literature review on democratic leadership style

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When timing is key: How autocratic and democratic leadership relate to follower trust in emergency contexts

Florian rosing.

1 Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Koblenz, Germany

Claudia Buengeler

2 Department of Human Resource Management and Organization, Institute of Business, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany

Associated Data

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

In emergency contexts, leaders’ ability to develop others’ trust in them is critical to leadership effectiveness. By integrating functional leadership and team process theories, we argue that democratic and autocratic leadership can create trust in the leader depending on the performance phase of the action team. We further argue that action and transition phases produce different task demands for leadership behavior to enhance trust in the leader, and different leader characteristics (i.e., leader benevolence and leader ability) mediate these effects. The results of a scenario experiment ( N = 125) and field survey ( N = 165) among firefighters revealed that autocratic rather than democratic leadership elevates trust in the leader during the action phase by increasing leader ability. In contrast, democratic rather than autocratic leadership enhances trust in the leader during the transition phase by elevating leader benevolence. These findings highlight the importance of leader characteristics in emergencies, demonstrating the value of mixing autocratic and democratic leadership behaviors across different team performance phases to build trust in the leader.

Introduction

Although follower trust in the leader is a key factor for effective leadership across diverse situations ( Dirks and Ferrin, 2002 ; Burke et al., 2007 ; Hasel and Grover, 2017 ), arguably the most critical context for exploring trust is in emergency settings. In this context, followers must trust their leaders and work well together because errors may lead to danger and death ( Myers, 2005 ; Fisher et al., 2010 ; Kolditz, 2010 ). If followers do not trust their leader, they may not show strong cohesion and commitment ( Weick, 1993 ; Hamby, 2002 ).

The previous literature has focused on identifying the behavioral antecedents that increase trust in leaders ( Sweeney et al., 2009 ; Liu et al., 2010 ; Sweeney, 2010 ; Kelloway et al., 2012 ). These studies have implicitly assumed that such antecedents have similar effects on trust in leaders across various tasks and contexts ( Lapidot et al., 2007 ; Colquitt et al., 2011 ). However, an emerging research strand has suggested that the behavioral antecedents of trust vary in emergency contexts ( Lapidot et al., 2007 ; Sweeney, 2010 ). Although the current research argues that leadership is critical for mission success and survival ( Hällgren et al., 2018 ), the role of leadership behaviors in this variability remains largely unclear.

We address these research gaps by investigating which leadership behavior functions best in emergency contexts. Many emergency teams perform their work in two recurrent performance phases: action and transition ( Kozlowski et al., 1996 ; Marks et al., 2001 ; Desmond, 2006 , 2008 ; DeChurch et al., 2011 ; Farh and Chen, 2018 ). In action phases (e.g., firefighting), the team acts toward goal accomplishment, whereas in transition phases (e.g., debriefing, reflection, and reexamination), the team focuses on mission analysis, planning, and goal setting. Several studies have suggested that both phases create different team demands, requiring various (functional) leadership behaviors ( Marks et al., 2001 ; Morgeson et al., 2010 ). In the action phase, proper emergency management is key to ensuring safety, high speed, and efficiency ( Yun et al., 2005 ; Klein et al., 2006 ; Maynard et al., 2017 ), as emergencies are unpredictable and demand quick responses ( Kozlowski et al., 2009 ). In the transition phase, demands associated with contemplation and debriefing become salient ( Karrasch et al., 2011 ).

Two “classical” leadership behaviors have been highlighted as significant for effective leadership: autocratic leadership, where solely the leader holds decision-making duties and power, and democratic leadership, where decision-making duties and power are shared with followers ( Vroom and Yetton, 1973 ; Bass, 1990 ; Van Vugt et al., 2004 ). While some studies have suggested that autocratic leadership behavior is preferred at the workplace ( Isenberg, 1981 ; Gladstein and Reilly, 1985 ; Mulder et al., 1986 ), other studies have favored democratic leadership behavior ( Yun et al., 2003 , 2005 ; Sims et al., 2009 ). Prior work has typically considered non-emergency contexts ( Hannah et al., 2009 , 2010 ) and yielded mixed results for the effective of these two leadership behaviors ( Berkowitz, 1953 ; Bass, 1990 ; Gastil, 1994 ; Yukl, 2006 ; Schoel et al., 2011 ; De Hoogh et al., 2015 ). As action phases are more risky, urgent, and dangerous than transition phases, we assume that the impact of these two leadership behaviors on follower trust may differ. Thus, the current study investigates how such leadership behaviors are antecedent to follower trust in the leader during both phases.

In addition, to better understand the effectiveness of autocratic and democratic leadership behaviors in emergency contexts, we further examine the mechanisms that underlie the relationship between autocratic or democratic leadership and follower trust during the two phases. Based on functional leadership theory and the integrative model of trust in leadership ( Burke et al., 2007 ), this article investigates the mediating role of leader ability—a key determinant of trust in the leader during action phases ( Lapidot et al., 2007 )—in the relationship between autocratic leadership and trust in the leader in action phases. Furthermore, we examine the mediating role of leader benevolence—a key determinant of trust in the leader during transition phases ( Lapidot et al., 2007 )—in the relationship between democratic leadership and trust in the leader in transition phases.

This study extends the literature on leadership in multiple ways. First, we integrate the literature on leadership and team performance phases ( Marks et al., 2001 ) by investigating the impact of autocratic and democratic leadership behavior on follower trust in emergency contexts. Thus, we contribute to the ongoing debate regarding what leadership behaviors are most effective in emergencies ( Hannah et al., 2009 ). This work also offers a nuanced description of the costs and benefits of autocratic and democratic leadership by arguing that their impact on follower trust varies according to the team performance phase. Second, in recognizing key mediators between autocratic and democratic leadership and follower trust, we offer new insights into why these leadership behaviors create trust in emergency contexts. We test our assumptions in the context of firefighting, which possesses many characteristics of organizations operating in emergency contexts ( Jankovic et al., 1991 ; Colquitt et al., 2011 ; Burtscher et al., 2018 ). We use a multimethod approach to integrate causal relationships from a scenario experiment (Study 1) with the broader generalizability of an online survey field study (Study 2).

Background and hypotheses development

Leadership behaviors and trust in the leader for action teams.

Action teams are “teams where members with specialized skills must improvise and coordinate their actions in intense, unpredictable situations” ( Edmondson, 2003 , p. 1421). Many action teams in emergency contexts accomplish their tasks through dual temporal-phase cycles ( McGrath, 1991 ; Colquitt et al., 2011 ): action and transition phases. Morgeson et al. (2010) proposed that both team performance phases create different demands, requiring different leadership behaviors. This finding aligns with functional leadership theory ( McGrath, 1962 ), which posits that leadership behaviors are effective when they meet certain functions critical to the team’s needs ( Zaccaro et al., 2001 ). For example, in the action phase, leadership functions include providing resources, monitoring the team, managing team boundaries, and challenging the team ( Morgeson et al., 2010 ). In the transition phase, leaders meet critical team needs through training and developing, providing feedback, engaging in sense-making and sense-giving, defining team missions, and establishing expectations and roles ( Morgeson et al., 2010 ).

This paper focuses on two leadership behaviors, autocratic and democratic, widely used and recommended for risk management in emergency contexts (e.g., Vroom and Yetton, 1973 ; Gladstein and Reilly, 1985 ; Yun et al., 2005 ; Farh and Chen, 2018 ). We examine the impact of both leadership behaviors on trust in the leader ( Hannah et al., 2010 ), defined as followers’ perception that their leaders are fair and reliable ( Rousseau et al., 1998 ; Dirks, 2000 ; Schoorman et al., 2007 ). We suggest that the effect of autocratic and democratic leadership on follower trust varies between the two team performance phases. Specifically, we propose that autocratic leadership enhances trust in the leader during action phases. Vroom and Yetton (1973) emphasized that when the timing is critical, a leader should make decisions alone rather than delegate to team members. Hence, autocratic leaders can make quick, unilateral choices that accelerate decision-making ( Eisenhardt, 1989 ). In particular, novel and unstructured situations require action-oriented leadership ( Fiedler, 1964 , 1967 ). Autocratic leadership consolidates administrative control and properly manages resources ( Hannah et al., 2009 ). Thus, we argue that a leader needs to personally take charge of the operation accomplishment to build and maintain follower trust. This initiative accelerates decision-making, reduces uncertainties, and enhances members’ task knowledge ( Morgeson, 2005 ; Kozlowski et al., 2009 ). We also argue that a democratic leader does not increase follower trust during action phases because these phases enhance the need for direct leader intervention to increase coordination clarity and recover shared understanding ( Kozlowski et al., 2009 ). Therefore, we hypothesize the following:

H1a . During the action phase, follower trust in the leader is higher under autocratic than democratic leadership.

We also propose that as the team engages in transition phases, autocratic behaviors decrease in importance, and democratic behaviors become a relevant antecedent for trust in the leader. During transition phases, developmental concerns emerge as demands associated with reflection and reexamination become salient ( Kozlowski et al., 2009 ; Karrasch et al., 2011 ). Vroom and Yetton (1973) suggested that in situations (1) when time is not essential, (2) the leader alone does not possess the information required to solve a problem, or (3) the interests of leaders and subordinates diverge, democratic leadership is most appropriate for achieving follower trust and consensus-building.

Existing research has demonstrated that followers tend to feel more vulnerable and more willing to scrutinize their leader’s actions and organizational processes after facing autocratic structures during emergencies ( Bartunek, 1988 ; Hurst, 1995 ; Hannah et al., 2009 ). Leaders can use democratic behaviors to help followers voice their opinions ( Farh and Chen, 2018 ) and develop their skills and competencies ( Sims et al., 2009 ), which may enhance follower trust. Thus, we argue that a leader must employ democratic leadership to build follower trust during transition phases, enhancing learning opportunities while reducing conflicts among followers and leaders. Accordingly, we hypothesize the following:

H1b . During the transition phase, follower trust in the leader is higher under democratic than autocratic leadership.

