Leadership can serve different needs. For example, sometimes employees need a helping hand or sympathy, at other times they need clear instructions, and at yet other times they simply need room to deal with matters themselves. Thus, different situations require a different leadership style from managers.
To systematically study the context dependence of leadership preferences, we created a tool that describes eight hypothetical managers whose behavior varies along two key behavioral dimensions. We used this tool to compare leadership evaluations by different stakeholders. This research revealed that different stakeholders value different leadership styles. For example, senior managers and direct reports prefer different leadership styles for the same role.
“I believe working with people in organizations is essential for our work. It ensures that our research remains relevant and that it finds its way to the people and organizations that can benefit from it. The development of SALT demonstrates this!”
Practitioners turned out to not only be interested in these results, but also in the tool we used to obtain them. This led us to develop the tool into a web-based app that practitioners can use: SALT. The current version of SALT allows organizations to efficiently assess the leadership needs of different stakeholders for a given role. Organizations will be able to use future versions in recruitment, leadership development and strategic planning.
Find out more
De Waal-Andrews, W., & Van Vugt, M. (2020). The triad model of follower needs: Theory and review. Current Opinion in Psychology, 33, 142-147. Link
Redeker, M., De Vries, R. E., Rouckhout, D., Vermeren, P., & De Fruyt, F. (2014). Integrating leadership: The leadership circumplex. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 23, 435-455. Link
SALT is available online at www.leadwithsalt.nl