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A Lifespan Perspective on Leadership

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Aging Workers and the Employee-Employer Relationship

Abstract

In this chapter, we present a lifespan model of leadership that outlines how leader and follower age as well as age-related changes in leader traits and characteristics, leader behaviors, and follower attribution and identification processes may influence leadership effectiveness. First, we describe how leader traits and characteristics change with age and how these developmental changes may impact on leader behaviors and, subsequently, leadership effectiveness. Specifically, we discuss age-related changes in leaders’ task competence, interpersonal attributes, and motivation to lead. We particularly focus on how generativity – a set of interconnected motives pertaining to establishing and guiding future generations – may emerge as an important concern among older leaders. Second, we review theoretical approaches that help explain how and why leader age and age-related traits and characteristics, follower age, as well as leader-follower age differences may influence follower attribution and identification processes. Third, we outline a number of boundary conditions of the effects proposed by our lifespan model of leadership, including leader-follower relationship duration, situational characteristics, as well as the cultural, social, and historical context. We conclude the chapter by discussing our model’s implications for future research and organizational practice.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE120100359) from the Australian Research Council (ARC) awarded to the first author, and by a Winter Research scholarship from The University of Queensland awarded to the third author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, The University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Hannes Zacher

  2. Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

    Michael Clark

  3. School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

    Ellen C. Anderson

  4. The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

    Oluremi B. Ayoko

Authors
  1. Hannes Zacher
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  2. Michael Clark
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  3. Ellen C. Anderson
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  4. Oluremi B. Ayoko
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Correspondence to Hannes Zacher .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom

    P. Matthijs Bal

  2. Department of Human Resource Studies, University of Tilburg, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Dorien T.A.M. Kooij

  3. H. John Heinz III College, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Denise M. Rousseau

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Zacher, H., Clark, M., Anderson, E.C., Ayoko, O.B. (2015). A Lifespan Perspective on Leadership. In: Bal, P., Kooij, D., Rousseau, D. (eds) Aging Workers and the Employee-Employer Relationship. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08007-9_6

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