Leadership tactics: enabling quality social exchange and organizational citizenship behavior

Abstract

We examined the relationship between leaders’ positive and negative influence tactics and their subordinates’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) directed toward them as well as the quality of the social exchange with them in westernized Middle Eastern organizations. In this study, we used data from 202 supervisor–subordinate dyads in the Sultanate of Oman. Our findings supported the hypothesis that positive leader influence tactics would be positively associated with affirmative social exchange (represented by a combination of leader–member exchange (LMX) and trust) and subordinates’ OCB directed toward supervisors. However, while negative leader influence tactics were related negatively to social exchange, they were unrelated to supervisor-directed OCB. We found that social exchange mediated the relationship between a leader's positive influence tactics and OCB directed toward them. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for future leadership research and leadership development.

Keywords:

• leadership
• tactics
• Oman
• social exchange
• organizational citizenship behavior