The mediating role of trustworthiness in the leader’s ability and benevolence

One mechanism by which autocratic and democratic leadership may exert different effects on trust in the leader is the perception of the leader’s characteristics comprising trustworthiness ( Mayer et al., 1995 ; Cunningham and MacGregor, 2000 ). Mayer et al.’s (1995) theory distinguished trust from trustworthiness, with three characteristics contributing to the prediction of trust: ability, integrity, and benevolence ( Mayer and Davis, 1999 ; Davis et al., 2000 ; Gill et al., 2005 ; Schoorman et al., 2007 ; Colquitt et al., 2011 ). This study focuses on leader ability and benevolence, major predictors of follower trust in emergency contexts ( Yukl, 2006 ; Lapidot et al., 2007 ; Hannah et al., 2009 ; Sweeney et al., 2009 ; Sweeney, 2010 ). We omitted leader integrity from our hypotheses because tests of functional leadership and team process models have produced more meaningful results with regard to the ability and benevolence of leaders than on their integrity ( Hannah et al., 2009 , 2010 ; Farh and Chen, 2018 ). Several studies have found that in situations of heightened vulnerability (i.e., firefighting operations), followers were more attentive to leader behaviors reflecting their ability (compared to leader benevolence; Freitas et al., 2002 ; Lapidot et al., 2007 ; Hannah et al., 2009 ). In such situations, basic security needs are aroused and followers prefer to be with a leader who is determined ( Geier, 2016 ), and competent ( Yun et al., 2005 ; Eberly et al., 2017 ), partly because in vulnerable situations, followers usually seek to establish a sense of control and mastery ( Lazarus, 1966 ). Conversely, in situations of lowered vulnerability (i.e., debriefing), followers were more sensitive to leader behaviors reflecting benevolence (compared to leader ability; Yun et al., 2005 ; Lapidot et al., 2007 ). In such situations, relational needs are aroused and followers prefer to be with a leader who is focused on relationship development ( Geier, 2016 ), and nurturance ( Yun et al., 2005 ; Eberly et al., 2017 ). Thus, trustworthiness in the leader’s ability was more salient in action phases, and trustworthiness in the leader’s benevolence was more salient in transition phases.

The mediating role of leader ability in action phases

We assume that follower trustworthiness in the leader’s ability explains greater trust improvement associated with autocratic leadership compared to democratic leadership during the action phase. Leader ability is “that group of skills, competencies, and characteristics that enable a party to have influence with some specific domain” ( Mayer et al., 1995 , p. 717). Leader ability means the competence and expertise required to do a specific job with the interpersonal competencies and general wisdom required to succeed in the workplace ( Gabarro, 1978 ; Davis et al., 2000 ; Burke et al., 2007 ; Colquitt et al., 2011 ; Ritzenhöfer et al., 2017 ).

We suggest that autocratic leadership increases follower perceptions of leader ability by drawing on functional leadership ( McGrath, 1962 ) and team process theories ( Marks et al., 2001 ; Kozlowski et al., 2009 ). Research on trust suggests that the degree to which the leader takes charge, ensuring a clear direction and an enabling structure, is the degree to which the leader will be perceived as trustworthy in terms of leader ability ( Belenky et al., 1985 ; Hackman, 1992 , 2002 ; Bartone, 2006 ; Burke et al., 2007 ). Research on leadership in action teams emphasizes that leaders who provide clear step-by-step directions for followers while enabling adequate resources and structures signal their ability to constructively respond to emergency contexts ( Isenberg, 1981 ; Gladstein and Reilly, 1985 ; Mulder et al., 1986 ; Bass, 2008 ; Martínez-Córcoles, 2018 ). Therefore, if leaders behave autocratically during action phases, followers are likelier to perceive their leaders as competent than if they behave democratically. In the latter case, followers are less likely to perceive leaders as competent, seeing them as ineffectual ( Yun et al., 2005 ) and indecisive ( Gladstein and Reilly, 1985 ; Mulder et al., 1986 ; Bass, 1990 ). Thus, we propose the following hypothesis:

H2a: During the action phase, follower perceptions of leader ability are higher under autocratic than democratic leadership.

Trustworthiness in the leader’s ability boosts trust in the leader ( Mayer et al., 1995 ; Schoorman et al., 2016 ; Shao, 2019 ). Research on trust shows that leader ability enables leaders to maintain their influence within a specific situation ( Burke et al., 2007 ). Given that followers may have little experience, knowledge, and training in some situations, leader ability is a factor that promotes trust ( Zand, 1972 ). Lapidot et al. (2007) argued that when security needs are threatened in emergencies, followers should be more attentive to the leader’s ability to manage the operation and lead the team. Consequently, we predict that autocratic rather than democratic leadership can increase trust in the leader in an action phase through leader ability. Specifically, we expect the leader’s ability to mediate the relationship between autocratic leadership and trust in the leader during action phases (see Figure 1 ). Hence, we propose the following hypothesis:

Visual depiction of the proposed research model.

H2b: In the action phase, follower perceptions of leader ability mediate the positive relationship between autocratic leadership (compared to democratic leadership) and trust in the leader.

The mediating role of leader benevolence in transition phases

We assume that follower trustworthiness in the leader’s benevolence explains the greater trust improvement associated with democratic instead of autocratic leadership during the transition phase. Benevolence is a leadership attribute that captures consideration and sensitivity to follower needs and interests ( Mayer et al., 1995 ). Benevolence reflects that leaders are willing to care and want to do good for their followers above what is formally required, even if they do not profit from it ( Ritzenhöfer et al., 2017 ). Thus, we propose that democratic leadership increases follower perceptions of leader benevolence based on functional leadership and team process theories. Research on trust has suggested that the degree to which the leader engages in shared decision-making and provides opportunities to voice opinions increases the perception of leader trustworthiness in terms of benevolence ( Hackman, 2002 ; Burke et al., 2007 ). Moreover, research on leadership in action teams has suggested that leaders who encourage a high degree of group members’ involvement and participation during decision-making signal that they care about follower welfare and interests during transition phases ( Konovsky and Pugh, 1994 ; Burke et al., 2007 ; Caldwell and Hayes, 2007 ). Therefore, if leaders behave democratically in this phase, followers are likelier to perceive the leader as benevolent than if leaders behave autocratically. In the latter case, followers are less likely to perceive their leader as benevolent because they are seen as eroding their sense of control over group decisions ( De Cremer, 2007 ). Hence, we predict the following hypothesis:

H3a: During the transition phase, follower perceptions of leader benevolence are higher under democratic than autocratic leadership.

Trustworthiness in the leader’s benevolence boosts trust in the leader ( Mayer et al., 1995 ; Schoorman et al., 2016 ; Shao, 2019 ). Mayer et al. (1995) explained that benevolence influences trust because benevolent leaders build a positive attachment to followers and a low motivation to lie. These qualities play a prominent role in building and maintaining trust. Research on action teams shows that in less threatening but stressful situations, such as transition phases, benevolent leaders trigger followers’ needs for nurture and care. In these situations, followers should be more attentive to the leaders’ attributes that reflect their benevolence ( Lapidot et al., 2007 ). Hence, we predict that democratic rather than autocratic leadership can increase follower trust during transition phases by enhancing perceptions of leader benevolence. Specifically, we expect leader benevolence to mediate the relationship between democratic leadership and trust in the leader. We propose the following hypothesis:

H3b: In the transition phase, follower perceptions of leader benevolence mediate the positive relationship between democratic leadership (compared to autocratic leadership) and trust in the leader.

Overview of the current work

Following recommendations for confirming our results’ robustness and generalizability ( Chen et al., 2021 ), we used a multimethod approach to examine our hypotheses. We conducted two studies among professional firefighters. In Study 1, we conducted a scenario experiment to test our hypotheses in a controlled research context ( Aguinis and Bradley, 2014 ). We then conducted a cross-sectional field study to enhance external validity. In Study 2, we replicated and extended the findings from Study 1 using cross-sectional data from a sample of 165 firefighters to test our hypotheses in an emergency context.

Participants

In this study, 125 firefighters participated, of which 89% were male, ages 16 to 62 years ( M = 32.35, SD = 9.99), with an average of 16 years of work experience. Firefighters were recruited via professional firefighting conferences, department visits, email news briefs, blogs, and forums. All firefighters volunteered to complete the study.

Design and experimental procedure

This study used a 2 × 2 between-subject design, with the leader’s behavior (autocratic/democratic) as the first factor and the temporal phase (action/transition phase) as the second factor. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four vignettes [autocratic/action phase ( n = 31), democratic/action phase ( n = 32), autocratic/transition phase ( n = 30), democratic/transition phase ( n = 32)] to control for order effects.

The online experiment included a screening page, informed consent, instructions, the vignette (to manipulate the type of leadership behavior and temporal phase), and a questionnaire ( Geier, 2016 ). The questionnaire included the dependent measures and controls. We informed participants that they were participating in a study that “examines critical success factors of effective teamwork” and that they were going to read a scenario and would respond to questions about that scenario. Specifically, they were asked to imagine that they were experiencing the written scenario and assume the role of a fire brigade member.

Vignette development

We began vignette development by constructing a set of draft scenarios based on nine in-depth interviews in which firefighters were asked about realistic examples of leadership behaviors during the action and transition phases ( Ashill and Yavas, 2006 ; Levy, 2006 ; Aguinis and Bradley, 2014 ; Rosing et al., 2022 ; see Appendix 1 ). The most frequently mentioned examples of autocratic and democratic leadership within action and transition phases were selected to create the vignettes ( Leicher and Mulder, 2016 ). The vignettes were reviewed by three researchers (who were not part of the research team) and two firefighters until consensus was achieved on their true-to-life correctness ( Hughes and Huby, 2002 ; McAlearney, 2006 ; see Table 1 ).

Vignettes used in Study 1.

Unless otherwise stated, the measures in this study used a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree).

Autocratic leadership behavior

We measured the effectiveness of manipulating autocratic leadership with six items from the autocratic leader behavior scale ( De Hoogh et al., 2004 ). The Cronbach’s alpha score was 0.92. Examples included items such as “the leader makes decisions in an autocratic way” and “the leader often pushes his/her opinions.”

Democratic leadership behavior

We measured the effectiveness of manipulating democratic leadership using five items from the participative decision-making questionnaire ( Arnold et al., 2000 ). Sample items included “the leader encourages group members to express ideas/suggestions” and “the leader gives all group members a chance to voice their opinions.” The Cronbach’s alpha score was 0.70.

Leader ability and benevolence

Mayer and Davis (1999) developed a measure of trustworthiness that included subscales of leader ability and benevolence. We used six items to measure leader ability (“the leader is very capable of performing his job,” α = 0.96) and five items to study leader benevolence (“the leader is very concerned about followers’ welfare,” α = 0.97).

Trust in the leader

We used a three-item scale developed by Giessner and van Knippenberg (2008) to assess overall trust in the leader. The items were as follows: “I trust the leader absolutely,” “I think this leader does the right things,” and “I think this leader is trustworthy” (α = 0.95).

Control variables

We controlled for firefighters’ age (continuously in years), gender (1 = male, 2 = female), and job tenure (continuously in years). The results remained unchanged with or without these controls in the model.

