they deal with situations that they perceive as negative,people often offer some variation on the following quotation: ‘have I discussed thesituation with my boss? He is not the kind of person open enough to this sort ofdiscussion’, as reported by an engineer (P83). The supervisor is the ‘translator’ oforganizational policies and rules. The way these are appropriated by the leader andtransmitted to the team help to make differences between positive and negative organizing. One person in our sample mentioned that, even aware that his super visorwas applying the rules received from headquarters in another country, he was‘puzzled’ by the acritical acceptance of those orders that, in his view, were notadequate to the country’s culture.

In terms of practice, we offer two major conclusions: first, that leader behaviouris crucial in the creation of positive organizational contexts – with ‘good’ leadersbeing able to neutralize an inappropriate organizational context; and, second, thatproductive organizations, in the sense of the high-intensity positively energizedorganizations described by Bruch and Ghoshal (2003), are more likely to exist whenthe considerate leaders that create positive contexts are supported by clear organiz-ational policies and rules that facilitate the creation of perceptions of organizationaljustice and foster ‘organizational health’ (Quick & Macik-Frey, 2007). Some organiz-ational processes have traditionally been conducted in secretive ways. Aram andWalochik (1996), for example, explained how the lack of clarity of performancemanagement systems allowed managers to use their power in a discretionary way.

This article makes several contributions to the organizational literature. It helps tounderstand people’s implicit theories of positive and negative organizing. We alsoadd to the literature on how leaders affect the feelings of their followers, a researchstream that Brief and Weiss (2002) qualified as embryonic. We provide evidenceconsistent with the idea that the main internal problems in firms arise from a feelingof not being fairly treated and respected by the organization (Vera & Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004). We noticed that the leader’s behaviour proves to be crucial for theevaluation of the firm as a whole: leaders personify the firm. In this sense, consider-ing the extraordinary nature of leaders as represented by followers (Gabriel, 1997),they have a significant emotional impact on their followers even when they do notexpect it. As expressed by Alvesson and Sveningsson (2003), their mundane behav-iour is submitted to a process of ‘extra-ordinarization’; hence, their substantiveemotional impact.

We make no inferences regarding employee performance in any of the extractedpaths. Some research suggests that positive dynamics facilitate better performance(e.g. Cameron, 2003; Quick & Macik-Frey, 2007; Spreitzer & Sutcliffe, 2007), butwe do not take any sides on that issue. As such, it should not be inferred from ourstudy that positivity paths are necessarily superior in terms of performance results.However, it does not diminish the relevance of the conclusions, in our perspective,


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given the importance of human relations in the workplace. With this research, wealso contribute to the emerging topic of organizational energy. We found an interest-ing parallel between the four patterns uncovered here and Bruch and Ghoshal’s(2003) work on psychological energy. The findings also help to understand thesources of collective thriving (Spreitzer & Sutcliffe, 2007).

Some characteristics of the study should be taken as potential limitations. The resultswe have obtained should be read with caution regarding generalization. Data werecollected in a national culture characterized by strong affiliation needs, high feminin-ity and high power distance, which may have influenced sensitivity to leader behaviour(Hofstede, 1980; Jesuino, 2002; McClelland, 1961). As such, the prominent impact ofleader behaviour should be interpreted with care before attempts of generalization.Some authors suggest, for example, that organizational and leadership secretivenessmay be more common in some national contexts than in others, a proposition worthyof further research (Li & Yeh, 2007). Despite this cautionary note, the importance of‘transparent’ interaction with others has been considered in distinct cultural settings(Avolio et al., 2004). Other limitations of the study are a consequence of the sample,which is biased toward people with qualified professions.The validity of these interpret-ations to different samples should not be taken for granted, and future work is necess-ary to test that possibility. A third limitation, associated with the method, refers to thefact that people presented ex post narratives of events. We may not assume that theseare ‘objective’ descriptions of the events; people tend to retrospectively justify theiraction in order to preserve order and self-esteem. Events may have been biased –perhaps inadvertently, or not – in that regard. Another possible limitation emerged asthe study proceeded. As one of our anonymous reviewers noted, ‘the way in whichmost interviewees approach the question was that they over-emphasised the negativebehaviours they accounted for in their “leaders”’; and he/she pointed out the ironythat a piece of research into positivity might have drawn most of its data from inter-viewees’ experiences of negativity. This is an important observation, and one thatconfirms the potentially greater significance of negative events, something that maybe studied in further research. Further research may also consider the fact that in manyof the responses, the interviewees apparently articulated an implicit ‘parent–child’model of the relationship between them and their ‘leaders’: ‘repression’, ‘waiting tobe attacked’, ‘they are only concerned with profit and the bottom line’ and ‘protect-ing myself from being beaten’. The nature of these conceptualizations of the relation-ship between leaders and subordinates may also deserve attention.1

In this project, we were looking for meaning (Alvesson & Deetz, 2000), and wefound our meaning in the meaning provided by others. But, again, this does not ruleout the possibility of alternative plausible explanations, nor the possibility that the‘acceptability’ of our explanations resulted from a process of social constructionwoven together amongst ourselves, the participants and the audiences with whom weshared the ideas. To wrap this point up, we do not assume the relationship betweendata and the outside world to be unproblematic (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2000). Withthis in mind, we hope to have contributed to the emerging literature on positiveleadership studies, namely on the buffering and amplifying effects of positive leaderbehaviour (Caza et al., 2004), as well as on the likely positive consequences ofauthentic (Avolio et al., 2004), ethical (Treviño & Brown, 2007) and transcendentalleadership (Cardona, 2000). Our analysis of the interaction between leaders and their


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organizational contexts in the construction of positive (or, for that matter, negative)states of organizing is one step in the direction of the micro-processes facilitating theemergence and persistence of psychological capital.

Acknowledgements

We thank João Vieira da Cunha for his comments and suggestions. Miguel Cunhagratefully acknowledges support from Instituto Nova Forum. And we are grateful forthe helpful comments and suggestions received from the Leadership team.

Note

1. We are grateful to a reviewer for this suggestion.

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Miguel Pina e Cunha is associate professor at the Faculdade de Economia, Univer-sidade Nova de Lisboa. He holds a PhD in management from Tilburg University.[email: [email protected]]

Rita Campos e Cunha is associate professor at the Faculdade de Economia, Univer-sidade Nova de Lisboa. She holds a PhD in management from The University ofManchester, institute of Science and Technology. [email: [email protected]]

Arménio Rego is assistant professor at the Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal. Heholds a PhD in management from ISCTE (Instituto Superior de Ciencias do Trabalhoe da Empresa. [email: [email protected]]


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Exploring the Role of Leader Subordinate Interactions in the Construction of ORG Positivity

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