Positive Leader .

This paper demonstrates a critical understanding of the definition of leadership, authentic leadership, leader-member exchange, and psychological capital of employees. It analyzes the relationship between these three variables and elaborates on building psychological capital of different types of employees and the impact of emotions on employee's performance.

Running head: POSITIVE LEADER
Positive Leader
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Table of Contents
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................2
Background............................................................................................................................2
What is leadership?................................................................................................................2
Authentic Leadership.............................................................................................................2
Leader-Member Exchange (LMX)........................................................................................3
Psychological Capital (PsyCap).............................................................................................4
Relationship between Authentic leadership, LMX and PsyCap............................................5
PsyCap of different types of employees.................................................................................6
Influence of Emotion on Employee’s Performance...............................................................7
References:.................................................................................................................................9

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Literature Review
Background
This paper shall demonstrate a critical understanding on the various different
perspectives on the definition of leadership and shall assess what is authentic leadership,
leader-member exchange and the psychological capital of the employees. It shall shed light
on the relationship in between these three variables by analysing and assessing different
literary works of different scholars and researchers. Furthermore, the paper shall also
elaborate on the process of building psychological capital of different types of employees
such as the professional employees, administrative employees, emotional labor, blue collar
employees, white collar employees, different generational cohort or different ethnicities.
Lastly, the impact of emotions on the overall performance of the employees in their
workplace shall also be assessed critically in this paper.
What is leadership?
The definition of leadership has been explained differently by different scholars.
According to Renko et al. (2015), “leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an
organized group toward goal achievement”. Also, as per Chemers (2014), leadership is the
ability of a person to achieve a common goal by encouraging joint efforts of his own self and
his followers. Furthermore, Thoroughgood et al. (2018) have claimed that leadership is “the
art of inducing compliance”. Hence, there are different point of view and perspectives on
leadership. However, the most common of all is that- leadership is action of leading a team of
members to achieve a common goal.
Authentic Leadership
As stated by Shamir and Eilam-Shamir (2018), authentic leadership refers to the style
of management in which an individual act in genuine, sincere and real way and is true to who

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he or she is as an individual. Authentic leadership is said to be the type of leadership which is
best positioned for inspiring loyalty, trust and a very strong performances from the part of the
employees. Also, as per many scholars, the authentic leaders are genuine and self-aware.
They are the self-actualised people who are well-aware of their own strengths and
weaknesses as well as their emotions towards a certain things. Moreover, according to Top et
al. (2015), it is a “higher-order, multidimensional construct, comprised of self-awareness,
balanced processing, relational transparency, and internalization of a moral or ethical
perspective”. It is to note that the authentic leadership has been emerged as one of the very
important components in the studies of positive leadership. Its theoretical extension is one of
the key construct in the theory of leadership. As per Leroy et al. (2015), it is one of the
important elements of a positive organisational behaviour in any firm and is therefore,
referred to as the “pattern of leadership behaviour, responsible for the promotion of positive
psychological capabilities and productive ethical environment in organisations”.
Leader-Member Exchange (LMX)
Leader-Member Exchange also known as the vertical Dyad Linkage theory, is a
relationship based approach towards leadership. It focuses on a two way or dyadic
relationship in between the leaders and followers. According to Choi, Kraimer and Seibert
(2018), “Leader-Member Exchange is a multidimensional construct and propose that LMX
relationships may develop in many ways and the relationships are based on three varying
amounts of “currencies of exchange”. It was first developed by Dansereau, Graen, and Haga
in the year 1975 in their paper named, “A Vertical Dyad approach to leadership within formal
organizations”. According to Martin et al. (2016), LMX is intuitive in nature and it is
something that could be expected from the leader-group structure. With the same, this is a
theory that points out what the people could do for strengthening and weakening the
dynamics of leadership. This also explains the dynamics of the old issues of cronyism along