Data analysis

We analyzed our data in several steps. First, the variance inflation factor (VIF) was calculated for each variable to determine multicollinearity ( Suen, 1990 ). Second, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tested the effects of leadership behaviors on follower trust ( H1a-b ) and perceptions of the leader’s abilities and benevolence ( H2a and H3a ). We also used planned comparison ( Rosenthal and Rosnow, 1985 ) tests to compare the means between the conditions. Third, to analyze H2b and H3b, we used the PROCESS tool in SPSS ( Hayes, 2012 ). We chose model 4 of this tool with 5,000 bootstraps and, as recommended ( Hayes and Preacher, 2014 ), a confidence interval of 95% for estimating the respective effects.

Multicollinearity

We assessed the absence of multicollinearity with VIF scores of less than 10 (VIF < 10 = no serious multicollinearity; Cohen et al., 2003 ; Neubert and Taggar, 2004 ). The results of our multicollinearity analysis showed that the VIF scores ranged within acceptable values from 1.09 to 2.87 (VIF = 2.45 for leader ability, 2.52 for leader benevolence, 2.82 for age, 1.09 for gender, and 2.87 for job tenure), indicating an extremely low level of multicollinearity in our study ( Dingel and Wei, 2014 ).

Manipulation checks

Table 2 presents descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among all study variables. Table 3 shows the means and standard deviations for all experimental conditions. We analyzed the manipulation checks in two steps. First, we analyzed whether our leadership manipulation in the action phase was effective. The results of a univariate ANOVA indicated that participants assigned the autocratic leadership condition perceived the leader as being more autocratic than participants assigned the democratic condition [ M = 5.10, SD = 1.18 vs. M = 2.39, SD = 1.52, with t (121) = 8.95, p < 0.01]. In contrast, participants assigned the democratic leadership condition perceived the leader as more democratic than participants assigned the autocratic condition [ M = 2.76, SD = 0.90 vs. M = 4.97, SD = 0.94, with t (121) = −10.59, p < 0.01].

Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among Study 1 variables.

N = 125; a 1 = male; 2 = female; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.

Mean values, standard deviations, and significances of differences between experimental conditions (Study 1).

N = 125; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.

Second, we used a univariate ANOVA to test whether our manipulation of leadership in the transition phase was successful. The results again showed that participants assigned the autocratic leadership condition perceived the leader as being more autocratic than participants assigned the democratic condition [M = 6.30, SD = 0.54 vs. M = 3.56, SD = 1.32, with t (121) = 8.95, p < 0.01]. In contrast, participants assigned the democratic leadership condition perceived the leader as being more democratic than participants assigned the autocratic condition [ M = 5.35, SD = 0.55 vs. M = 2.27, SD = 0.87, with t (121) = −14.66, p < 0.01]. In conclusion, all manipulations worked as expected.

Hypotheses testing

We supported H1a since performing autocratic leadership behavior during the action phase resulted in higher trust ratings ( M = 4.22, SD = 1.67) than performing democratic leadership ( M = 3.22, SD = 1.90; p < 0.05). We also supported H1b since performing democratic behavior during the transition phase resulted in higher trust in the leader ( M = 5.58, SD = 1.14) than performing autocratic leadership ( M = 2.41, SD = 1.31; p < 0.01; see Figure 2 ). Moreover, we supported H2a since autocratic leadership resulted in higher leader ability ratings ( M = 4.21, SD = 1.41) during the action phase than democratic leadership ( M = 3.29, SD = 1.76; p < 0.05, see Figure 3 ) and also supported H2b since the indirect effect of autocratic leadership (as compared with democratic leadership) on follower trust during the action phase through leader ability was significant (effect = –0.90, 95% CI[–1.63, –0.13]).

The relationship between autocratic and democratic leadership and trust in the leader for the action and transition phase (Study 1).

The relationship between autocratic and democratic leadership and leader ability for the action phase (Study 1).

Finally, we supported H3a since leader benevolence ratings were higher for democratic leadership behavior ( M = 5.84, SD = 0.98) during the transition phase than for autocratic leadership behavior ( M = 1.66, SD = 1.01; p < 0.01, see Figure 4 ). Furthermore, in the transition phase, the indirect effect of democratic (rather than autocratic) leadership behavior on follower trust through leader benevolence was significant (effect = 3.95, 95% CI[2.84, 5.57]), supporting H3b.

The relationship between autocratic and democratic leadership and leader benevolence for the transition phase (Study 1).

Using a scenario-based experimental methodology, we designed Study 1 to provide an experimental test of the impact that autocratic and democratic leadership has on follower trust. Study 1 supported that the influence of autocratic and democratic leadership on follower trust varies depending on the team performance phase since the action and transition phases involve different task demands and thus leadership requirements. We found that autocratic rather than democratic leadership elevates follower trust by increasing leader ability in the action phase. In contrast, democratic rather than autocratic leadership enhances follower trust during transition phases by elevating leader benevolence. Our scenario-based experimental methodology had the advantage of isolating the effects of autocratic and democratic leadership ( Antonakis et al., 2010 ). However, the drawback was that respondents could not directly experience the team performance phase to which they were responding ( Belschak and Den Hartog, 2009 ). Therefore, we conducted a second study in the context of firefighting to replicate and extend the results from Study 1 using a different method involving a sample of firefighters who actually experience leader behaviors in extreme operations.

Sample, design, and procedure

We recruited firefighters through professional firefighting conferences, department visits, email news briefs, blogs, and forums to participate in an online survey. Various recruitment methods restricted us from calculating an exact response rate. However, of the 576 firefighters registered for participation, 165 (29%) completed the survey. All participants worked for firefighting departments in Germany. The study sample consisted of 147 males and 18 females, averaging 36 years of age ( SD = 10.77) and 18 years of work experience ( SD = 10.16). All firefighters volunteered to complete the study.

We used the critical incident technique ( Aquino et al., 2006 ; Wang et al., 2018 ) to elicit salient experiences of action and transition phases. First, we asked participants to complete the following task: to think back over the last months as a firefighter and recall the last incident where they experienced an acute, serious, and dangerous firefighting operation. After thinking about this incident, respondents answered questions about leadership behaviors and trust in the leader. Second, we asked participants to complete another task: to think back over the last month as a firefighter and recall the last incident where they experienced a transition phase, such as a debriefing. Again, after deliberating about this critical incident, participants answered the questions about leadership behaviors and trust in the leader.

Unless otherwise stated, we used measures on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree).

As in Study 1, we measured autocratic leadership using the six-item autocratic leader behavior scale developed by De Hoogh et al. (2004) . The Cronbach’s alpha score was 0.75 for the action phase and 0.87 for the transition phase.

We assessed democratic leadership using five items from the participative decision-making questionnaire, as in Study 1 ( Arnold et al., 2000 ). The Cronbach’s alpha score was 0.89 for the action phase and 0.94 for the transition phase.

As in Study 1, we used a measure developed by Mayer and Davis (1999) to assess leader ability and benevolence. We used six items to measure leader ability (α = 0.96 for action phase, α = 0.97 for transition phase) and five items for leader benevolence (α = 0.90 for the action phase, α = 0.95 for the transition phase).

Follower trust was measured using the three-item scale developed by Giessner and van Knippenberg (2008) , as in Study 1. The Cronbach’s alpha score was 0.93 for the action phase and 0.96 for the transition phase.

As in Study 1, we controlled for firefighter age, gender, and job tenure. The results remained unchanged with or without these controls in the model.

We analyzed our data using ordinary least square regression to check for H1a, H1b, H2a, and H3a and examined the statistical significance of the difference between the two means by investigating whether the two 95% confidence intervals overlapped ( Schenker and Gentleman, 2001 ; Ryu and Cheong, 2017 ). Moreover, we used bootstrapping and bias-corrected confidence intervals (95%) to analyze H2b and H3b. All mediation analyses were performed with the PROCESS tool in SPSS ( Hayes, 2012 ). Analyses were repeated without control variables, resulting in findings similar to those reported here.

The findings of our multicollinearity analysis showed that the VIF values ranged within acceptable values, from 1.11 to 2.76 in the action phase (VIF = 1.74 for autocratic leadership, VIF = 1.07 for democratic leadership, VIF = 2.76 for leader ability, 2.43 for leader benevolence, 2.47 for age, 1.11 for gender, and 2.37 for job tenure) and from 1.02 to 3.61 in the transition phase (VIF = 1.02 for autocratic leadership, VIF = 1.96 for democratic leadership, VIF = 3.61 for leader ability, 3.40 for leader benevolence, 2.44 for age, 1.10 for gender, and 2.34 for job tenure). Thus, no severe multicollinearity problems were present in our research model.

Hypothesis testing

Tables 4 , ​ ,5 5 provide the means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients among the study variables for both temporal phases. Table 6 presents the findings of the regression analysis. First, the results of the regression analysis showed that the effect of autocratic leadership on trust in the leader was significantly positive ( b = 0.75, SE = 0.09, p < 0.01, 95% CI[0.56, 0.91]), and the effect of democratic leadership was also significantly positive ( b = 0.14, SE = 0.06, p < 0.05, 95% CI[0.18, 0.25]) in the action phase. Supporting H1a, the 95% confidence intervals of the two estimates did not overlap, hence the two were statistically significantly different from one another.

Descriptive statistics and correlations for the action phase (Study 2).

N = 165; a 1 = male, 2 = female; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.

Descriptive statistics and correlations for the transition phase (Study 2).

Effects of leadership behaviors on trust in the leader and leader ability and benevolence (Study 2).

N = 165; a 1 = male; 2 = female; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01; unstandardized coefficients are reported.

Second, the effect of democratic leadership on trust in the leader was significantly positive ( b = 0.58, SE = 0.06, p < 0.01, 95% CI[0.46, 0.69]), and the effect of autocratic leadership was non-significant in the transition phase ( b = 0.01, SE = 0.06, p > 0.05, 95% CI[–0.11, 0.13]). Supporting H1b, the 95% confidence intervals of the two estimates did not overlap. Thus, we concluded that they were different from each other.

Third, there was a positive significant effect of autocratic leadership on leader ability in the action phase ( b = 0.76, SE = 0.07, p < 0.01, 95% CI[0.60, 0.89]). There was also a positive significant effect for democratic leadership ( b = 0.13, SE = 0.05, p < .05, 95% CI[0.03, 0.29]). Supporting H2a, the 95% confidence intervals of the two estimates were significantly different from each other as the confidence intervals of the two estimates did not overlap.

