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This research examines the role of leaders for employee recovery. We hypothesize that leader support for recovery (empathy for recovery, respect for boundaries, and role modelling) relates positively to employees' psychological detachment from work during non‐work time that, in turn, predicts well‐being outcomes. We argue that leader support for recovery can only be effective when the leader‐member exchange (LMX) relationship quality is sufficiently high. In a series of scale‐development and scale‐validation studies, we demonstrated the construct and content validity of a new measure of leader support for recovery. We tested our hypotheses with diary data collected from 152 employees. Respect for boundaries was positively related to employees' psychological detachment from work during non‐work time at the person level. Psychological detachment from work was positively related to low emotional exhaustion and a high morning recovery state, both at the person and the day level. LMX moderated the relationship between leader support for recovery (overall measure), empathy for recovery, and respect for boundaries on the one hand and psychological detachment on the other hand, such that the relationships became non‐significant when LMX was lower. The study suggests that leaders in high‐quality relationships can contribute to employee recovery – a process that helps to maintain employee well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do women receive equal or better performance ratings than men in managerial assessment centers even when they are structured in ways that systematically disadvantage them? This study provides the first attempt to understand this managerial assessment center gender paradox using in-depth interviews with managerial assessment center evaluators for a large semi-military governmental organization. The study revealed that the managerial assessment center was a gendered environment in which organizational practices, language used, and the underlying logic establish and reinforce men as assertive or protectors and women as weak and in need of protection. In accordance with the managerial assessment center gender paradox, women were successful at the managerial assessment center despite systemic bias against them. Interpretive analysis revealed that women candidates generate discomfort that evaluators alleviate by increased attention to the extent to which they conform to gender ideology. We coin the term 'benevolence effect' to describe evaluators' tendency to over-valuate and advance women candidates who conform to traditional stereotypes of white femininity. The benevolence effect paradoxically contributes to the preservation and perpetuation of the sexual binary and the idealization of the abstract manager as male-bodied in the organization, even as it contributes to the promotion of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women in organizations must grapple with a double‐bind stemming from conflicting expectations toward them to exhibit both competition (per workplace norms) and cooperation (per societal gender‐specific norms), and they often suffer a backlash for conforming to one expectation at the expense of the other. Similarly, different streams of literature offer contrasting accounts of women's competitive attitudes and behavior. This systematic review is the first attempt to integrate research on competition among women in organizations across research disciplines to gain a nuanced insight into the pervasiveness, causes, dynamics, and manifestations of this phenomenon. In doing so, we draw on the wide research pertaining to women's intra‐gender competitive attitudes and behavior in structured competition within organizations, and on relevant intersectionality research that looks at diverse groups of women. We synthesize the research to suggest a paradoxical framework of coopetition (competitive‐cooperation) that can guide future theoretical insights and research directions, along with practical organizational tools, to effectively deal with the tension and inequality that result from paradoxical expectations and formulate important future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transformational learning is a process resulting in deep and significant change in habitual patterns of identity, thought, emotion, and action, enabling new approaches to role enactment. This article explores how moving from a framework of dilemmas, which require solutions and one-sided choices, to a framework of paradoxes that embraces tensions and contradictions can contribute to meaningful transformational learning in the context of women's leadership development. Drawing on recent theories of paradoxes and on critical feminist theory, we propose a critical feminist pedagogy of paradoxes for developing women's leadership of social change enterprises. This perspective is put forth based on our analysis of an experiential course in a graduate gender studies program wherein participants take on leadership roles and interrogate them, by integrating theoretical discussions, reflection, and practical engagement in social activism. We use case studies from our students' experiences in the field and in the classroom to demonstrate and explore the use of paradoxical thinking for teaching complex modes of leadership. We then show how fundamental, unresolvable paradoxes can be generative of novel ways of enacting social change leadership. We suggest several advantages and implications that this critical feminist pedagogy of paradoxes can have on the development of women's leadership.

The importance of leading by personal example or role modeling for effective leadership has been recognized in many leadership theories. However, leaders' ability to influence group behavior through exemplary behavior has received little attention in empirical work. This study explores leading by example through theoretical development and empirical testing of a moderated mediation model of the potential effects of leader organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). This model suggests that a leader's OCB may promote group OCB directly and indirectly by enhancing the group's belief that OCB is worthy. It also specifies the moderators of the direct and indirect effects of leader OCB on group OCB. Data from 683 members of 67 intact work groups, 67 group managers, and their supervisors support the hypothesized model. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (Contains 3 figures, 4 tables, and 16 footnotes.)

The aim of this study is to discover the relationship between different leadership styles and alternative entrepreneurial strategies in the not-for-profit public school system. We develop a conceptual framework for understanding various strategies of corporate entrepreneurship. Accordingly, we hypothesize that transformational leadership can promote a "vigorous entrepreneurial strategy" that encourages radical change, whereas monitoring leadership can only promote limited change by means of an incremental "calculated entrepreneurial strategy." Passive-avoidant leadership restricts organizational entrepreneurship to the boundaries of existing constraints, mainly using a "conservative strategy." These relationships were tested using a sample of 1,395 teachers working under 140 elementary school principals. The results partially support the expected relationships. It was found that although transformational leadership provides the most accommodating managerial background for radical entrepreneurship, the relationship is complex. We discuss the implications of these findings for both theory and practice. (Contains 7 tables and 2 footnotes.)