Linking leader personality with group dynamics: Leader process directiveness as mediator, performance feedback as moderator

This research explores how individual personality shapes the surrounding social environment by looking at the specific issue of how leader personality affects group processes and outcomes. A pair of experimental laboratory studies using undergraduate students at a large Midwestern university provides empirical tests of several specific hypotheses regarding the linkages between leader personality and group processes. Study 1 provides evidence that leader process directiveness (i.e., actively regulating an inclusive group process) is a key behavioral mediator linking leader personality with group dynamics, and thus explains why certain personality traits are associated with specific group processes. Study 1 further provides evidence that performance feedback (positive versus negative) is an important moderator of these relationships---with negative feedback increasing the magnitude of the associations between leader extraversion, neuroticism, and openness and various group processes, and positive feedback increasing the magnitude of the associations between leader agreeableness and various group processes. The results of Study 2 suggest that leader process directiveness is causally predictive of small group dynamics (e.g., cohesiveness, trust, and relationship conflict), and that leader process directiveness shapes state positive and negative affect among group members.