UC Riverside

Despite the proliferation of research emphasizing the importance of growth mindsets in a wide range of domains, researchers have not examined these mindsets in the context of leadership characteristics. In this dissertation, I extend implicit theories to the leadership discipline and explore how implicit beliefs about the fixedness or malleability of leadership characteristics (termed Implicit Theories of Leadership Malleability; ITLMs) affect organizations in both individual level and interpersonal level, specifically, how ITLMs affect important organizational outcomes (e.g., employee voice and commitment) and how employees interact with leaders (e.g., perceived leadership effectiveness) especially after leaders make mistakes. In my first study, I developed a measure of ITLMs, and examined how it relates to, and differs from, existing leadership belief constructs. In Study 2, I employed a scenario study design to test how individuals’ ITLMs affect their response to a dissatisfactory supervisory relationship. In Study 3, I examined the perceived efficacy of voice in a multi-wave study to test the effects of ITLMs on voice in real workplace settings. In Study 4, I tested the proposed moderated mediation model with the moderation effect of psychological safety. Study 5 explored the moderation effect of voice type, specifically, on promotive voice and prohibitive voice. Another multi-wave study (study 6) was conducted to examine the different downstream consequences on employee commitment of promotive voice and prohibitive voice. Study 7 served as a pilot study exploring the relationship between ITLMs and perceived leadership effectiveness after leaders make mistakes. Additionally, the main effect between ITLMs and perceived leadership effectiveness and the mediation effect of fault attribution was formally tested in study 8. Study 9 contained an experimental design to examine the causal relationship between ITLMs and perceived leadership effectiveness. Finally, the study results were generalized in study 10 by a different group of samples and another manipulation method. Introducing ITLMs to the organizational context brings a novel social-cognitive perspective that sheds light on various important organizational outcomes, thereby making a number of contributions. First, while researchers who explore the antecedents of employee voice at the individual level mainly focus on employees’ attributes (e.g., personality) and their experiences in leader-follower relationships (e.g., leadership style), the role of ITLMs introduces a more dynamic and social-cognitive perspective by considering followers’ perceptions of the malleability of leadership characteristics. Secondly, leadership effectiveness is crucial to organizations, but it is relatively fragile and easily diminished by various factors. The current dissertation provides a new mechanism for understanding how leadership effectiveness is affected by different patterns of fault attribution, which are significantly associated with followers’ ITLMs. Additionally, this dissertation provides important practical implications for organizations because ITLMs themselves are relatively changeable. Through ten studies, my findings suggest that holding a malleable ITLM can help employees engage in more voice behaviors in the workplace, which is mediated by the perceived efficacy of voice, and is moderated by psychological safety. Additionally, voice types will influence the subsequent consequences of ITLMs on employee commitment, such that promotive voice will lead to an increase in employees’ commitment to organizations. Furthermore, ITLMs will be positively associated with perceived leadership effectiveness after leaders make mistakes in organizations by affecting how employees attribute fault to leaders. I tested eight hypotheses using various methods, including correlational, scenario, longitudinal, and experimental designs.