Research Ties Group Performance & Leader Reputation to Friendship Networks

Recent research by Mehra, Dixon, Brass & Robertson (2006) suggests that a leader's internal and external friendship networks contributes to better group performance and enhances one's leadership reputation. The following summary is excerpted from the study published in Organization Science.

Summary
This paper uses data from the sales division of a financial services firm to investigate how a leader's centrality in external and internal social networks is related to the objective performance of the leader's group, and to the leader's personal reputation for leadership among subordinates, peers, and supervisors. External social network ties were based on the friendship ties among all 88 of the division's sales group leaders and the 10 high-ranking supervisors to whom they reported. Internal social network ties consisted of 28 separate networks, each representing the set of friendship relations among all members of a given sales group. Objective group performance data came directly from company records. Data on each group leader's personal reputation for leadership was based on the perceptions of three different constituencies: subordinates, peers, and supervisors. Results revealed that leaders' centrality in external and internal friendship networks was related both to objective measures of group performance and to their reputation for leadership among different organizational constituencies.

This research provides field-based empirical support for a social network approach to leadership effectiveness in organizations. We have presented evidence linking the centrality of leaders in friendship networks to the objective performance of the groups they lead, and to their personal reputations for leadership among three important constituencies: subordinates, peers, and high-ranking supervisors. Our study suggests that the friendship ties of group leaders play a dual role in the practice of leadership: Not only do they appear to provide leaders access to resources that facilitate group performance, but they also seem to help them secure favorable reputations for leadership in the eyes of their subordinates, peers, and supervisors.

What do you think?

How would a Kenosis Leader develop internal and external friendship networks? Toward what ends and by what means would a Kenosis Leader employ these friendship networks?

Reference

Ajay Mehra, Andrea L Dixon, Daniel J Brass, Bruce Robertson. (2006). The Social Network Ties of Group Leaders: Implications for Group Performance and Leader Reputation. Organization Science, 17(1), 64-79. Retrieved August 22, 2007, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1000209201).

About the Authors

Andrea L. Dixon is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Cincinnati. Dixon's research focuses on field sales behaviors and cognitive processes impacting individual and unit-level outcomes. She received her Ph.D. in marketing from Indiana University-Bloomington. Address: Department of Marketing, University of Cincinnati.

Daniel J. Brass is J. Henning Hilliard Professor of Innovation Management in the Gatton College of Business and Economics at the University of Kentucky. He received his Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Illinois-Urbana. His research focuses on the antecedents and consequences of social networks in organizations.

Ajay Mehra is an associate professor of management at the University of Cincinnati. His research focuses on how individuals create and use social networks in organizational settings. Ongoing projects include a study of how ethnicity and self-monitoring personality shaped social networks in an all-minority organization, and a critique of the international management literature from the perspective of the philosophy of science. Ajay received his Ph.D. in 1998 from Penn State's Smeal College of Business.

Bruce Robertson is an assistant professor of marketing at San Francisco State University. His research focuses on the social and structural determinants of performance of individuals in organizational structures. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati.