The power motive of a leader as a determinant of organizational success

Cilj rada bio je provjera povezanosti implicitnog i eksplicitnog motiva za moći sa stilovima rukovođenja, stavovima prema radu i organizacijskim ponašanjem zaposlenika te s organizacijskom uspješnošću. U istraživanju je sudjelovalo 66 rukovoditelja malih i srednjih poduzeća i 167 zaposlenika. Za mjerenje ispitivanih varijabli korištene su sljedeće mjere: subskala za moć Objedinjene skale motiva, Test implicitnih asocijacija za mjerenje motiva za moći i Test uvjetovanog rezoniranja za mjerenje motiva za moći, Višefaktorski upitnik rukovođenja, zadovoljstvo poslom, percipirana organizacijska podrška, uspješnost obavljanja osnovnih radnih zadataka, odgovorno organizacijsko ponašanje i nepoželjno organizacijsko ponašanje. Organizacijska uspješnost mjerena je javno dostupnim financijskim pokazateljima. Sukladno istraživačkim hipotezama pokazalo se da je implicitni motiv za moći mjeren Testom implicitnih asocijacija povezan sa samoprocijenjenim transformacijskim i transakcijskim stilom rukovođenja. Rezultati višerazinske regresijske analize potvrdili su da implicitni motiv za moći mjeren Testom uvjetovanog rezoniranja predviđa transformacijski i transakcijski stil rukovođenja. Rezultati nisu pružili dokaze o povezanosti eksplicitnog motiva za moći sa stilovima rukovođenja. Pokazalo se da implicitni motiv za moći mjeren Testom uvjetovanog rezoniranja pozitivno predviđa percipiranu organizacijsku podršku i negativno nepoželjno organizacijsko ponašanje. Financijski pokazatelji kojima smo mjerili organizacijsku uspješnost nisu bili povezani s motivom za moći rukovoditelja. Izravni medijacijski efekti pokazali da stilovi rukovođenja objašnjavaju negativnu vezu između implicitnog motiva za moći i nepoželjnog organizacijskog ponašanja. Pokazalo se da je pasivno rukovođenje medijator između implicitnog motiva za moći i percipirane organizacijske podrške. Rezultati također ukazuju da Test uvjetovanog rezoniranja posjeduje dobar potencijal za korištenje u selekcijskim postupcima za rukovoditeljske pozicije. Introduction: The success of business organizations, which today employ more than three billion people worldwide, depends on the people who manage them – managers. Contemporary research shows that good management positively affects organizational performance and success (Hogan and Kaiser, 2005), but two important questions still remain unanswered: how does a manager influence organizational performance and what makes some managers better than others? The answers to these questions could be found in the area of individual differences. The relationship between individual differences and organizational success can be described with the model in which individual characteristics of the manager determine his leadership style, his style affects the behavior of employees and team members, and the behavior of all employees affects organizational performance (Hogan and Kaiser, 2005). One of the individual characteristics that represents the starting point of this model, is the power motive. We consider the power motive to be the key to managers' success and we expect it to be positively related to active leadership styles. Leadership styles should explain the link between (implicit and explicit) power motive and subordinates' work attitudes and organizational behavior. The final outcome of our research model is organizational success which should, directly or indirectly, be a consequence of all the variables that precede it. Based on this model, we advanced hypotheses and tested them in a study conducted on a sample of small company CEOs and their employees. In measuring the motive for power, it is necessary to capture both of its components: explicit and implicit, since the implicit component should explain an additional proportion of variance in different criteria beyond the explicit power motive (McClelland, Koestner and Weinberger, 1992). In the past, the Thematic Apperception Test, which has some psychometric and practical disadvantages, was used to measure the implicit power motive (Lilienfeld, Wood and Garb, 2000). Recently, some new instruments have been developed to measure implicit aspects of personality, such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee and Schwartz, 1998) and the Conditional Reasoning Test (CRT; James, 1998). Both tests have also been developed to measure the power motive and tested on Croatian population (Galić et al., 2020; Parmač Kovačić, Galić and Kušan, 2015) and we have used them in our research. Our main goal was to investigate the relationship and influence of the managers' power motive with leadership styles, work attitudes and organizational behavior of subordinates, and organizational performance. Methodology: Our sample consisted of 66 managers from 66 different Croatian organizations and their 197 subordinates (3-5 subordinates per manager). We collected data from managers at their workplace. Each manager filled in CRT, IAT, MLQ (Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire; Bass and Avolio, 1995), self-reported measure on explicit power motive and some sociodemographic data. Each manager directed the researchers to 3-5 subordinates who filled in MLQ for evaluation of the leadership style of their manager and self-reported about their work attitudes and organizational behavior. The subordinates received the set of questionnaires in closed enevelopes. They were asked to fill them in at home and to send them back to researchers via mail. No sociodemographic data were collected from subordinates in order to make them feel safe and provide more honest answers. Data about organizational success was collected from financial reports that were available from public sources. To test our hypotheses we conducted correlation, regression and mediation analyses using SPSS, R and Mplus software solutions. Results: Explicit power motive was not significantly related to any of the variables included in the model. IAT scores were significantly related only with self-reports about leadership style. This result can be explained with the characteristics of Implicit Association Test and the implicit part of the personality it taps – cognitive schemes that shape the perception. But, we believe that the self evaluation of managers' style and the self perception of the managers is less important than the evaluation of their style by their subordinates. Therefore, we have based our analyses on the evaluation of leadership style, where CRT showed better results. Implicit power motive measured with CRT explained active (transformational and transactional) leadership styles. It also positively predicted perceived organizational support (POS) and negatively predicted counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Mediation analysis supported our hypothesis that leadership style mediated the relationship between managers' power motive (captured with CRT), and work attitudes (POS) / counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Our results support the hypothesis that implicit power motive can give additional explanation of work attitudes and organizational behavior. The analysis of the relationship between different variables and organizational success did not reveal any significant relationships. We believe that the reasons lie in the specific characteristics of the financial data we used as a measure of organizational success. Conclusion: Our results show that inclusion of implicit dimension of leaders' personality can help us to addtionally explain important organizational outcomes such as employees attitudes and organizational behavior. Ultimately, this can lead to better organizational performance and the success of the organization as a whole. Measured with CRT, implicit power motive can contribute to the prediction of active leadership styles. Active leadership styles have a positive effect on work attitudes and organizational behavior of subordinates, which ultimately results in greater organizational success.