Leadership is a key topic of interest in fields such as management, psychology, politics, and social sciences. The academic discussion on leadership has been ongoing for more than a century. Leadership is a social and goal-oriented influence process (Fischer, Dietz, & Antonakis, 2017) in which leaders use their personal influence to inspire their followers to understand and accept a collective goal, develop passion and commitment toward work tasks, and strive to achieve a collective goal (Yukl & Gardner, 2020). Accordingly, leadership is essential for group success (Nicolaides et al., 2014). Excellent leadership is crucial for implementing effective decision-making processes that enable individuals, teams, or organizations to adapt to or overcome volatile environments and crises (Harms, Credé, Tynan, Leon, & Jeung, 2017).

Studies on leadership have proposed numerous leadership theories that focus on behavioral models or leadership tendencies to elucidate the key processes that enable leaders to lead successfully (Lyubykh,Turner, Hershcovis, & Deng,2022). Comprehensive analyses have revealed that various leadership theories can effectively predict follower attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Harms et al., 2017; Hoch, Bommer, Dulebohn, & Wu, 2018; Lee, Legood, Hughes, Tian, Newman, & Knight, 2020; Lee, Willis, & Tian, 2018; Lyubykh et al., 2022; Schyns & Schilling, 2013). In addition to influencing individual followers, effective leaders can positively influence team behavior and performance (Ceri-Booms, Curşeu, & Oerlemans, 2017; Lee et al., 2018). Early leadership studies have explored leadership effectiveness in the context of a team with a single leader. However, the increasing trends of organizational delayering and self-managed teams have garnered interest in how team performance is influenced by shared leadership, which involves multiple members in a team playing leadership roles (D'Innocenzo, Mathieu, & Kukenberger,2016; Nicolaides et al., 2014). Some scholars have shifted their research focus to self-leadership in employees; this concept refers to employees who operate on the basis of self-motivation and self-development such that they do not have to be managed or supervised by higher-level leaders (Harari, Williams, Castro, & Brant, 2021).

Leadership research has produced valuable results and provided crucial revelations regarding the theoretical and practical applications of leadership. However, because of an increasingly demanding corporate environment, changes in the economic climate, and the rapid development of technology, the organizational structure and nature of work in corporations have changed. To help corporations to develop the resilience required for coping with uncertainties, researchers should focus on constructing leadership models for adapting to environmental changes (Lee et al., 2018). Accordingly, Professor Jia-Chi, Huang, the chief editor of the Journal of Management and Business Research, planned and launched a call for papers dedicated to a special issue themed on leadership and held an online seminar on June 15, 2022. The special issue was aimed at encouraging Taiwanese researchers to share their findings on leadership. Through the publication of the special issue, the journal aims to stimulate diverse ideas pertaining to leadership and promote the development of relevant knowledge. Between April 2021 and March 2022, 25 papers were submitted, of which four were published. The four published papers are as follows.

The first paper, “The Relationship between Person-Job Misfit and Turnover Intention among Newcomers: The Mediating Role of Organizational Frustration and Moderating Role of Authoritarian Leadership” by Tingko Lee, Kuo-Ching Yen, and Tsung-Hsien Yu, explores how person–job misfit in newcomers increases turnover intention. The authors employ organizational frustration as a mediating mechanism to evaluate the moderating effect of authoritarian leadership on mediating relationships. Relative to experienced workers, newcomers are more dependent on authoritarian leadership for clear objectives and guidance, viewing it as “lifeline in unfamiliar environment.” However, this non-relationship-oriented leadership style may also cause newcomers to experience negative feelings. The double-edged nature of the authoritarian leadership style is a research topic that warrants further exploration. Using a theoretical framework to examine authoritarian leadership, the authors discover that the negative effects resulting from the fear of authority among newcomers may outweigh the positive benefits of authoritarian leadership. The authors recruited two sample groups for analysis, namely a group comprising military personnel and another comprising police officers and firefighters. The results reveal that authoritarian leadership strengthened the positive relationship between the demand–ability misfitand organizational frustration of newcomers in the military, thereby increasing their turnover intention. However, among the police officers and firefighters, authoritarian leadership did not exacerbate the adverse effects of the person–job misfit of newcomers. This difference between the two sample groups suggests that authoritarian leadership exhibits varying degrees of applicability in different workplaces.

Similar to the first paper, the second paper, “Get Stronger or Yield? The Perspective of Mental Toughness on The Effect of Dual Authoritarian Leadership” by Wan-Ju Chou, Yu-Hung Cheng, and Te-Hsien Chou, also focuses on authoritarian leadership. The second paper employs the dual authoritarian leadership theory to explore how the authoritarian or benevolent leadership of baseball coaches influenced the job engagement of baseball players. The study explores whether authoritarian leadership causes baseball players to become stronger or yield, thereby clarifying the duality of authoritarian leadership. To explain the influence process and mode of dual authoritarian leadership, the authors employ mental toughness and distress tolerance, both of which are highly relevant to baseball players, as the mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions, respectively. The results of this paper verify the duality of authoritarian leadership, which was proven to comprise positive and negative leadership. The paper also verifies that a high level of frustration tolerance can mitigate the exhaustion of psychological resources in baseball players caused by authoritarian leadership.

