Introducing and validating a single-item measure of identity leadership: The visual identity leadership scale (VILS).

In the present research, we introduce and validate a single-item measure of identity leadership-the visual identity leadership scale (VILS). The VILS uses Venn diagrams of sets of overlapping circles to denote different degrees of alignment between a leader's characteristics and behaviours and a group's values and goals. Key advantages of the VILS over other existing multi-item scales are that it provides a holistic assessment of identity leadership, is short, and can be adapted to address novel research questions that are impractical to address with existing scales (e.g. in diary studies, assessing multiple comparisons of many leaders or groups). Data from three studies (conducted in India, the United States and Germany) provide evidence of the VILS' construct reliability and validity. Results also showcase the instrument's capacity to be adapted to assess variations of identity leadership-for example, by assessing a leader's convergence with descriptive and ideal notions of collective self (i.e. with 'who we are' and 'who we want to be'). We discuss the value of including the VILS in the toolbox that researchers and practitioners can utilize to expand our understanding of identity processes in leadership and group behaviour.

The fish can rot from the heart, not just the head: Exploring the detrimental impact of transgressions by leaders at multiple levels of an organization.

In this registered report, we examined the effect of transgressions committed by leaders working at different group levels within an organization on employee outcomes. Based on social identity theorizing, we argued that organizational leader transgressions would affect organizational members' experiences only at the organizational level, but that workgroup leader transgressions would impact organizational members' experiences at both workgroup and organizational levels. To test these ideas, we developed a 2 (leader group affiliation: workgroup vs. organizational) × 2 (leader behaviour: normative vs. transgressive) between-subjects experimental paradigm. As hypothesized, both workgroup and organizational leader transgressions resulted in decreased organizational identification and perceived organizational leader effectiveness. Contrary to our prediction, transgressions of both workgroup and organizational leaders were similarly detrimental to workers' workgroup identification. However, as predicted, a transgressive workgroup leader had a greater negative impact on perceived workgroup leader effectiveness than a transgressive organizational leader. When outliers were excluded, a workgroup leader's transgression was found to be more detrimental to work performance than an organizational leader's transgression. Overall, this study demonstrates that the transgressions of lower-level workgroup leaders can be as detrimental - and in some cases more detrimental - to workers than the transgressions of higher-level organizational leaders.

Identity Leadership, Employee Burnout and the Mediating Role of Team Identification: Evidence from the Global Identity Leadership Development Project.

Do leaders who build a sense of shared social identity in their teams thereby protect them from the adverse effects of workplace stress? This is a question that the present paper explores by testing the hypothesis that identity leadership contributes to stronger team identification among employees and, through this, is associated with reduced burnout. We tested this model with unique datasets from the Global Identity Leadership Development (GILD) project with participants from all inhabited continents. We compared two datasets from 2016/2017 (n = 5290; 20 countries) and 2020/2021 (n = 7294; 28 countries) and found very similar levels of identity leadership, team identification and burnout across the five years. An inspection of the 2020/2021 data at the onset of and later in the COVID-19 pandemic showed stable identity leadership levels and slightly higher levels of both burnout and team identification. Supporting our hypotheses, we found almost identical indirect effects (2016/2017, b = -0.132; 2020/2021, b = -0.133) across the five-year span in both datasets. Using a subset of n = 111 German participants surveyed over two waves, we found the indirect effect confirmed over time with identity leadership (at T1) predicting team identification and, in turn, burnout, three months later. Finally, we explored whether there could be a "too-much-of-a-good-thing" effect for identity leadership. Speaking against this, we found a u-shaped quadratic effect whereby ratings of identity leadership at the upper end of the distribution were related to even stronger team identification and a stronger indirect effect on reduced burnout.