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Goal-Focused Leadership, Leader-Member Exchange, and Task Performance: The Moderating Effects of Goal Orientations and Emotional Exhaustion

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Abstract

An important role of leaders is to foster followers’ performance through goal setting processes, which involve reciprocal interactions between leaders and followers (Locke & Latham in American Psychologist, 57, 705–717, 2002). Drawing upon the theory of role-making processes and a resource allocation framework, this study examined (a) how leaders’ goal setting activities interact with employees’ goal orientations and emotional exhaustion in predicting leader-member exchange (LMX), and (b) how LMX intervenes between goal-focused leadership and followers’ task performance. Hypotheses were tested using data collected from a sample of 187 leader-subordinate dyads from South Korea. Follower learning goal orientation (LGO) weakened the positive relationship between goal-focused leadership and LMX and, indirectly, task performance, contributing to the literature on goal orientations by revealing a “backfire effect” of LGO. Additionally, employee emotional exhaustion also reduced the positive relationship of goal-focused leadership to LMX and, ultimately, task performance. Integrating the theory of role-making processes from the LMX literature and a resource allocation perspective on self-regulation behavior, the present findings indicate that LMX is a key process through which goal-focused leadership relates to follower task performance. Furthermore, this study contributes to the goal-focused leadership literature by pointing out the importance of adopting an interactional perspective on leaders’ influence. Specifically, findings suggest that followers with divergent characteristics in terms of goal orientations and resourcefulness respond differently to leaders’ goal setting activities. This is one of the few studies that have examined the mechanisms and boundary conditions by which leaders’ goal-focused behaviors relate to followers’ task performance.

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Notes

  1. While VandeWalle (VandeWalle, 1997; VandeWalle, Cron, & Slocum, 2001) proposed a three-factor model of goal orientations (learning, performance-prove, and performance-avoid), we focus on the LGO-PGO distinction which has more relevance to this study than PAGO which has a maladaptive nature. However, as recommended by others (Payne et al., 2007), PAGO was included as a control variable (cf. control variables subsection).

  2. Note that, based on the inspection of modification indices associated with the initial CFA for employee reported scales, three correlated item residuals were added (one for goal-focused leadership and two for emotional exhaustion) while in the CFA for manager scales, two correlated item residuals were added (one for LMX and one for task performance). All models were estimated using these specifications.

  3. As no manager completed LMX and task performance ratings for more than one subordinate, the data do not violate the independence assumption, suggesting that multilevel modeling is not required.

  4. Note that all the results pertaining to hypothesis tests reported in Tables 4 and 5 remained unchanged when PAGO or PGO or both were dropped from the analyses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, HEC Montreal, 3000 Chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montreal, Quebec, H3T 2A7, Canada

    Dongkyu Kim

  2. Department of People and Organisations, NEOMA Business School, 59 Rue Pierre Taittinger 1A-049, Reims, 51100, France

    Dongwon Choi

  3. Department of Management, HEC Montreal, Montréal, Quebec, Canada

    Christian Vandenberghe

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Kim, D., Choi, D. & Vandenberghe, C. Goal-Focused Leadership, Leader-Member Exchange, and Task Performance: The Moderating Effects of Goal Orientations and Emotional Exhaustion. J Bus Psychol 33, 645–660 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-017-9516-7

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