Fourth, the findings also supported H2b since the indirect effect on trust in the leader through leader ability in the action phase was significantly positive for autocratic leadership (effect = 0.65, 95% CI[0.44, 0.89]) and insignificant for democratic leadership (effect = 0.11, 95% CI[–0.01, 0.23]). Fifth, there was a significant positive effect of democratic leadership on leader benevolence in the transition phase ( b = 0.53, SE = 0.05, p < 0.01, 95% CI[0.42, 0.62]) and an insignificant effect for autocratic leadership ( b = 0.00, SE = 0.06, p > 0.05, 95% CI[–0.11, 0.11]). Thus, the results supported H3a since the 95% confidence intervals of the two estimates did not overlap, hence the two estimates were statistically significantly different from one another. Sixth, our results also supported H3b, as the indirect effect on follower trust through leader benevolence in the transition phase was significantly positive for democratic leadership (effect = 0.41, 95% CI[0.25, 0.61]) but insignificant for autocratic leadership (effect = 0.05, 95% CI[–0.10, 0.20]).

Study 2 replicated and extended the results from Study 1 using a different research method. In line with findings obtained in Study 1, Study 2 supported that autocratic leadership, compared to democratic leadership, elevates follower trust in the leader by increasing leader ability in the action phase. In addition, we demonstrated that democratic compared to autocratic leadership enhances follower trust in the leader during the transition phase by elevating leader benevolence.

General discussion

Our findings demonstrate that the influence of autocratic and democratic leadership on follower trust differs between action and transition phases. We find that follower trust is more strongly related to autocratic rather than democratic leadership during the action phase, whereas follower trust during the transition phase is more strongly related to democratic rather than autocratic leadership. Moreover, our results show that autocratic leaders have higher abilities than democratic leaders in action phases, whereas democratic leaders are more benevolent than autocratic leaders in transition phases. Furthermore, we find that the link between autocratic leadership and trust is mediated by leader ability in action phases, whereas the link between democratic leadership and trust is mediated by leader benevolence in transition phases.

Theoretical implications

This article contributes to the leadership and trust literature by demonstrating the necessity of considering situational factors when assessing the effects of autocratic and democratic leadership on follower trust. In line with other studies on follower trust (e.g., Dirks, 2000 ; Burke et al., 2007 ) and autocratic and democratic leadership ( Lewin and Lippitt, 1938 ; Gastil, 1994 ; Foels et al., 2000 ; Schoel et al., 2011 ), we demonstrate that explicit consideration of the context provides a better description of the effects of autocratic and democratic leadership on follower trust.

Departing from prior research that has mainly considered these leadership behaviors in isolation (e.g., Mulder et al., 1971 ; Gladstein and Reilly, 1985 ; Eisenhardt, 1989 ; Bass, 1990 ; Bass and Riggio, 2006 ; Sweeney et al., 2009 ), we directly compare autocratic and democratic leadership behaviors to clarify the conflicting findings in the literature on the effectiveness of both behaviors for instilling follower trust. Thus, we provide insights into when and why autocratic and democratic leadership behaviors foster follower trust in emergency contexts and contribute to the debate regarding the limits and benefits of both behaviors ( Berkowitz, 1953 ; Bass, 1990 ; Gastil, 1994 ; Yukl, 2006 ; Schoel et al., 2011 ; De Hoogh et al., 2015 ).

Conceptually, we extend the leadership and trust literature by considering the critical role of team process phases ( Marks et al., 2001 ), showing that the influence of autocratic and democratic leadership on follower trust manifests through different task demands encountered in the action and transition phases. This finding is consistent with functional leadership ( McGrath, 1962 ) and team process theory ( Kozlowski et al., 2009 ; Morgeson et al., 2010 ), suggesting that action and transition phases produce different task demands for leadership behavior. By demonstrating that the influence of autocratic and democratic leadership on follower trust differs significantly across the two phases, we highlight an important temporal condition that may help explain some of the inconsistencies in previous research regarding the effectiveness of autocratic versus democratic leadership at the workplace ( Schoel et al., 2011 ), proposing its impact to both positively and negatively affect the working environment.

Previous research on the effectiveness of autocratic leadership has highlighted positive and negative consequences (e.g., Bass, 1990 ; Gastil, 1994 ; Foels et al., 2000 ; De Hoogh et al., 2015 ). This study supports that autocratic leadership is not always costly and sometimes fosters follower trust. Specifically, autocratic leadership during action phases promotes follower trust and perceptions of the leader’s abilities. This finding aligns with normative models ( Vroom and Yetton, 1973 ; Vroom and Jago, 1978 ), suggesting that autocratic leadership allows for fast decision-making processes and facilitates reaction times in time-sensitive situations. Moreover, this study informs leadership research by answering the call for more research on different behaviors of leadership in emergency contexts ( Hannah et al., 2009 ; Hannah and Parry, 2014 ). In particular, this study shows that autocratic leadership can have functional value for follower trust situations of heightened vulnerability.

Previous studies have largely focused on the positive effects of democratic leadership on team performance and effectiveness in the workplace ( Kushell and Newton, 1986 ; Foels et al., 2000 ). Scholars have suggested that followers do not prefer domineering leadership behaviors but are more efficient and satisfied when they participate in decision-making ( Gastil, 1994 ). Our results show a functional value for democratic leadership during transition phases and a dysfunctional value during action phases. In particular, we demonstrate that democratic leadership fosters follower perceptions of leader benevolence and trust in the transition phase. In contrast, democratic leadership is unrelated to follower perceptions of the leader’s abilities in action phases.

These findings align with the normative model ( Vroom and Yetton, 1973 ; Vroom and Jago, 1978 ) and social exchange processes ( Foels et al., 2000 ; Bass, 2008 ), suggesting that democratic leadership may operate by establishing care and consideration for followers in situations where time is not essential and where the leader does not have the information required to solve the problem alone ( Yukl, 2006 ). Thus, our study informs the debate on leadership effectiveness, demonstrating a functional and dysfunctional value for participatory and decentralized leadership behaviors in the two team performance phases.

Limitations and future research

This research has certain limitations, highlighting possible directions for future study. First, further research is needed concerning the operation of trust for emergency jobs with recurring team performance phases. Future work can thus expand this study and focus on how trust in the leader develops throughout the performance phase ( Sweeney, 2010 ). Future studies could include questions and measures to allow researchers to examine whether trust in the leader developed during a transition phase might transfer to an action phase. For example, Hannah et al. (2009) suggested that appropriate leadership behavior before an emergency event may allow leaders to be more autocratic during the emergency event based on the trust they have already built.

Second, we limit the analyzed leadership types to the two behaviors identified by Lewin and Lippitt (1938) : autocratic and democratic. In emergency contexts, the development and operation of trust may include other leadership behaviors. However, research suggests that adaptive and flexible leadership should consider a variety of leadership types, such as transformational and transactional leadership (e.g., Arnold et al., 2016 ; Geier, 2016 ; Eberly et al., 2017 ) and shared leadership (e.g., Klein et al., 2006 ; Ramthun and Matkin, 2014 ).

Third, our study narrowly defines autocratic and democratic leadership as two variants of decision-making ( Vroom and Yetton, 1973 ; Vroom and Jago, 1988 ). We describe autocratic leadership as forbidding subordinate involvement in decisions and democratic leadership as group decision-making. However, future research might differentiate between other variants of decision-making, such as consultation.

Fourth, we investigate only two leader characteristics comprising trustworthiness (ability and benevolence) that serve as mechanisms to explain the impact of autocratic and democratic leadership on trust. Previous research has suggested that future research should explore other mechanisms ( Mayer et al., 1995 ; Dirks, 2000 ; Mayer and Gavin, 2005 ). Thus, we encourage future research to examine other underlying mechanisms or moderators on the development and operation of follower trust, such as leader integrity, individual propensity to trust, and individual perceived risks ( Burke et al., 2007 ).

Fifth, a significant limitation of this study is our inability to test causality within our research design, particularly as our mediators and dependent variables are measured through cross-sectional self-reports. Future longitudinal studies and diary studies should address this issue.

Sixth, we find that trustworthiness in the leader’s ability and trustworthiness in the leader’s benevolence highly correlate with trust in the leader, raising concerns about content overlap. Therefore, we use well-validated scales to focus on nonoverlapping constructs ( Colquitt and Rodell, 2011 ). We also measure and account for multicollinearity in our analyses. Our findings support the measurement of our constructs, and the low likelihood that construct content overlap is a concern in the present research. Future studies should account for overlapping content correlation in trust research.

Practical implications

Our findings show that functional and dysfunctional values exist for autocratic and democratic leadership concerning follower trust. These findings inform the debate on whether autocratic and democratic leadership are important leadership tools in emergency contexts (e.g., Hannah et al., 2010 ). Our findings highlight that it is important for leaders to understand the positive impact they can have on follower trust by enacting a mix of autocratic and democratic leadership behaviors across performance phases. Furthermore, leaders should be aware of the dynamic task features of emergency contexts and adjust their leadership behaviors depending on the phase to which they are exposed.

We also show advantages to employing both leadership behaviors and providing a framework for leaders to follow, depending on the team performance phases ( Marks et al., 2001 ). For teams facing action phases (e.g., fire missions, surgeries), autocratic leadership is the most appropriate, as units must be able to immediately operate at peak performance and full speed. The team cannot afford to slow down the treatment process for the participation required in democratic teams ( Yun et al., 2005 ; Lorinkova et al., 2013 ). In contrast, when units are exposed to transition phases (e.g., operational debriefings), democratic leadership is the most appropriate choice, facilitating learning opportunities, feelings of identity, and commitment of the units.

Leadership development activities can also help raise leaders’ awareness regarding how their behaviors may or may not lead to follower trust, depending on the leader’s abilities and benevolence. Leaders can then learn to adjust their behavior as required ( De Hoogh et al., 2015 ). For example, leaders can use autocratic leadership techniques for action-related events.

This study provides meaningful insights into the relative benefits of autocratic and democratic leadership. Previous research has not compared autocratic and democratic leadership in emergency contexts, and the unique impact of both leadership behaviors on follower trust remains unknown. Our findings suggest that it is important for leaders to understand the positive impact they can have on follower trust by enacting a mix of autocratic and democratic leadership across different team performance phases.

Data availability statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by University of Koblenz-Landau. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the design and implementation of the research, to the analysis of the results, to the writing of the manuscript, and provided final approval of the version to be published.

Appendix 1: Pilot study

To construct a set of draft vignettes of autocratic and democratic leadership in emergency contexts and ensure their validity, we first conducted a qualitative pilot study using an in-depth interview technique with a firefighter sample ( Belkin and Rothman, 2017 ).

Nine firefighters participated in the study: all males aged 24 to 40 years old ( M = 26 years, SD = 5.94), averaging 11 years of work ( SD = 5.87). The participants were employed across four departments in the midwestern region of Germany. The sample included two lieutenants, one driver/ladder operator, and six firefighters.

