Pain or gain? Understanding how trait empathy impacts leader effectiveness following the provision of negative feedback

The dark and bright side of laissez-faire leadership: Does subordinates’ goal orientation make a difference?

Laissez-faire leadership is universally considered to be the most ineffective leadership style. However, a few recent studies revealed that laissez-faire leadership may have modest or even significant positive influence on subordinates’ work outcomes. To explain the inconsistent findings of laissez-faire leadership studies, the current study draws on stress theory and achievement goal theory to examine the boundary conditions and mechanisms underlying the impact of laissez-faire leadership on subordinates, cognitive appraisal and subsequent performance. Results from an experience sampling study of 68 supervisor-subordinate dyads that completed daily surveys over 10 consecutive work days indicated that: (1) when subordinates’ learning goal orientation is high, the relationship between laissez-faire leadership and hindrance appraisal will be positive; the indirect relationship between laissez-faire leadership and subordinates’ performance via subordinates’ hindrance appraisal will be negative; and (2) when subordinates’ performance-prove or performance-avoid goal orientation is high, the relationship between laissez-faire leadership and challenge appraisal will be positive; the indirect relationship between laissez-faire leadership and subordinates’ performance via subordinates’ challenge appraisal will be positive. This study found the double-edged sword effect of laissez-faire leadership at within-person level, which helps integrate inconsistent views in previous studies and explore the impact of laissez-faire leadership from a more nuanced and balanced perspective.

The effect of changes in negative feedback on task performance: the role of goal orientation and feedback utility

Purpose

Drawing upon the feedback intervention theory, this study aims to focus on the concept of negative feedback change (increase or decrease) to analyze the dynamics of performance feedback and its relationships with goal orientation, feedback utility and task performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a two-wave survey by tracking 195 employees and their supervisors from two representative semiconductor-related equipment companies in China for one month.

Findings

Results showed that learning goal orientation positively moderates, and performance-approach goal orientation negatively moderates the indirect relationship between negative feedback change and employees’ task performance through employees’ perceptions of feedback utility.

Originality/value

This study provides new directions for performance feedback research by treating negative feedback from a dynamic perspective and addressing the mediating and moderating mechanisms. Furthermore, the findings also remind managers to not only consider feedback actions at a single moment but also manage it as a series of actions in the ongoing stream of time.

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Introduction : At the beginning of 2020, a state of health emergency was declared in France following the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.Context : Entrepreneurial management of health institutions requires internal nursing mobility to compensate for unexpected absenteeism.Reference framework : Based on the clinic of activity, the aim of this study was to analyze the reality of early-career health managers’ work in order to understand how, in a constrained environment, they are able to manage this mobility when not chosen by the substitute caregiver.Method : An indirect qualitative method—“instructions to the double”—combined two successive co-analysis sessions with four junior health managers : an individual session with the researcher and a collective session with the peers who participated in the study.Results : Data triangulation revealed three axes : the issues at stake for these managers ; their compromises made to transform compulsory nursing mobility into voluntary mobility ; the development of their power to act.Discussion : These results raise various issues related to the psychological and social resources of the occupational health of junior health managers as well as to the organization of work.