The Leadership Quarterly 12 (2001) 129 ± 131

Leaders, followers, and values:

progress and prospects for theory and research
Lynn R. Offermanna,*, Paul J. Hangesb, David V. Dayc
a
George Washington University, Department of Psychology, Washington, DC 20052, USA
b
University of Maryland, Department of Psychology, College Park, MD 20742, USA
c
Pennsylvania State University, Department of Psychology, University Park, PA 16802, USA

Much of the public discourse on leadership in the United States over the past several years
has centered on issues of ethics and values. In the political arena, leaders have been
scrutinized more closely than ever before about the ethical appropriateness of their decisions
and actions, both personal and professional. Concern has been voiced over a lack of public
confidence in the values and behaviors of elected officials at a variety of levels, with a
resultant loss of confidence in their leadership and disillusionment about leaders in general.
Many private organizations also face the difficult issue of desiring major changes in
organizational culture, some of which depend on changing the values and preferences of
organizational leaders. The relationship between leaders and followers in terms of values and
resultant behaviors is a timely topic indeed.
The present special issue was developed in response to the need to better understand
leaders, followers, and the role of values in leader±follower relationships. How do leader
values get translated into organizational culture? How do characteristics of followers and the
larger cultures in which they operate affect leadership preferences and expectations? And
what are the roles of values in determining follower preferences for leadership and leader
behavior itself?
The papers included here examine these issues from a variety of perspectives. Since the
levels of analyses at which these issues can be examined covers the widest of ranges, the
papers herein do likewise. The levels examined in this issue range from an individual level
examination of follower traits and personality and their effects on desired leadership behavior,
to the group level, examining leadership as the creator of organizational climate surrounding
values and ethics, to the macro-level impact of societal culture on leadership expectations.
Some of the papers make broad theoretical contributions designed to stimulate future

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-202-994-8507; fax: +1-202-994-1602.

E-mail address: lro@gwu.edu (L.R. Offermann).

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empirical work on the topic; others provide empirical validation for the values±behavior links
that they propose. Empirical samples include U.S. university students, military cadets, and
European managers. Together, the articles advance our thinking about the roles of values in
leadership and followership while simultaneously pointing out areas for additional research.
In the opening article, Lord and Brown provide a conceptual overview of the role of
values in leader±follower relationships. Taking the stance that leaders can impact followers
by influencing their self-concepts and highlighting particular values, they present a model
proposing values and self-concepts as mediational processes linking leadership with
internal follower processes that in turn affect external follower behavior. They note that
values exist in highly connected networks, which makes it difficult to alter any specific
individual value without changing the larger pattern of values. Thus, the model makes a
major contribution both in exploring the intervening mechanisms by which leader influence
followers and by highlighting the complexities involved when leaders attempt to change
follower values and behavior.
Next, Ehrhart and Klein provide an interesting empirical example of work examining
follower values in relation to desired leadership behaviors. Their laboratory study shows that
five different work values (intrinsic work value, extrinsic work value, and values for
interpersonal relations, security, and participation at work), along with personality attributes
of self-esteem, achievement orientation, and need for structure, correlated with preferences
for different types of leaders. Charismatic, relationship-oriented, and task-oriented leaders
each were preferred by subgroups of followers who showed different value patterns. This
suggests an active role for followers in preferring to form relationships with certain types of
leaders, given the opportunity to do so. The authors argue that their data present preliminary
evidence that need-fulfillment and, to a lesser extent, similarity, affect the type of leader that a
particular follower will prefer. In situations where a prospective worker has a choice of
situations where different leadership styles are anticipated, these follower values may well
predict the choice of employer.
Likewise, Thomas, Dickson, and Bliese also empirically examine follower characteristics
in relation to leadership behavior, focusing on follower values and personality. Using a
sample of military cadets in an assessment center, they studied the relationship of power and
affiliation motives with leadership ratings. Their work showed that the personality variable of
extraversion fully mediated the relationship between affiliation and leadership, and partially
mediated the relationship between power and leadership. They suggest that values indicate
what a leader wants to do, whereas personality may be more indicative of what a leader is
likely to do (which may or may not be consistent with what the leader purports to value).
They suggest that, because of this difference, follower personality will likely mediate or
moderate links between values and leadership success in many settings. This idea clearly
merits further examination.
Dickson, Smith, Grojean, and Ehrhart follow with a broad conceptualization about the role
of leadership in setting a climate for ethics and ethical behaviors in organizations. They argue
for the importance of an organization's founding leaders in setting a climate that may persist
over a long period of time, well beyond the founder's departure. This climate is likely to
include beliefs about the appropriateness of certain behaviors within the organization, beliefs
 L.R. Offermann et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 12 (2001) 129±131 131

that may or may not be consistent with prevailing societal norms. Hence, they use the term
``climate surrounding ethics'' rather than ``ethical climate,'' since the latter term may imply
congruence with more generally accepted ethical standards. In their view, organizational
leaders drive the climate surrounding ethics; organizations wishing to change existing
organizational values need to work through leaders to achieve change. Nonetheless, changing
long-held organizational values laid down by an organization's founders is suggested to be no
simple matter.
Lest we forget that discussions of values and ethics are influenced by one's cultural
background and orientation, Szabo, Reber, Weibler, Brodbeck, and Wunderer take a broad,
macro-level perspective on leadership and values in the context of culture. They present a
new model differentiating between ``far-from-action'' concepts like values from ``close-to-
action'' concepts of behavioral intentions. Their work then compares findings on values and
behavior in leadership studies across three German-speaking countries: Austria, Germany,
and Switzerland. Their results show both similarities and inconsistencies, and suggest the
complexity of situational and contextual factors influencing leadership. Though the data do
not definitively prove the theoretical arguments presented, they do support and suggest the
value in pursuing these theoretical ideas further.
We hope that this special issue will generate enthusiasm for continuing to pursue the
complex relationship between leaders, followers, and values. We thank our authors for their
stimulating contributions, and our reviewers for their diligent efforts in working with the
authors and with us to choose and shape the articles for this issue. Our thanks go to the
following individuals who served as reviewers: Bruce Avolio, Paul Bliese, Joyce Bono, Art
Brief, Doug Cellar, David Costanza, Marcus Dickson, Peter Dorfman, Michele Gelfand,
Michael Grojean, Robert House, Rabindra Kanungo, and Jerry Wofford.
The papers in this collection strongly suggest the importance of values in determining
follower preferences for particular leaders, of leader values in determining both their own
effectiveness and the climate they set within their domains of influence, and the potential role
that values may play as mediators and moderators of key behavior-outcome relationships.
They underscore the importance of broadening our views of values to encompass those that
are organizationally or culturally sanctioned as well as individually held. They also highlight
opportunities for future research in the area, and provide many avenues for additional study.
We are only just beginning to comprehend the many ways in which values may affect
processes of leadership and followership. We believe that the true promise of these articles
collectively is their indication of the richness of the field yet to be harvested.