The Role of the Need for Affiliation and the Behavioral Manifestation of Implicit Motives in Effective Leadership

I Summary Implicit motives have widely been studied with regard to their ability to predict effective leadership. In accordance with theorizing (McClelland, 1977), research (e.g., McClelland & Boyatzis, 1982) showed successful leaders to be motivated by a certain motive combination, the Leadership Motive Pattern (LMP). Leaders characterized by this pattern are motivated by high levels of the need for power (nPow), high levels of activity inhibition (AI), and low levels of the need for affiliation (nAff). Whereas the need for power turns leaders interested in influencing others, a highly developed activity inhibition channels the use of power into socially responsible ways. As leaders high in need for affiliation are more concerned with harmonious leader-follower relationships than with organizational necessities, leaders ought to be low in this motive. The need for achievement (nAch), another basic motive driving human behavior (McClelland, 1985), relates to success in technical or lower management, but does not benefit great leadership in higher management positions. Although a variety of studies has been conducted on the value of implicit motives to leadership, there remain open fields in research on the subconscious motivational antecedents of effective leadership the present work concentrates on. Research on these open fields contributes to improving the prediction of managerial success based on leaders' implicit motives, but in the light of changing work environments and leadership requirements equally verifies theorizing on the LMP which dates back more than 40 years. In three studies, the present work examines how various motives combine in yielding effective leadership, whether the need for affiliation indeed undermines leaders' success or rather contributes to it, and examines the manifestation of implicit motives in leadership behaviors as mechanisms mediating their effect on leadership outcomes. Applying a dimensional approach, Study 1 examined the components of the LMP, need for power, activity inhibition, and need for affiliation, in terms of an interactive effect. Based II on a sample of leaders from various industrial sectors, analyses revealed this three-way interaction to significantly account for variance increments in the goal attainment of leaders' teams just as in developments in their income. The relation to both indicators of leadership performance was strongest if leaders were high in need for power, high in activity inhibition, and – contradicting LMP theorizing – high in need for affiliation. Accounting for this latter finding and further evidence emphasizing the value of nAff to managerial success, Study 2 experimentally investigated the role …