Leading with Meaning: Investigating the Role of Leader Work Meaningfulness
Type
fundamental research project
Start Date
01 June 2015
End Date
31 May 2017
Status
ongoing
Keywords
Leadership
work meaningfulness
health
firm performance
Description
Leaders are managers of meaning. A fundamental task of transformational leaders is to infuse employees' work with meaningfulness and shape employees' perception of work as positive and significant. However, we know very little about leaders' own work meaningfulness. In particular, further research is needed to answer the following questions: (1) How and when does leader work meaningfulness trickle down to follower work meaningfulness? (2) What are the key factors which determine leader work meaningfulness? (3) Which influences do leaders' aggregate quality and strength of work meaningfulness have on a firm's leadership climate and firm performance? (4) Does too much of leader work meaningfulness harm leaders' health and ultimately firm performance?
Member contributor(s)
Funder(s)
Topic(s)
Leadership
work meaningfulness
health
firm performance
Method(s)
large-scale survey studies
interviews
Range
Institute/School
Range (De)
Institut/School
Division(s)
Eprints ID
223335

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A self-based trickle-down model of work meaningfulness

2017-05-04 , Kipfelsberger, Petra , Raes, Anneloes , Herhausen, Dennis , Bruch, Heike , Kark, Ronit

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A moral competency approach to ethical consumption

2017-05-11 , Sekerka, Leslie , Kipfelsberger, Petra , Bagozzi, Richard

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Developing authentic leaders in business schools: A coaching intervention study

2017-08-08 , Kipfelsberger, Petra , Braun, Susanne , Dragoni, Lisa

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‘Killing me softly with his/her song’: How leaders dismantle followers’ sense of work meaningfulness

2018-05-09 , Kipfelsberger, Petra , Kark, Ronit

Leaders influence followers’ meaning and play a key role in shaping their employees’ experience of work meaningfulness. While the dominant perspective in theory and in empirical work focuses on the positive influence of leaders on followers’ work meaningfulness, our conceptual model explores conditions in which leaders may harm followers’ sense of meaning. We introduce six types of conditions, i.e. leaders’ personality traits, leaders’ behaviors, the relationship between leader and follower, followers’ attributions, followers’ characteristics, and job design under which leaders’ meaning making efforts might harm or ‘kill’ followers’ sense of work meaningfulness. Accordingly, we explore how these conditions may interact with leaders’ meaning making efforts to lower levels of followers’ sense of meaning, and in turn, lead to negative personal outcomes (i.e., cynicism, lower well-being, and disengagement), as well as negative organizational outcomes (i.e., corrosive organizational energy, higher turnover rates, and lower organizational productivity). By doing so, our research extends the current literature, enabling a more comprehensive understanding of leaders’ influence on followers’ work meaningfulness, while considering the dark side of meaning making.

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Personal risk for social good. Yahya’s courageous career and leadership decisions

2017-05 , Shakir, Farah Yasmine , Kipfelsberger, Petra , Raes, Anneloes , Lee, Yih-Teen , Koonce, Rob , Robinson, Paula , Vogel, Bernd

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Killing meaning: Leaders' impact on the erosion of followers' meaning at work

2018-05-11 , Kipfelsberger, Petra , Kark, Ronit

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Developing authentic leaders in business schools: A coaching intervention study

2017-02-16 , Kipfelsberger, Petra , Braun, Susanne , Dragoni, Lisa

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Leading With Meaning: How And When Leader Work Meaningfulness Transfers To Followers

2016-01-07 , Kipfelsberger, Petra , Raes, Anneloes , Herhausen, Dennis , Bruch, Heike

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When dreams meet reality: A qualitative investigation of entrepreneurs pursuing their passion in the video game industry

2016-08-05 , Lysova, Evgenia , Kipfelsberger, Petra , Khapova, Svetlana N.

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The impact of family management on employee well-being: A multilevel study

2017-08-07 , Kammerlander, Nadine , Kipfelsberger, Petra , Herhausen, Dennis

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