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with the corruption and the mechanics of loyalty to a leader. However, it is to note that LMX
has a significant influence on the experiences of the subordinates in their workplace. It entails
the extent to which any leader and his follower succeed to develop a mutually advantageous
and a trusting relationship in between them. There are many scholars who have stated that the
social processes in the organisations results into a vertically dynamic relationship.
Psychological Capital (PsyCap)
According to Gu, Tang and Jiang (2015), Psychological Capital of an employee is his
“positive psychological state of development”, that is characterised by possessing high
degrees of HERO- Hope, Self- Efficacy, Resilience and Optimism. These are the four
positive capabilities or the four fundamental characteristics within an individual which deals
in developing his or her psychological capital. As stated by Marstand, Martin and Epitropaki
(2017), Psychological Capital can be defined as “a positive situation for personal
development with the features of self-reliance while dealing with the challenges (self-
efficacy), positive expectations for the future success (optimism), being full of determination
(hope), and accomplishment in spite of obstacles (resilience). Efficacy refers to the view
point or belief about one’s own abilities. While Hope on the other hand, is related to the
attitude of the way a person thinks and it pays a directive part in his overall performance in
his work. Optimism refers to the positive expectation of an individual and hence, it is not
connected with his or her actual ability. Lastly, resiliency within an individual is concerned
with his positive and productive acceptance and the ability of his to bounce back from the
problem or crisis.
It is to note that Psychological Capital has been proved to provide a conceptual model
on how the psychological resources of a person allow him or her along with their
organisation to perform in effective and more productive way. It represents a positive and
productive state of mind which aids to high levels of flourishing and efficiency among the

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employees within their workplace. With the same, it has also been found that the
Psychological Capital has a very positive and significant impact on the sustainable
competitiveness of the employees. It reduced the costs as well as mitigate the negative impact
in any organisation.
Relationship between Authentic leadership, LMX and PsyCap
According to Wang et al. (2014), the cohesion of the relation in between LMX and
authentic leadership is based on the several different judgements of the different attributions
which are been made by the leaders and their followers regarding certain authenticity and
intentions of other people. Also, Banks et al. (2016) in this context have claimed that the
level of authenticity is very strongly related to how effective a leader is. With the same, they
have also stated that the LMX plays the role of a mediator in between the relationship in
between authenticity of a leader and his effectiveness. A leader who is considered to be very
genuine, authentic and effective is capable of developing a positive relation in the
organisation with his or her direct report. Therefore, such leaders are always regarded as
efficient and effective leaders. Moreover, Shamir and Eilam-Shamir (2018) have expressed
their view-point on this subject stating that when the relationship of a leader and his follower
is authentic and genuine, it is likely to promote an open as well as an honest communication
in between them. This is due to the fact that there is a deep held shared bond and values in
between them and therefore, they promote those achievement and pursuit of those shared
goals. With the same, the authentic leadership is something that describes the relation in
between the leaders, followers and the rest other people of the organisation. The relationship
that is mutually reciprocal permits the self-development process among them. Along with
this, it also encourages a deep understanding of the inter-relations of the other professional
associations.

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It is also to mention that an organisational behaviour that is positive, is very necessary
for enhancing the Psychological Capital within the employees working in the organisation. It
fosters growth and development within them and also motivates them to give their best
performance in the workplace. Employees always seek for positive organisational behaviour
at their organisations as such a climate and such a climate is only developed by means of
authentic leadership. According to Hirst et al. (2016), it is the authentic leadership of a leader
that foster and enhances the performance of his team and followers at workplace. This in
turn, automatically develop their Psychological Capital and enhances the level of trust
towards the leader. As stated by Renko et al. (2015), Psychological Capital is associated with
transformation and authentic leadership. There is a always a positive relation in between
these two variables.
PsyCap of different types of employees
There are several different types of employees in different work settings. Some are
professional employees, some are administrative, some are emotional labour and some are
blue and white collars. Different employees have different working environment and their job
roles, too differ from each other. However, their requirements of resources for building their
psychological capital is more or less same. The professional employees are the ones like
teachers, lawyers and doctors who perform the works that needs advanced education and
several trainings to gain expertise on. On the other hand, there are administrative employees
such as the human resource and accounting staffs whose main responsibility is to involve the
support of their businesses. However, both these types of employees have a strong
psychological relation with the rate of satisfaction they have with their respective works.
According to Karatepe and Karadas (2015), the Psychological Capital of such employees are
built on the basis of job satisfaction, appraisals and the development opportunities that they
get in their work settings. While, emotional labour is the process of emotion regulation in