The third paper, titled “Investigating the Relationship between Third Parties' Witnessing Abusive Supervision and Their Performance Improvement”, was authored by Hsi-Fang Lai, Shu-Chen Chen, Shin-Guang Liang, and Shu-Yu Chen. Abusive supervision has negative effects on employee motivation and behavior; however, this is still a common phenomenon in organizations (Schyns & Schilling, 2013). The authors explore this dilemma by conducting an open discussion of abusive supervision through an interesting approach, namely the self-motives approach; specifically, they discuss the potential benefits of abusive supervision and explain its prevalence in practice. Accordingly, this paper explores how third-party employees actively seek feedback after witnessing abusive supervision, thereby increasing their ability to avoid abusive supervision. Notably, this paper argues that third-party employees become more proactive after witnessing abusive supervision to avoid exposure to such supervision. The authors employed the experience sampling method to collect questionnaire data from military personnel over a period of 10 workdays, and they conducted further analysis to verify the self-motives framework. Their results reveal that the effect of witnessing abusive supervision in increasing proactiveness was more apparent in third-party employees who exhibit strong self-monitoring characteristics. This paper provides fresh viewpoints that contribute to the discussion on the beneficial effects of abusive supervision on third-party employees.

The fourth paper, “The Effect of Visionary Leadership on Change-Oriented Behavior: The Moderated Mediation Model of Hope and Job Insecurity”, was authoredby Ko-Cheng Wang and Tzu-Ting Lin. In the paper, the authors attempt to explain why visionary leadership promotes change-oriented behavior in followers. This paper has several noteworthy findings. First, visionary leadership is regarded as a key behavioral aspect of transformational leadership and charismatic leadership. However, few studies have explored visionary leadership. The authors propose reasons explaining why theories pertaining to visionary leadership must be independently explored, and the analysis results verify the unique effects of visionary leadership. Second, the variables selected in this paper are future-oriented, and the theoretical framework employs hope (i.e., a positive outlook) as the mediating mechanism to thoroughly explain the influence process of visionary leadership. Third, the authors recruited junior managers as participants, thereby extending the applicable scope of their findings on visionary leadership.

The four papers published in this special issue explore mission-oriented, relationship-oriented, and negativity-oriented leadership behaviors; each paper provides unique outlooks on leadership knowledge. Additionally, the samples recruited by the authors of these papers represent diverse leadership and follower roles (e.g., newcomers, third-party employees, and junior managers) and diverse backgrounds (e.g., military personnel, police officers, firefighters, and professional baseball players), thereby considerably expanding the applicability of leadership theories and the scope of leadership research.

Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to Chief Editor Professor Jia-chi Huang, who provided us with the opportunity to participate in the publication of this special issue and read the latest research on leadership. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable contributions during the paper review process, and Professors Tai-Kuang Peng, Ryan Shuwei Hsu, Tsung-Yu Wu, and Mavis Yi-Ching Chen (arranged according to the order of commentary) for their excellent commentary during the seminar. In addition to expressing our gratitude to the authors of the four papers for their cooperation during the review process and their professional responses, we would like to thank all authors who submitted their works for their participation and willingness to share their opinions and knowledge on leadership. We hope that academic and practical explorations of leadership topics will continue in the future, and we look forward to future collaborations aimed at exploring the evolution of leadership models and behavior in a rapidly changing era. To emphasize the value of leadership research, we will also continue to apply the knowledge derived from leadership research to practical management.

Special Issue Editors

Man Ling Chang, Associate Professor of Department of Business Administration, National Chung Hsing University

Hsin-Hua Hsiung, Professor of Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University

March, 2023

Renference

• Ceri-Booms, M., Curşeu, P. L., & Oerlemans, L. A. 2017. Task and person-focused leadership behaviors and team performance: A meta-analysis. Human Resource Management Review, 27(1): 178-192. doi: 10.1016/j.hrmr.2016.09.010
• D'Innocenzo, L., Mathieu, J. E., & Kukenberger, M. R. 2016. A meta-analysis of different forms of shared leadership–team performance relations. Journal of Management, 42(7): 1964-1991. doi: 10.1177/0149206314525205
• Fischer, T., Dietz, J., & Antonakis, J. 2017. Leadership process models: A review and synthesis. Journal of Management, 43(6): 1726-1753. doi: 10.1177/0149206316682830
• Harari, M. B., Williams, E. A., Castro, S. L., & Brant, K. K. 2021. Self‐leadership: A meta‐analysis of over two decades of research. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 94(4): 890-923. doi: 10.1111/joop.12365
• Harms, P. D., Credé, M., Tynan, M., Leon, M., & Jeung, W. 2017. Leadership and stress: A meta-analytic review. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(1): 178-194. doi: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2016.10.006
• Hoch, J. E., Bommer, W. H., Dulebohn, J. H., & Wu, D. 2018. Do ethical, authentic, and servant leadership explain variance above and beyond transformational leadership? A meta-analysis. Journal of Management, 44(2): 501-529. doi: 10.1177/0149206316665461
• Lee, A., Legood, A., Hughes, D., Tian, A. W., Newman, A., & Knight, C. 2020. Leadership, creativity and innovation: A meta-analytic review. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 29(1): 1-35. doi: 10.1080/1359432X.2019.1661837
• Lee, A., Willis, S., & Tian, A. W. 2018. Empowering leadership: A meta‐analytic examination of incremental contribution, mediation, and moderation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(3): 306-325. doi: 10.1002/job.2220
• Lyubykh, Z., Turner, N., Hershcovis, M. S., & Deng, C. 2022. A meta-analysis of leadership and workplace safety: Examining relative importance, contextual contingencies, and methodological moderators. Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(12): 2149-2175. doi: 10.1037/apl0000557
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