A trained, professional interviewer collected data during face-to-face interviews of approximately 90 min. We used a semi-structured interview guide with open-ended questions ( Taylor and Bogdan, 1998 ), and all tape-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim for the data analysis. Participants were recruited using a snowball sampling technique ( McAlearney, 2006 ). The original sample of firefighters was generated by academic staff and extended by informants asked to suggest additional experts. Data saturation was judged to have occurred if interviews offered repetitive information and ideas and no new information emerged ( Strauss and Corbin, 1990 ; Morse, 2000 ).

Firefighters were free to talk about personal thoughts and feelings and explore real-life situations ( Miles and Huberman, 1994 ; Ashill and Yavas, 2006 ; Levy, 2006 ). They were asked questions such as, “What do you think you need from your leader during action phases? And during transition phases? Are some leadership behaviors particularly essential in each phase?” They were then asked to narrate critical leadership behavior incidents in their daily work experiences during and following various operations. They were also questioned about their preferences and expectations regarding the leader’s behavior and its relationship to trust development and erosion.

Our analysis followed the inductive analysis technique by searching for patterns and identifying data themes ( Strauss and Corbin, 1990 ; Haddon et al., 2015 ; Pratt et al., 2019 ). Two independent researchers read the interview transcripts several times, identifying themes, key ideas, and recurring statements shared by interviewees ( Miles and Huberman, 1994 ). Coding was descriptive and open and remained close to the firefighters’ language ( Strauss and Corbin, 1990 ).

In this section, the results are summarized into two distinct themes. The first theme answered the question, “What do you think you need from your leader during action phases?” The second theme concerned the forms of leadership displayed in the transition phase. Verbatim quotations were chosen as representative of the qualitative data. Below, we discuss each theme in more detail.

Theme 1: Leadership in the action phase

The most critical leadership behavior in the action phase was the leaders’ ability to be decisive and set directions. The importance of leaders telling followers what to do while effectively inhibiting discussions was considered important to provide the opportunity to act quickly and follow an operation plan. This attitude was evidenced by the representative quotes below:

Leadership should set direction. It goes like this. Otherwise, it wastes time and delays the whole process. (Participant 1) When the order is given, the order is given. That’s what you do. Orders create silence. It’s a very clear job. There’s nothing to discuss what you have to do. […] It’s not up for discussion. Outside it’s hectic and chaotic, but simple commands make you calm in a situation. […] Clear simple orders are required. (Participant 2) Discussions are not at all beneficial and protract the mission. This makes it more tense between the forces. […] In the end, I do something wrong. (Participant 7) You should never reject a command. It gets unpredictable at this moment. (Participant 4)

Establishing a sense of hierarchy was emphasized, helping to bundle, process, and analyze all incoming information. The leader was seen as a contact person whom they could turn to in case of need, as evidenced by the quotes below:

One cannot act democratically in such a situation. Gotta maintain hierarchy; can’t have a great debate there. I’m just an underling. (Participant 8) We have a clear hierarchical structure in an operation, which is also carried out in this way. But, apart from that, it is a lot of togetherness. […] You can be on first-name terms with the boss. […] It’s not that it always has to stay in a fixed structure after an operation. (Participant 3)

Theme 2: Leadership in the transition phase

The second central theme was leadership in the transition phase. The leader’s ability to give all followers the chance to voice their opinions and sensitivities was important, providing the opportunity to learn, reflect, and resolve inconsistencies. This sentiment was evidenced by the representative quotes below:

There isn’t any room for discussion on a mission! Not until the end of a mission. Then a leader can come and chat. […] Also, ask what did I experience and how I feel! Show interest; then I feel better. (Participant 2) After the mission, go and ask whether everything is fine and if there are any ideas. Ask if you can improve something. (Participant 4) To question leaders’ commands can be very negative on a mission! I get insecure. Then I question the executive. This is not working. If there is any dissatisfaction, it should be clarified in the follow-up. (Participant 9)

The leader’s behavior of listening to follower’s ideas and suggestions was also considered important (to enhance transparency and learning):

After a mission, it is also important to discuss. Experience must be shared. It is of no use if the wealth of experience that everyone has is kept to themselves. It’s useless. Exchange means learning through discussion. People listen to you. Should offer an open ear, be curious. (Participant 2) Transparent communication is very important. When you make a decision, you should also explain why it was necessary to do so afterward. Then, you can see a sense of your own security. Without justification and without explanation, you often don’t see any sense in it. (Participant 6)

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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LITERATURE REVIEW ON LEADERSHIP STYLES

A successful pioneer impacts his or her adherents in a fancied way to accomplish objectives and destinations. It is obvious from the writing that diverse initiative styles might influence an organization's viability and execution. The target of this paper is to break down the survey of writing on different initiative styles over the previous years. How distinctive authority styles have risen over a timeframe. Data was acquired subsequent to checking on numerous articles, research papers on initiative styles from distinctive diaries, magazines and books. In addition, the study prescribes that transformational and value-based initiative styles are more essential as more work has been done in the field of these authority style.

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A Literature Review into Leadership Styles Discussed in the Past Five Years

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REVIEW article

Participative leadership: a literature review and prospects for future research.

• 1 School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China
• 2 College of Business Administration, Gachon University, Seongnam, South Korea
• 3 School of Management, Xi’an Polytechnic University, Xi’an, China

Changes in the external market environment put forward objective requirements for the formulation of organizational strategic plans, making it difficult for the organization’s leaders to make the right and effective decisions quickly on their own. As a result, participative leadership, which encourages and supports employees to participate in the decision-making process of organizations, has received increasing attention in both theory and practice. We searched the literature related to participative leadership in databases such as Web of Science, EBSCO, ProQuest, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). Based on this, we clarify the concept of participative leadership, propose a definition of participative leadership, summarize measurement scales for this type of leadership, and compare participative leadership with other leadership styles (empowering leadership and directive leadership). We also present a research framework for participative leadership that demonstrates its antecedents; the mechanisms for its development based on social exchange theory, conservation of resources theory, social cognitive theory; social information processing theory, and implicit leadership theory; and outcomes. Finally, we identify five potential research areas: Connotation, antecedents, outcomes, mediators and moderators, and study of participative leadership in China.

Introduction

In the digital age, companies are actively taking accurate decisions such as using advanced technology to enhance their competitive advantage in the marketplace ( Su et al., 2021 ). But where do good measures and perfect solutions come from? The answer comes from the masses. With the dramatic changes in the competitive business environment, it is difficult for organizational leaders to make timely and effective decisions on their own, which has led to the active presence of employees in organizational decision-making today ( Peng et al., 2021 ). At the same time, due to the use of modern information technology such as computer networks and system integration, there is a bottom-up flow of information within the enterprise, and these cross-level, multi-dimensional “employee opinions” play an increasingly important role in leadership decision-making. Improving a company’s competitive advantage, sustainable development goal and performance is increasingly dependent on the active participation of the organization’s employees in decision-making ( Chang et al., 2021 ; Jia et al., 2021 ). In particular, Peter Drucker, the master of manageme, also considered that “encouraging employee involvement” is an important part of effective leadership in his influential study “Management by Objective.” In practice, some well-known companies have gradually started to call for employee participation behaviors in decision-making to varying degrees. For example, leaders in the R&D department of Volvo Cars actively use shared open rights and encourage diversity initiatives to promote employee participation in decision-making to facilitate organizational innovation ( Jing et al., 2017 ). It is easy to see that employee participation, a key component of organizational decision-making, is an important influencing factor for business organizations to adapt to the dynamic business environment and improve the effectiveness and science of leaders’ decisions. Therefore, it is an important issue that leaders need to focus on in real-time, especially in organizations with a high power distance culture, to promote the participation of their subordinates in organizational decision-making ( Huang et al., 2010 ). This requires leaders to adopt a supportive, democratic leadership style, known as participative leadership. A large number of scholars also agree that organizational leaders are increasingly relying on highly engaged employees to meet the challenges of a competitive marketplace, so participative leadership, which seeks to promote behaviors that support employee participation in organizational decision-making, is gaining attention in many organizations ( Huang et al., 2006 ). Participative leadership exists in organizations of any size, of any type and at any stage, where openness and empowerment of employees in the organizational decision-making process are core characteristics that distinguish it from other leadership styles ( Huang et al., 2021 ). When making strategic decisions, participative leaders are able to share decision-making power and fully consult employees to jointly deal with the work problems ( Chan, 2019 ).

In summary, participative leaders encourage and support employees to participate in the decision-making process in order to make effective organizational decisions and to solve work problems together through a range of measures ( Kahai et al., 1997 ). However, there is still much space for theoretical research on participative leadership, and the organizational practice with the current call for “employee participation in decision-making” needs to be optimised and improved, and there is an urgent need to balance the organizational practice and theoretical research on “employee participation” and “scientific decision-making” from the leadership level. In order to accelerate the exploration of participative leadership and promote the research on the effectiveness of participative leadership, we systematically review the literature on participative leadership, summarise and outline its concept, measurement scales and conceptual comparisons, antecedents, mechanisms and outcomes, and present future research perspectives.

Literature Collection

We searched the literature on participative leadership published in databases such as Web of Science, ProQuest, EBSCO, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). To perform the search, we used the keywords “participative leadership,” “participative management,” “participative behavior,” and “participative leader.” We also used a snowballing approach to identify relevant literature by searching the list of references we found in our research. Also, to better examine the similarities and differences in leadership styles in our work, we had collected literature related to directive leadership and empowering leadership in these databases. And we only used the keywords “directive leadership,” and “empowering leadership.”

Literature Processing

Literature was included in our research if it met the following criteria. First, we collected research on the topic of participative leadership, excluding leadership research unrelated to participative management. Second, the literature we collected on participative leadership had to be written in either English or Chinese, excluding relevant research in other languages. Third, the literature included both quantitative and qualitative research and did not impose any restrictions on where the research was conducted or the industry in which it was conducted. Fourth, the information we collected on participative leadership included published journal articles, conference papers, master’s and doctoral dissertations, and so on. In addition, compared to participative leadership, we collected mostly review-based literature on empowering leadership and directive leadership, including some empirical researches, to better understand both types of leadership. Also, the literature must be written in Chinese or English.

The Concept of Participative Leadership

According to literature review, participative leadership is a democratic leadership that involves subordinates in organizational decision-making and management, with the aim of effectively enhancing employees’ sense of ownership and actively integrating their personal goals into organizational goals. Therefore, in the daily leadership process, leaders actively implement “participation management” for their subordinates, such as conveying meaningful values, actively organizing reporting and other flexible promotion strategies ( Jing et al., 2017 ). The American scholar Likert (1961) , after extensive experimental research on democratic leadership, formally introduced the concept of participative leadership in his book “A New Model of Management” and revealed the three main principles of participative leadership theory, including the mutual support principle, the group decision principle and the high standards principle. Since the introduction of participative leadership, it has received much attention from a large number of researchers. Based on previous research, Kahai et al. (1997) redefined it as participative leadership, which refers to a leadership style in which leaders ask employees for their opinions before making decisions, delegate decision-making authority to subordinates in practice, and encourage active participation by employees to make decisions together. The literature also reflects two core characteristics of participative leadership: first, employees are consulted before decisions are made in order to solve problems together; second, employees are given resources to support them in the work process ( Kahai et al., 1997 ; Lam et al., 2015 ; Li et al., 2018 ).

