- The Experience
- The Programs
- MBA Program
- MSx Program
- PhD Program
- Executive Education
- Stanford Ignite
- Research Fellows Program
- Summer Institute for General Management
- Stanford LEAD Certificate: Corporate Innovation
- Stanford Innovation & Entrepreneurship Certificate
- Social Innovation Programs
- Executive Program for Education Leaders
- Stanford go.to.market
- Faculty & Research
- Insights
- Alumni
You are here
The relationship between leadership style and regulatory mode: Value from fit?
The relationship between leadership style and regulatory mode: Value from fit?
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. March
Publication commas
2006, Vol. 100, Pages 216-230In this article, we consider the relationship between regulatory orientation and transformational leadership. Specifically we pro-pose that the effectiveness of transformational leadership depends on followers’ regulatory mode—the manner in which they pursue goals. Based on regulatory fit theory (Higgins, 2000, 2002), we hypothesize that transformational leadership will be more effective in increasing motivation and eliciting positive evaluations from people with more of a locomotion mode (those who focus on move-ment from one state to another) rather than people with more of an assessment mode (those who make comparisons and judgments before acting). We find support for these ideas using data collected from a survey of executives and two original experimental designs, one in which regulatory mode is measured as a chronic disposition and the other in which it is situationally induced.