Describe what we now know about the important of leader-member exchange quality.
Describe what we now know about the important of leader-member exchange quality.
The leader-member exchange theory explains the relationship the leader develop with every member of the team or group he leads. The leadership relationship with different members is different based on many factors including trust, employee performance, efforts and hard work, positive behavior and challenging environment. The leader who finds that the employees who are extraordinary amongst their other team members, tend to develop positive image regarding these employees. The leaders try to give more challenging tasks to these employees, promote them and provide them with extra support while the opposite goes for those who are determined to be less competent, less worthy in leader’s perception (Wang, Law, Hackett, Wang & Chen, 2005). These differences of leader-member exchange quality determine the success and failure of the members and the leadership itself.
If the leader provides the same level of motivation and the support to the employees who he thinks are not good enough to be trusted upon or given the challenging tasks, then how the leader will be able it understand that these employees are also equally competent and able to handle challenges. Here, the leader-member exchange quality determines how the leader and his perception are causing the relationship to be positive and fruitful to the overall organization, the team and the employees themselves. The leadership behavior and tendency should be equal in terms of motivation and trust towards all employees to help them understand that trust, respect, empathy, patience, and persistence is expected from them and provide support to them so that they are able to perform better.
References
Wang, H., Law, K. S., Hackett, R. D., Wang, D., & Chen, Z. X. (2005). Leader-member exchange as a mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and followers’ performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Academy of management Journal, 48(3), 420-432.