Participative leadership is also characterised in practice by the following features: first, in the process of employee participation in decision-making, leaders and subordinates are on an equal footing and trust each other completely, and organizational issues are resolved through democratic consultation. Second, in general, although participative management involves a wide range of employees in decision-making, the final decision is still made by the leaders. Huang et al. (2010) also explored participative leadership in-depth and argued that participative leadership requires more encouragement and support for employees in the decision-making process and sharing of information and ideas, which has been recognized by many scholars ( Xiang and Long, 2013 ; Lam et al., 2015 ; Li et al., 2018 ). It is easy to see that the core of participative leadership is to encourage employees to participate in organizational decision-making, and the key to the leadership process is to make a series of management tasks such as consulting employees before making decisions ( Benoliel and Somech, 2014 ). Thus, based on many previous studies and practical experience, we consider participative leadership as a set of leadership behaviors that promote subordinates to participate in decision-making by giving them a certain degree of discretionary powers, effective information and other resources, as well as care and encouragement, so that they can be consulted enough before making decisions to solve work problems together( Huang et al., 2010 ; Chan, 2019 ).

Measurement of Participative Leadership

The current measurement of participative leadership is mainly in the form of questionnaires in quantitative research and consists of the following measurement scales. First, Vroom (1959) psychological participation questionnaire, which evaluates the frequency with which leaders demonstrate a participative leadership style and reflects the overall ability of members to influence decisions and provide input and advice to leaders, consists of four questions (α = 0.63), sample item: “If you had a suggestion to improve your work or change a process in some way, how easy would it be for you to communicate the idea to your leader.”

Second, the empowering leadership scale (ELS) developed by Arnold et al. (2000) in which subjects score perceived leadership behaviors, with several items in the participation in decision-making section becoming a measure of participative leadership (α = 0.86), and is currently recognized by most scholars, with a total of six questions, and a sample item is “Encourages work group members to express ideas/suggestions.” The measurement scale developed by Arnold et al. (2000) has been widely used in empirical research ( Huang et al., 2010 ; Lam et al., 2015 ; Peng et al., 2021 ).

Third, the participative management questionnaires. In research of participative management in education, Somech (2002) designed a participative management scale with a total of thirty-five items, which includes five dimensions: decision domain (10 items; α = 0.83), degree of participation (4 items; α = 0.79), structure (3 items; α = 0.79), rationale (9 items; α = 0.77), and participation target (9 items; α = 0.69). Decision domain refers to determine if, after a decade of explicit attention to and advocacy of enhanced participative leadership, principals prefer to involve teachers not only in the technical domain, but also in the managerial, and a sample item is “Setting and revising the school goals.” Degree of participation refers to differentiating the extent of participation from the degree of participation, and a sample item is “Makes decisions on his or her own.” Structure refers to the extent to which a formal structure for validating decisions exist in the school and their relationship to other dimensions of participation, and a sample item is “To what extent explicit procedures existed at the school concerning who participated in the decision-making process.” Rationale is to determine, through an exploratory method, the main motives that inspired principals to participate in management and their relationship with the degree of participative management, and a sample item is “Encourage teacher’s acceptance of the decision.” Participation target refers to examine principals’ considerations in choosing which teacher to involve in the decision-making process, and a sample item is “The teacher expressed an independent thinking style.” The measurement scale developed by Somech (2002) has been found to have a good use in research ( Benoliel and Somech, 2014 ).

Fourth, some scholars had adapted or developed participative leadership scales by themselves, but the use is limited. For example, Kahai et al. (2004) used group-level responses (3 items) about how frequently participants observed the leader to implement participative management. A sample item is “Incorporating their suggestions into the final decision.” And Li et al. (2018) adapted from Oldham and Cummings (1996) and Kahai’s studies ( Kahai et al., 2004 ), which asked employees to rate their team leaders’ participative leadership behaviors on a four-item scale (α = 0.81), with typical questions such as “Puts suggestions from our group members into the final decision.” The individual responses were aggregated to the team level. Mean r wg was 0.90. And Zhao et al. (2019) developed a five-item scale, with typical questions such as “Leaders encourage team members to be active in suggesting ideas” (α = 0.80). In addition, there are also some studies that utilize the case method in qualitative research. For example, Jing et al. (2017) used an embedded case approach to provide an in-depth analysis of the role played by participative leadership. Finally, we summarize the major ways and references of previous measurements in the form of tables, as shown in Table 1 .

Table 1. Summary of measurements.

Comparison Between Participative Leadership and Other Leadership Styles

A review of the recent literature reveals that some scholars usually discuss participative leadership together with empowering leadership and directive leadership, but they are only mentioned, without in-depth analysis of the similarities and differences between them ( Lonati, 2020 ; Zou et al., 2020 ). At present, the lack of comprehensive comparative analysis of the three leadership styles. Therefore, we analyze the similarities and differences between participative leadership and empowering leadership and directive leadership to varying degrees and compares them in terms of key characteristics, behavioral approaches and behavioral motives to highlight the unique research value of participative leadership, as shown in Table 2 .

Table 2. Contrast of different leadership styles.

Empowering Leadership

The situational empowerment perspective emphasizes the practice of empowerment in organizational situations and defines empowering leadership as a series of management practices that empower subordinates. The psychological empowerment perspective emphasizes the psychological experience of empowerment and defines it as a motivational tool to eliminate employees’ internal feelings of disempowerment by raising their level of motive. And the integration of situational perspective and psychological perspective emphasizes the leaders’ behavior toward power sharing and employees’ perceptions of empowerment, illustrating the process of achieving power sharing between leaders and employees ( Tang et al., 2012 ). It is easy to see that both empowering leadership and participative leadership denote the delegation of leadership authority, but the focus are different. Specifically, participative leadership refers to the sharing and delegation of decision-making power, which means that subordinates are able to participate in the leaders’ decisions and express their views, while empowered leadership is more concerned with the delegation of personal authority and job responsibilities, so that subordinates have a certain degree of autonomy in deciding how to work, in order to achieve self-motive ( Amundsen and Martinsen, 2014 ). In addition, empowering leaders have a certain degree of positivity when they delegate their power, but they also tend to make employees feel that the leader is not willing to manage, which reduces the effectiveness of leadership. However, the participative leaders only share decision-making power with subordinates, retaining the authority and responsibility for leadership work and effectively avoiding employees’ perceptions of laissez-faire management. Thus, participative leadership is unique in that it not only achieves performance goals but also reduces the corresponding negative impacts ( Zou et al., 2020 ).

Directive Leadership

Directive leadership is about providing specific instructions to employees and clarifying policies, rules and procedures designed to organize the work of subordinates by providing obvious instructions and expectations regarding compliance with instructions ( Li et al., 2018 ; Lonati, 2020 ). In short, directive leadership is the use of leadership authority to tell subordinates what to do by way of orders, instructions, etc., in order to successfully achieve organizational goals. In other words, directive leadership is the procedure and method by which the leader assigns organizational tasks to subordinates and accomplishes them by means of one-way communication, and there is a relationship of command and obedience, instruction and execution between the leader and subordinates. Not only that, organizations with directive leadership are more likely to have normalized work processes, and employees are likely to obey the precise orders of the leader, allowing themselves to be fully focused on completing specific work tasks ( Lorinkova et al., 2013 ). Consequently, social messages such as clear work objectives, specific work procedures and supervision by organizational leaders create a sense of rules and responsibility among subordinates, but undermine employee creativity. Participative leaders, however, actively engage in interpersonal interaction with their employees in order to make decisions together. And, participative leadership, characterised by autonomy, collaboration and openness, encourages the employees to work innovatively by providing creative ideas and solutions that lead to the best decisions ( Lam et al., 2015 ). Therefore, participative leadership is more effective in stimulating employee creativity than directive leadership.

Research Framework for Participative Leadership

Changes in the external marketplace put forward objective demands on the development of the organization’s strategic solutions, making it difficult for the organization’s leaders to make the right and effective decisions quickly on their own ( Li et al., 2018 ; Zhao et al., 2019 ). Based on a review of previous research, we develop a research framework for participative leadership (shown in Figure 1 ) including the antecedents, mechanisms (mediator and moderator), and consequences of this type of leadership, with a view to clearly showing the lineage of empirical research on participative leadership for scholars’ subsequent exploration.

Figure 1. Empirical research on participative leadership. Data sources were reviewed according to relevant literature; “-”represents the existing research path and variables; “*”represents the path and variables proposed in future research.

The Antecedents of Participative Leadership

The antecedents of participative leadership can provide positive guidance for the development of this leadership research. Currently, the antecedents of participative leadership can be divided into individual-level antecedents and organizational-level antecedents. A lot of studies on antecedents focus on the individual level, such as individual experience, assessment model and leader-member individual difference ( Somech, 2002 ; Li et al., 2018 ). These factors promote leaders to show more participative management behaviors. In contrast, greater organizational control over participative behaviors tends to push leaders to highlight the significance of employee participation in organizational decision-making. As proof, organizational culture and organizational size have great influence on leaders’ participative management behaviors.

Individual-Level Antecedents

Some scholars pointed out that the implementation of participative management is related to personal factors. For example, experienced leaders may be more inclined to engage in participative management ( Somech, 2002 ). Among the specific research on individual influences, the influence of personality tendencies on leadership style has become a key theoretical concern. In particular, based on the regulatory model theory, Li et al. (2018) found that the assessment model refers to the fact that individuals are more concerned with obtaining the best solution during self-regulation, and it is more likely to develop a participative leadership style, while the locomotion model is more concerned with state change and more likely to develop a directive leadership style. At the same time, the leader’s awareness of participative management is key to influencing his or her participative management style and is seen as a determinant of participative leadership. For example, in a research on leaders in business and government, Black (2020) showed that leaders’ self-awareness has a significant impact on their leadership style, and the higher the level of self-reported individual awareness, the more pronounced the participative leadership style. In addition, Somech’s (2003) research (2003), in conjunction with the leader-member exchange model, suggests that individual differences between leaders and subordinates also influence leadership style, the greater the differences, the less likely the leader is to implement participative management. In other words, the quality of the relationship between the leaders and the subordinates may influence the leaders’ management style. On this basis, Chen and Tjosvold (2006) also confirmed the idea that leader-member exchange quality is a key influence on participative management. The study further points out that cooperation, compared with competitiveness and independence, is an important basis for high-quality leader-member exchange, and the resulting leader-member relationships improve individual confidence and overcome cross-cultural differences, thus effectively enhancing participative management.

