Followers' Personality and the Perception of Transformational Leadership: Further Evidence for the Similarity Hypothesis
通过实地研究，考察追随者人格及其感知到的领导人人格如何影响对变革型领导的评价，结果支持了相似性假设，即追随者更认可与自己人格相似的领导者。
Managers and supervisors are thought to affect their followers' attitudes and behaviour. Within leadership research, behaviour of leaders and managers is usually considered as the independent variable whilst followers' reactions are considered the dependent variable. In this study, we reverse this order and investigate the degree to which the evaluation of leadership is a result of followers' perceptions and attributions. In order to corroborate and extend previous experimental research, a field study was conducted to analyse the influence of followers' personality and perceived leader personality on followers' perception of leadership within an organizational setting. The results provide further evidence that followers' personality influences the perception of transformational leadership and commitment to the supervisor. Moreover, the perception of leaders' personality was related to the perception of leadership and commitment to the supervisor. The finding that the perception of supervisors' personality mediates both the relationship between followers' personality and the perception of leadership and commitment provides support for the similarity hypothesis. Results are discussed in the light of feedback and leader development.