Discrepancies in Leader and Follower Ratings of Transformational Leadership: Relationship with Organizational Culture in Mental Health

Abstract

The role of leadership in the management and delivery of health and allied health services is often discussed but lacks empirical research. Discrepancies are often found between leaders' self-ratings and followers' ratings of the leader. To our knowledge no research has examined leader-follower discrepancies and their association with organizational culture in mental health clinics. The current study examines congruence, discrepancy, and directionality of discrepancy in relation to organizational culture in 38 mental health teams (N = 276). Supervisors and providers completed surveys including ratings of the supervisor transformational leadership and organizational culture. Polynomial regression and response surface analysis models were computed examining the associations of leadership discrepancy and defensive organizational culture and its subscales. Discrepancies between supervisor and provider reports of transformational leadership were associated with a more negative organizational culture. Culture suffered more where supervisors rated themselves more positively than providers, in contrast to supervisors rating themselves lower than the provider ratings of the supervisor. Leadership and leader discrepancy should be a consideration in improving organizational culture and for strategic initiatives such as quality of care and the implementation and sustainment of evidence-based practice.

Keywords: Discrepancy; Leadership; Management; Mental health; Organizations; Public sector.

Fig. 1

Consensus predicted by discrepancy between supervisor and provider ratings of Transformational Leadership (TL). a₁: The line of perfect agreement (solid black line on floor) as related to consensus (CNS) has a non-significant slope. Thus, agreement between supervisors and provider’s TL ratings are not related to CNS. a₄: Moving along the line of incongruence (dashed line on floor) away from the center of the graph to either the left or right shows how the degree of discrepancy between supervisors and provider’s TL has a significant curvilinear relationship with CNS. The graph shows that toward the left and right of the graph, where ratings become more and more discrepant, CNS increases. a₃: The direction of discrepancy matters. At the bottom right corner of the graph (where provider ratings of TL is low combined with high supervisor ratings of TL), CNS is very high. At the bottom left corner of the graph (where provider ratings of TL is high combined with low supervisor ratings of TL), CNS is high, though not as high as when supervisor rating of TL are high and provider ratings are low

Fig. 2

Conformity predicted by discrepancy between supervisor and provider ratings of Transformational Leadership (TL). a₁: The line of perfect agreement (solid black line on floor) as related to conformity (CON) has a negative slope. Thus, agreement between supervisors and provider’s TL ratings matters such that the greatest level of CON is at the front corner of the graph where supervisor and provider TL are both low, and decreases toward the back of the graph where both supervisors and provider’s TL are both in agreement and high. a₄: Moving along the line of incongruence (dashed line on floor) away from the center of the graph to either the left or right shows how the degree of discrepancy between supervisors and provider’s TL has a significant curvilinear relationship with CON. The graph shows that toward the left and right of the graph, where ratings become more and more discrepant, CON increases. a₃: The direction of discrepancy matters. At the bottom right corner of the graph (where provider ratings of TL is low combined with high supervisor ratings of TL), CON is very high. At the bottom left corner of the graph (where provider ratings of TL is high combined with low supervisor ratings of TL), CON is high, though not as high as when supervisor rating of TL are high and provider ratings are low

Fig. 3

Subservience predicted from discrepancy between supervisor and provider ratings of Transformational Leadership (TL). a₁: The line of perfect agreement (solid black line on floor) as related to subservience (S) has a negative slope. Thus, agreement between supervisors and provider’s TL ratings matters such that the greatest level of S is at the front corner of the graph where supervisor and provider TL are both low, and decreases toward the back of the graph where both supervisors and provider’s TL are both in agreement and high. a₄: Moving along the line of incongruence (dashed line on floor) away from the center of the graph to either the left or right shows how the degree of discrepancy between supervisors and provider’s TL has a significant curvilinear relationship with S. The graph shows that toward the left and right of the graph, where ratings become more and more discrepant, S increases. a₃: The direction of discrepancy matters. At the bottom right corner of the graph (where provider ratings of TL is low combined with high supervisor ratings of TL), S is very high. At the bottom left corner of the graph (where provider ratings of TL is high combined with low supervisor ratings of TL), S is high, though not as high as when supervisor rating of TL are high and provider ratings are low

Fig. 4

Defensive culture predicted from discrepancy between supervisor and provider ratings of Transformational Leadership (TL). a₁: The line of perfect agreement (solid black line on floor) as related to overall Defensive Culture (PDC) has a negative slope. Thus, agreement between supervisors and provider’s TL ratings matters such that the greatest level of PDC is at the front corner of the graph where supervisor and provider TL are both low, and decreases toward the back of the graph where both supervisors and provider’s TL are both in agreement and high. a₄: Moving along the line of incongruence (dashed line on floor) away from the center of the graph to either the left or right shows how the degree of discrepancy between supervisors and provider’s TL had a significant curvilinear relationship with PDC. The graph shows that toward the left and right of the graph, where ratings become more and more discrepant, PDC increases. a₃: The direction of discrepancy matters. At the bottom right corner of the graph (where provider ratings of TL is low combined with high supervisor ratings of TL), PDC is very high. At the bottom left corner of the graph (where provider ratings of TL is high combined with low supervisor ratings of TL), PDC is high, though not as high as when supervisor rating of TL are high and provider ratings are low