The Great High Consideration—High Initiating Structure Leadership Myth: Evidence on its Generalizability

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Abstract
This paper examines the purported superiority of the high-Consideration, high-Initiating Structure leadership style, where it is claimed that American leaders with this style have more satisfied subordinates than leaders with other Consideration-Structure combinations. For two different versions of the Ohio State leadership scales, regressions were calculated with the use of data collected from four different U.S. samples: (a) university maintenance workers (N = 230), (b) employed students (N = 178), (c) middle managers in an air-sea transport company (N = 96), and (d) employees in the operations division of a large public utility (N = 258). On the basis of the regression results, it was concluded that the superiority of the high-high leadership style is indeed a myth, and that Consideration alone explains almost all of the variance in subordinate satisfaction. The implications for testing complex leadership models are briefly discussed.