Organizational-Level Antecedents

Based on existing research, it is easy to understand the important role that personal factors play in predicting leadership styles in managerial roles. However, there can be significant differences in the way individuals lead in different contexts, as individuals in different situational organizations actively socialize by choosing to behave in a way that matches the context in which they are placed. There is no doubt that organizational context becomes a key factor in influencing leadership behaviors and styles ( Schneider, 1983 ). For example, leaders in small-scale societies living in primitive nomadic, hunter-gatherer societies were particularly focused on participative decision-making management, whereas in the era of intensive agricultural societies, as group size increased, participative decision-making management in small-scale societies often became ineffective, while increased social complexity and distortions in the distribution of power made organizational leaders rarely demonstrate participative management and instead gave rise to directive leadership ( Lonati, 2020 ). At the same time, an organizational culture that is acceptable and supportive of participative management in the workplace is also key to the development of participative leadership ( Huang et al., 2011 ). Bullough and De (2015) also analysed this in-depth and state that the social environment significantly increases the effectiveness of participative leadership based on the implicit leadership theory of cultural identity.

Mechanisms of Participative Leadership

We find that participative leadership, based on different theories from the social sciences, has significantly different effects on organizational employees through different mechanisms (mediators and moderators). First, based on social exchange theory, participative leadership influences employees by promoting their job prosperity and mutual help behavior ( Usman et al., 2021 ). Second, conservation of resources theory suggests that participative leadership would change employee behaviors in two different ways, increasing employee workload and improving organizational self-esteem ( Peng et al., 2021 ). Third, research based on social cognitive theory confirms that participative leadership increases employees’ self-efficacy and psychological security, which in turn affects employees’ innovation and performance ( Zou et al., 2020 ). Fourth, social information processing theory implies that the process of participative leadership affecting employee behaviors may be influenced by cultural values and other aspects ( Zhang et al., 2011 ). Fifth, drawing on implicit leadership theory, leaders’ information-sharing behaviors can moderate the relationship between participative leadership and employee performance ( Lam et al., 2015 ).

Social Exchange Theory

Social exchange theory has become an essential theory in researching the relationship between leaders and subordinates’ work attitudes and behaviors ( Miao et al., 2014 ). Some scholars had pointed out that Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) is to some extent reciprocal, and that supportive behaviors by the leader in an exchange relationship makes the subordinate feel obliged to reciprocate with positive attitudes and behaviors. In this way, social exchange theory, to a certain extent, provides a powerful explanation for participative leadership research. Because participative leaders encourage employees to express their personal views and opinions, actively give them the power to make decisions about their work, more respect and information resources to facilitate their participation in organizational decision-making, these signals of concern and support lead employees to perceive favors from their leaders, which in turn leads them to adopt a series of behaviors in return for their leaders ( Xiang and Long, 2013 ). Despite the uncertainty of social exchange, most subordinates will respond positively to the participative management behaviors of their leaders based on the normative principle of reciprocity. Because the process of leaders consulting employees before making decisions makes a positive social exchange relationship, employees tend to perform better at work. Based on social exchange theory, Usman et al. (2021) also confirmed that employees encouraged by participative leadership behaviors performed better in terms of job prosperity and took the initiative to offer help to others.

Conservation of Resources Theory

COR recognizes that individuals have limited resources and that personal resources must be acquired, preserved and maintained on an ongoing basis. “Resources” is a broad term that includes not only the objects (e.g., pay), conditions (e.g., organizational status) and energy that individuals value in achieving their goals, but also individual characteristics. Of these, individual characteristics are seen as important resources that further influence how employees deal with other changes in their resources ( Hobfoll and Shirom, 2001 ). For example, participative management may lead to higher performance goals for highly committed employees and less effort for less committed employees to conserve resources ( Benoliel and Somech, 2014 ). That is, different individuals hold different amounts and types of available resources and respond differently to the problems they face in work. It is important to note that, according to resource conservation theory, individuals are naturally motivated to acquire and maintain the resources that are more important to them. And as a result of this motive, individual resources may undergo two distinct changes in resource gain or resource loss, where resource gain indicates that the initial resource gainer is more capable of acquiring the resource, and resource loss refers to an initial threat to the resource that tends to lead to increased resource loss ( Halbesleben et al., 2014 ). Therefore, Peng et al. (2021) specifically highlighted that, according to resource conservation theory, participative leaders may have different impacts on employee resources through the two pathways described above. First, participative management provides employees with certain resources, resulting in various degrees of increase in employees’ sense of value and self-esteem, thus triggering resource gains. Second, participative management adds extra workloads to employees, thus triggering resource losses. In conclusion, resource conservation theory reasonably explain the effect of participative leadership on subordinates’ work behaviors.

Social Cognitive Theory

Social cognitive theory has found that the external environment, cognitive factors and individual behavior interact with each other, and individuals adjust their cognition according to the information they receive from the external environment, so as to display and maintain behavior patterns that match their own cognition ( Bandura, 1978 ). That is, people can learn indirectly by observing, accurately perceiving the behavior of others and extracting information from it. And in leadership research, employee behavior is a product of perceptions of the environment. As a specific external environment, the messages conveyed by participative leadership style are an important part of employees’ daily contact in the workplace, and by observing and interpreting such messages, employees would change their perceptions of their own abilities and thus adopt behaviors that are consistent with them ( Zou et al., 2020 ). For example, research by Fatima et al. (2017) based on social cognitive theory finds that participative leadership, as one of the important environmental factors, is easier for employees with higher achievement needs to access environmental information and to apply and transform it during the influence of participative leadership on the creativity of their subordinates. Furthermore, within the research framework of the environment-cognition-behavior, participative leadership has been found to be effective in enhancing employees’ self-efficacy (perceptions of self-efficacy) and psychological security (perceptions of the interpersonal environment), contributing significantly to employees’ innovation and performance ( Zou et al., 2020 ). There is no doubt that social cognitive theory provides a new theoretical perspective and research framework for understanding the influence of participative leadership on employee behavior.

Social Information Processing Theory

SIP is concerned with the influence of the work environment on individual behaviors and work outcomes. It aims to reveal that individuals in organizations with a high degree of environmental adaptability actively or passively acquire information from the internal environment and process it according to certain rules to control their own attitudes and behaviors ( Gao et al., 2021 ). And SIP effectively explains individual behavioral change and provides a solid theoretical basis for describing participative leaders’ implementation of participative management. For example, research based on social information processing theory emphases that subordinates’ perceptions, beliefs and attitudes are influenced by information about their surroundings, such as values, norms and expectations from society ( Zhang et al., 2011 ). Leaders, in turn, are a key source of information for employees to access, and this information will collectively shape employees’ beliefs. That is, from a social information processing perspective, repeated observations of the leader’s style can enable employees to construct participative decision-making behaviors that the leader appreciates and encourages ( Odoardi et al., 2019 ). Further, research on this theory has found that participative decision-making not only informs employees about the occurrence of behaviors, but even facilitates the transformation of attitudes toward work ( Somech, 2010 ). It is important to note, however, that when cultural values differ, individuals may weigh information that encourages participation in decision-making and thus increase or decrease the impact of such information on their work ( Zhang et al., 2011 ). In particular, the impact that participative management by leaders may have on employees is particularly significant in large-power-distance cultures. It is easy to see that participative management messages originating from the leader are likely to be socially constructed among group members so that employees will agree on the process of working in a particular domain environment and thus adopt organizationally supported behaviors ( Odoardi et al., 2019 ).

Implicit Leadership Theory

The implicit leadership theory, derived from cognitive psychology, emphasizes the expectations and beliefs of employees about the competencies that leaders should possess, and is an “internal label” that distinguishes leaders from non-leaders, effective leaders from ineffective leaders ( Lu et al., 2008 ). In summary, leadership effectiveness in the study of implicit leadership theory does not emphasis the outcome of leadership behavior or focus on the control of situations, but exists in the minds of subordinates as a schema of their perceptions of the leader. Furthermore, if the participative leadership does not send out strong enough signals to stimulate employees to participate in decision-making in line with expectations of participative management, this can prevent the activation of the “participation model” in subordinates. In such cases, employees are more inclined to stick with the status quo and do not respond positively to the participative leader until they perceive that the leader’s participative behaviors have reached a certain threshold level ( Lam et al., 2015 ). It has also been suggested that organizational culture is likely to change the effectiveness of participative leadership, as individuals influenced by their environment shape leader’s expectations, while research based on implicit leadership theory provides insight into how individual perceptions influence effective leader’s behaviors ( Bullough and De, 2015 ). This not only reflects the important role of the theory in participative leadership research, but also provides a sound framework for a better understanding the cross-cultural organizational behavior ( Huang et al., 2011 ).

The Consequences of Participative Leadership

Compared to the antecedents of participative leadership, the consequences can also be divided into the individual level and the organizational level. A lot of studies have focused on employee organizational commitment and voice behavior and so on at an individual level ( Miao et al., 2014 ). In particular, some scholars had found that the participative leadership is positively related to employee mental health, voice behavior, and creativity ( Somech, 2010 ; Fatima et al., 2017 ; Usman et al., 2021 ). In addition, the participative leadership improves performance and innovation at the organizational levels ( Kahai et al., 2004 ; Yan, 2011 ).

Individual-Level Outcomes

The impact of participative leadership on subordinates stems from the leader’s empowerment and the consequent changes in psychology, attitudes, behaviors and outcomes of employees. First, on the psychological front, numerous studies have shown that participative leadership is beneficial to the psychological well-being of an organization’s employees. However, over-reliance on participative management by leaders can also have a negative impact on employees to some extent. In particular, the increased work challenges and responsibilities associated with participative management at work can be more or less burdensome for some employees, resulting in psychological stress ( Benoliel and Somech, 2014 ). Second, in terms of attitude, because participative leadership makes subordinates feel psychologically empowered, it increases the organizational commitment of some employees and even shows complete emotional trust in the leader ( Miao et al., 2014 ). However, it is essential to note that participative leadership has no significant role in influencing employees’ perceived trust. Then, in terms of behavior, Sagnak (2016) noted that leaders who implement participative management significantly increase employees’ change-oriented organizational citizenship behaviors by motivating their subordinates, such as helpfulness among employees at work ( Usman et al., 2021 ). In addition, participative leadership has been a significant contributor to the organizational focus on employee innovation and voice building, and has been supported by numerous scholars ( Xiang and Long, 2013 ). Finally, in terms of outcomes, existing research suggests that participative leadership plays an important role in both the increase in employee performance and the improvement of individual competencies. In terms of current research on job performance, there has been a great deal of scholarly attention paid to subordinate work outcomes and indirectly related job prosperity ( Somech, 2010 ; Usman et al., 2021 ). And on individual employee competencies, creativity has become the focus of the work of some scholars in participative leadership research ( Fatima et al., 2017 ).

