When leaders display emotion: how followers respond to negative emotional expression of male and female leaders

A leader's emotional display is proposed to affect his or her audience. In this study, observing a male or female leader express negative emotion was proposed to influence the observer's affective state and assessment of the leader's effectiveness. In a laboratory study, a leader's specific negative emotional tone impacted the affective state of participants in the study. Negative emotional display had a significant and negative main effect on participant assessment of leader effectiveness compared to a more neutral emotional display. Further, a significant interaction between leader gender and emotion was found. Male leaders received lower effectiveness ratings when expressing sadness compared to neutrality, while female leaders received lower ratings when expressing either sadness or anger. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[1]  A. Eagly,et al.  Gender and the evaluation of leaders: A meta-analysis. , 1992 .

[2]  R. Larsen,et al.  Promises and problems with the circumplex model of emotion. , 1992 .

[3]  Mark H. Davis Empathy: A Social Psychological Approach , 1994 .

[4]  E. A. Locke,et al.  Leadership: do traits matter? , 1991 .

[5]  B. Posner,et al.  Leadership challenge. , 1996, Nursing times.

[6]  R. J. House,et al.  Personality and Charisma in the U.S. Presidency: A Psychological Theory of Leader Effectiveness , 1991 .

[7]  Daniel J. McAllister Affect- and Cognition-Based Trust as Foundations for Interpersonal Cooperation in Organizations , 1995 .

[8]  R. N. Kanungo,et al.  Toward a Behavioral Theory of Charismatic Leadership in Organizational Settings , 1987 .

[9]  Blair T. Johnson,et al.  Gender and Leadership Style: A Meta-Analysis , 1990 .

[10]  Anat Rafaeli,et al.  Busy stores and demanding customers: How do they affect the display of positive emotion? , 1990 .

[11]  L. Wheeler,et al.  Review of personality and social psychology , 1980 .

[12]  J. Singer,et al.  Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state. , 1962 .

[13]  R. J. House,et al.  A Path-Goal Theory of Leader Effectiveness , 1971 .

[14]  Magda B. Arnold,et al.  Chapter 12 – Perennial Problems in the Field of Emotion , 1970 .

[15]  Jennifer M. George,et al.  Mood and absence. , 1989 .

[16]  Benjamin Gomes-Casseres,et al.  Ownership structures of foreign subsidiaries : Theory and evidence , 1989 .

[17]  Stephen J. Zaccaro,et al.  An estimate of variance due to traits in leadership. , 1983 .

[18]  McAlister Al Social-psychological approaches. , 1983 .

[19]  Anat Rafaeli,et al.  Expression of Emotion as Part of the Work Role , 1987 .

[20]  J. Onyx,et al.  Emotion and Gender: Constructing Meaning from Memory , 1992 .

[21]  B. Englis,et al.  Emotional reactions to a political leader's expressive displays. , 1985 .

[22]  M J Burke,et al.  Measuring affect at work: confirmatory analyses of competing mood structures with conceptual linkage to cortical regulatory systems. , 1989, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[23]  Robert I. Sutton,et al.  Maintaining Norms about Expressed Emotions: The Case of Bill Collectors , 1991 .

[24]  Judith A. Hall,et al.  Gender and emotion , 2008 .

[25]  R. I. Sutton,et al.  Untangling the Relationship between Displayed Emotions and Organizational Sales: The Case of Convenience Stores , 1988 .

[26]  S. Karau,et al.  Gender and the effectiveness of leaders: a meta-analysis. , 1995, Psychological bulletin.

[27]  S. Shields Women, men, and the dilemma of emotion. , 1987 .

[28]  Jay A. Conger,et al.  Charismatic leadership in organizations: Perceived behavioral attributes and their measurement , 1994 .

[29]  Jerome Kagan,et al.  Emotions, cognition, and behavior , 1988 .

[30]  E. Hatfield,et al.  Emotional Contagion , 1995 .

[31]  R. N. Kanungo,et al.  Ethical dimensions of leadership , 1995 .

[32]  Robert I. Sutton,et al.  Employee Positive Emotion and Favorable Outcomes at the Workplace , 1994 .

[33]  J. Stainer,et al.  The Emotions , 1922, Nature.

[34]  R. N. Kanungo,et al.  Charismatic leadership in organizations , 1998 .

[35]  M J Burke,et al.  Should negative affectivity remain an unmeasured variable in the study of job stress? , 1988, The Journal of applied psychology.

[36]  Gareth R. Jones,et al.  Experiencing Work: Values, Attitudes, and Moods , 1997 .

[37]  D. Watson,et al.  Toward a consensual structure of mood. , 1985, Psychological bulletin.

[38]  S. Schachter Chapter 7 – The Assumption of Identity and Peripheralist-Centralist Controversies in Motivation and Emotion , 1970 .

[39]  Willem Verbeke,et al.  Individual differences in emotional contagion of salespersons: Its effect on performance and burnout , 1997 .