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which the workers are engaged in the process of management of their own feelings and
emotions for achieving their emotional need of job. According to Kwok, Cheng and Wong
(2015), “Positive psychological capital is a moderator between emotional labour, burnout and
job satisfaction”. This moderate the relation among the emotional labour and resulted
variables. Also, for the blue collar employees like the mechanics and plumbers, who work
with their hands and for the white collar employees who perform their work in office setting,
building of the psychological Capital needs- HERO (Hope, Self-Efficacy, Resilience and
Optimism). Moreover, generational cohort in workplace is categorised into Baby Boomer,
Traditionalist, Gen Z, Generation X and Millennials. For each one of them, all the above four
factors are very important to build their Psychological capital.
Influence of Emotion on Employee’s Performance
Desmet (2018) has defined the term emotion as “a stirred up condition involving
subjective) experience and affective reactions”. They might be pleasant or unpleasant. It is
related to the level of motivation, encouragement, personality, mood, motivation and
temperament of an individual. It is one of the very pure human psychological phenomenon
that each and every individual possess for certain things and affected by certain things.
Employees in organisations are also influenced by the way their peers and leaders behave
towards them at the workplace. More often, it results in negative performance and low level
of engagement in the workplace. According to Inzlicht, Barthlow and Hirsh (2015), the
emotions of the employees have a strong relations with their overall job performance. It
influences their decision making skills and also their attitude towards their peers. Their
leadership style is also affected by how deeply their emotions are hurt. In turn, most of the
time, the rate of turnover in the organisations, too, get increased and this led to low team
spirit as well. With the same, it is also to note that emotions influence the way in which
people think or react in the workplace.

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Also, according to Etkin, Buchel and Gross (2015), the withdrawal by the emotionally
exhausted workers in the workplace could manifest itself by the rate of employee turnover.
They have also supported this view that emotions influence the job performance of the
employees. To this, they have set out a total of five general tips for a better management of
emotions in the workplace- a) Instead of seeing the jobs as some of the purely rational
undertaking, the managers and the leaders should analyse the “emotional impact: of the job of
each employee and should design certain job assignments which that it into consideration, 2)
Managers should encourage positive emotional environment by means of compensation and
reward system in the workplace, 3) the selection process of the teams and the employees
should be dependent on positive emotional attitudes, 4) Managers should work towards
encouraging and creating friendly and emotional climate and they should model it through
their self-behaviours, 5) Managers should train the employees for improving their skills of
emotional intelligence and should engage in emotion expression at the workplace.

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References:
Banks, G.C., McCauley, K.D., Gardner, W.L. and Guler, C.E., 2016. A meta-analytic review
of authentic and transformational leadership: A test for redundancy. The Leadership
Quarterly, 27(4), pp.634-652.
Chemers, M., 2014. An integrative theory of leadership. Psychology Press.
Choi, D., Kraimer, M. and Seibert, S., 2018, July. Toward Building a Multilevel Model of
Perceived Leader-member Exchange Differentiation. In Academy of Management
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Desmet, P., 2018. Measuring emotion: Development and application of an instrument to
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Etkin, A., Büchel, C. and Gross, J.J., 2015. The neural bases of emotion regulation. Nature
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Gu, Q., Tang, T.L.P. and Jiang, W., 2015. Does moral leadership enhance employee
creativity? Employee identification with leader and leader–member exchange (LMX) in the
Chinese context. Journal of Business Ethics, 126(3), pp.513-529.

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Hirst, G., Walumbwa, F., Aryee, S., Butarbutar, I. and Chen, C.J.H., 2016. A multi-level
investigation of authentic leadership as an antecedent of helping behavior. Journal of
Business Ethics, 139(3), pp.485-499.
Inzlicht, M., Bartholow, B.D. and Hirsh, J.B., 2015. Emotional foundations of cognitive
control. Trends in cognitive sciences, 19(3), pp.126-132.
Karatepe, O.M. and Karadas, G., 2015. Do psychological capital and work engagement foster
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