Organizational-Level Outcomes

Overall, participative management is gradually becoming an important management initiative for current organizational management practitioners, and participative leadership is undoubtedly a key leadership style that cannot be ignored in leadership research. And most scholars agree that participative leadership has a catalytic effect on organizations. For example, some scholars had analyzed that participative leadership significantly improves organizational performance and innovation ( Kahai et al., 2004 ; Yan, 2011 ). Further, and this is confirmed by Somech’s (2010) research (2010) based on the education sector, participative management has a clear driving effect on the organizational performance in higher education. However, the positive effects of participative leadership are inevitably accompanied by some negative effects ( Peng et al., 2021 ). In this regard, Li et al. (2018) argued, by comparing research on directive leadership, that while participative leadership has a positive impact on organizational creativity, it reduces organizational effectiveness to a certain extent. It is easy to see that the impact of participative leadership style on the organizational level is somewhat unique and complicated. In addition, numerous studies have shown that there may be a series of mediating or interacting effects of participative leadership on organizational performance and corporate capabilities ( Kahai et al., 2004 ; Yan, 2011 ). Among the various research on the effects of participative leadership, it’s particularly critical to emphasize that the fact that participative leadership affects organizations by influencing employees at the individual level has become a consensus in current theoretical research and has prompted a large number of scholars to conduct in-depth studies on the subject ( Kim and Schachter, 2015 ).

Future Research

At present, whether in management practice or theoretical research, there is still a large research space for participative leadership, which needs to be further explored by scholars. Therefore, we prospecte and incorporate some views into the analysis framework (shown in Figure 1 ).

First, most of the existing literature on this leadership style is based on some of the questions in research on empowered leadership, and is still in use today ( Arnold et al., 2000 ). However, the measurement of participative leadership is rather general, focusing on characteristics and behaviors, and lacks a deeper exploration of the psychological dimension ( Arnold et al., 2000 ). With the development of the information technology and the continuous changes in leadership practice, the existing research has not formed a new understanding of the content of the participative leadership style, either in terms of the form of participative leadership or its measurement, so that the development of the theory is difficult to match the current leadership management practice, and some scholars had even appeared to be critical of participative leadership ( Gwele, 2008 ). In other words, previous interpretations of participative leadership have hindered the future research and application of this theory. It is easy to see that the conceptual content of participative leadership theory still has a lot of space to be added and optimised, and that subsequent research needs to take a more comprehensive view of the theory. Therefore, there is an urgent need for theoretical research on participative leadership to be further summarised through more scientific and rigorous analytical methods, such as experimental methods, in order to effectively classify the dimensions of participative leadership according to its modern manifestations and to develop a more mature scale for the measurement of constructs.

Second, previous research suggests that participative leadership might be seen as a rational response by leaders to organizational decisions and employee needs ( Zhao et al., 2019 ). However, participative leaders may also be subject to both internal and external pressures to implement participative management. As research in self-determination theory has shown, individual motivation is divided into autonomous motivation and controlled motivation. Whereas autonomous motivation refers to the individual’s action as a result of matching the activity with his or her values, goals, etc., control motivation emphasizes the behavioral activities that the individual is forced to take as a result of external pressures ( Gagné and Deci, 2005 ). Therefore, the antecedents of participative leadership can be studied in detail in the future based on self-determination theory. On the one hand, the influence of individual values, goals and interests on their own management behaviors is analyzed in the light of autonomous motivation; on the other hand, the dual pressure of the internal environment (e.g., professional managerial system) and the external environment (e.g., market uncertainty) places high demands on the scientific and accurate decision-making of leaders, which undoubtedly increases their motivation to control and thus to take part in management in order to avoid the risk of dictatorship that could lead to major risks or losses. At the same time, the theory of planned behavior suggests that individual behavior is determined by their own intentions and perceptual behavioral control ( McEachan et al., 2011 ). Some scholars have found that individual behavioral intentions are positively influenced by their behavioral attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control, respectively. That is, they are more likely to engage in participative management if leaders maintain an optimistic attitude toward it, have the support of their employees and believe they can successfully implement it. This suggests that the theory of planned behavior also plays a key role in the antecedents of participative leadership research.

Third, throughout the current research on the results of participative leadership, many scholars have paid attention on the effects at the individual level, such as happiness at work, employee performance, etc. ( Chen and Tjosvold, 2006 ). And there is still more room for research on the analysis of results relative to the organizational level, especially on aspects such as organizational change. As a particular form of group decision-making, participative leadership may have a beneficial effect on smaller organizational changes. However, when faced with large organizational changes, employees may be concerned about career risks and may be a deterrent to smooth organizational change in the process of participation in decision-making. Moreover, much of existing research has focused on the positive effects of participative leadership. However, the too-much-of-a-good-thing effect (TMGTE) also plays a key role in organizational leadership research and cannot be ignored. This effect suggests that over-implementation of a behavior is likely to have potentially negative influences. From this perspective, leaders who practice high levels of participative leadership and over-empower employees to participate in organizational decision-making can lead to the TMGTE. In particular, the dual-task processing effect, whereby participative leaders delegate more power or tasks to subordinates in organizational decision-making, significantly increases the amount and variety of work performed by employees, and reduces employee well-being ( Peng et al., 2021 ). Therefore, a deeper analysis of the formation mechanism of the negative effects of participative leadership can be carried out, and a theoretical framework on the motives, concrete manifestations and path mechanisms of its behavior can be systematically constructed, with a view to providing strategies and suggestions for leaders to make scientific and practical decisions.

Fourth, both management practice and academic studies suggest that participative leaders’ management may be more likely to attract individuals with higher motivation and values to join the organization and, by effectively enhancing the identity of the organization’s members, to successfully implement participative management initiatives, which in turn may evolve into a more integrated and holistic decision-making mechanism covering all employees of the organization ( Odoardi et al., 2019 ). Thus, future research could analyze the mediating effect of organizational identity in the relationship between participative leadership and influence effects based on social identity theory, and further explore other aspects of mediation mechanisms. It’s also worth noting that the relationship between participative leadership and subordinates’ behavioral performance is also influenced by a number of variables, in particular the organizational context (e.g., systems and culture) and individual differences (e.g., subordinates’ regulatory orientation characteristics). As most organizations are now actively building workplaces that attract and retain employees, and as organizations flatten, the culture and systems are more participative, the idea of employee participation in organizational decision-making is being accelerated at all levels of the organization ( Somech, 2010 ; Lythreatis et al., 2019 ). In addition, if employees exhibit promotion focus (prevention focus), they may maintain a positive (negative) attitude toward the leader’s participative management, which also affects to a certain extent the effectiveness of the leadership participative management when implemented. In conclusion, the exploration of the intrinsic mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions of the effects of participative leadership is conducive to revealing the operational mechanisms and mechanisms of action of participative management, promoting the integration of relevant factors into a more unified framework and enriching the theoretical research of participative leadership.

Finally, as a type of democratic leadership style, although participative management has attracted the attention of some Chinese scholars. However, influenced by China’s thousands of years of history and culture, long-term authoritarian rule has caused individuals to lack a sense of independence, and employees have shown dependence and submissiveness to their leaders. Therefore, participative leadership has not received much attention from Chinese scholars. However, as the new generation of employees, such as the post-90s generation and post-00s generation, is flooding into various positions in enterprises and institutions, more and more employees are showing strong values of independence and freedom. The practice has also shown that the new generation of employees is active, receptive to information and innovative, and that participation in management not only helps to avoid the negative emotions of employees due to the dictatorship of the leader, but also facilitates the absorption of new ideas and information by the leader, and produces innovative results, which proves the urgent need for participation in leadership in the Chinese society. This is an important signal for Chinese scholars to localize the researches of participative leadership in the context of Chinese society, as western thought is constantly impacting on traditional Chinese culture and organizations in western countries are placing more emphasis on participation in decision-making than China, and are actively taking several measures to this end. Although empirical research on participative leadership has started to gradually increase in recent years, there is still more room for development ( Zou et al., 2020 ). For example, research related to differential leadership based on the question of whether there are differences in the rights of participative leaders to involve different subordinates in organizational decision-making. In particular, leaders who have long been influenced by traditional Chinese culture are prone to self-perception based on closeness of relationships and classify subordinates as insiders and outsiders, resulting in significant differences in access to decision-making authority for different employees.

As the market becomes increasingly competitive, it is difficult for leaders to make effective decisions independently. As a result, participative leadership is becoming an important element in leadership research. Scholars are also aware of the need to implement participative management in organizational decision-making. In terms of current theoretical research, there are elements of participative leadership that can be further developed and explored. From the perspective of management decisions in practice, participative leadership has dramatically improved the effectiveness of leadership decisions. This study systematically sorts out the concept and measurement of participative leadership and compare it with empowering leadership and directive leadership. We not only discuss the antecedents and outcomes of participative leadership, but also provide an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms by which participative leadership influences employees based on social exchange theory, social cognitive theory, resource conservation theory, implicit leadership theory, and social information processing theory. Finally, we propose a framework for future research on participative leadership that encompasses five potential research areas, including connotation, antecedents, outcomes, mediators and moderators, and study of participative leadership in China.

Through a systematic review of research related to participative leadership, this study makes several contributions to the development of participative leadership as follows. First, we clarify the concept, measurement, antecedents, theoretical foundations, and results of participative leadership to lay the foundation for subsequent participative leadership research. Second, we systematically compare participative leadership with directive and empowering leadership, distinguish the similarities and differences among the three, and clarify the unique research value of participative leadership. Third, by reviewing previous research on participative leadership and taking into account current leadership trends, we propose several future research perspectives, thus exploring what is currently neglected by scholars.

Author Contributions

QW mainly made important contributions in clarifying the idea of the article, selecting the research method, literature collection, and article writing. HH made substantial contributions to literature collection, article revision, and optimization. ZL mainly played a crucial role in literature collection. All authors made outstanding contributions to this research.

This research was supported by the State Key Program of National Social Science of China (Project Number # 20AZD095).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords : participative leadership, employee, participation, leadership, organization, decision, effectiveness

Citation: Wang Q, Hou H and Li Z (2022) Participative Leadership: A Literature Review and Prospects for Future Research. Front. Psychol. 13:924357. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.924357

Received: 20 April 2022; Accepted: 11 May 2022; Published: 03 June 2022.

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*Correspondence: Hong Hou, [email protected]

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