Chair of Leadership
About us
Many people across different contexts – e.g., the corporate world, politics, or voluntary organizations – are not satisfied with their leaders. Despite the willingness to improve this situation, many managers are not sure how to adapt their leadership styles to face challenges such as managing through or with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and supervising self-managed teams in which informal leaders take on responsibility.
To help remedy this situation, our Chair investigates leader-follower dynamics as they unfold in organizational life. We are particularly committed to help organizations appreciate diversity among their leaders, with a specific focus on age diversity and female leadership. Our work has been published in leading research journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Learning Education, Human Relations, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology or The Leadership Quarterly.
Our team
Our research focus
With our research, we seek to inspire leaders in different contexts, share practices, and inform public policy debates.
Our research falls into three broad areas of interest:
In its essence, leadership is communication. To influence others, people have to talk – and some do so more effectively than others. In this stream of research, we answer questions such as:
- How do people talk themselves into leadership role?
- Which non-verbal signs do (emergent) leaders use?
- How and under which circumstances do specific communication styles – such as leading and communicating with respect – positively influence employees?
The workforce is becoming increasingly diverse – not only in terms of easily visible attributes such as age or gender, but also in terms of more subtle attributes such as culture or educational background. This can be an opportunity for creating a richer knowledge base in organizations. However, diversity may also be challenging to handle for leaders. In this stream of research, we seek to provide evidence for leaders to be able to profit from the bright side of diversity and avoid the potential dark sides. We answer questions such as:
- How can leaders enhance intergenerational learning in organizations?
- Which tools can leaders use to foster knowledge sharing in a diverse workforce?
- What are the micro-dynamics occurring in the daily life of female leaders that may prevent them from climbing the career ladder?
Leaders strongly influence the organizational context that shapes employees’ behaviors. In this stream of research, we investigate the interplay of leadership and employee behavior as well as organizational context factors to answer questions such as:
- Through which mechanisms do leaders enhance employees’ pro-organizational behaviors?
- How can leaders manage the daily (self-control) demands of their employees in an optimal way?
- Why are some leaders able to advance their career by using “dark leader behaviors” such as being nice to those above and mean to those below?
Get in touch with us –
WHU Campus Düsseldorf
WHU Campus Düsseldorf
40233 Düsseldorf