WHU
The Chair of Leadership at Campus Düsseldorf seeks to improve leadership in different contexts to ultimately create better organizations through scientific research, practice collaborations and education on leadership. We take a holistic approach and consider leadership as a dynamic process in which managers and employees mutually influence each other to achieve a common goal.

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.

News from our chair

Dancing through the defense

Dancing through the defense

Doctoral Student Lioba Gierke took the stage at her Disputation

 
Outstanding Disputation at the Chair of Leadership

Outstanding Disputation at the Chair of Leadership

Successful Disputation of the Doctoral Student Vera Schweitzer at the Chair of Leadership

 
Academy of Management Conference 2023

Academy of Management Conference 2023

Chair of Leadership visits research conference in Boston

 

 

Our team

Fabienne Wrobel
Fabienne Wrobel
Personal Assistant / Coordinator Research Projects
Hannah Baum
Hannah Baum
Research Assistant/Doctoral Candidate
Yannick Endres
Yannick Endres
Research Assistant/Doctoral Candidate
Anna van der Velde
Anna van der Velde
Research Assistant/Doctoral Candidate
Lukas Lanz
Lukas Lanz
Externer Doktorand
Dr. Sofia Schlamp
Dr. Sofia Schlamp
External Collaborator/Shell Learning Advisor
Dr. Vera M. Schweitzer
Dr. Vera M. Schweitzer
Alumna

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?

Selected publications

Management Group

There and back again

Rivkin, W., Gerpott, F., Unger, D. (accepted), There and back again: the role of morning- and evening commute recovery experiences for daily resources across the commute-, work-, and home domain, Human Relations.

Management Group

Klonek, F., Gerpott, F., Parker, S. K. (2023), A conceptual replication of ambidextrous leadership theory: an experimental approach, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 34 (4), 101473.

Management Group

Brosi, P., Gerpott, F. (2023), Stayed at home - can’t stop working despite being ill?! Guilt as a driver of presenteeism at work and at home, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 44 (6), pp. 853-870.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Rivkin, W., Unger, D. (2023), Autonomous or controlled self-regulation, that is the question: a self-determination perspective on the impact of commuting on employees' domain-specific functioning, Organizational Psychology Review, Vol. 13 (1), pp. 67-95.

Management Group

Schweitzer, V. M., Rivkin, W., Gerpott, F., Diestel, S., Kühnel, J., Prem, R., Wang, M. (2023), Some positivity per day can protect you a long way: a within-person field experiment to test an affect-resource model of employee effectiveness at work, Work & Stress, Vol. 37 (4), pp. 446-465.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Rivkin, W., Diestel, S. (2023), Keep it steady? Not only average self-control demands matter for employees’ work engagement, but also variability, Work & Stress, Vol. 37 (4), pp. 509-530.

Management Group

Van Der Velde, A., Gerpott, F. (2023), When subordinates do not follow: a typology of subordinate resistance as perceived by leaders, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 34 (5), 101687.

Management Group

Lanz, L., Briker, R., Gerpott, F. (2024), Employees adhere more to unethical instructions from human than AI supervisors: complementing experimental evidence with machine learning, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 189 (3), pp. 625–646.

Management Group

Van Quaquebeke, N., Gerpott, F. (2023), The now, new, and next of digital leadership: how artificial intelligence (AI) will take over and change leadership as we know it, Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, Vol. 30 (3), pp. 265-275.

Management Group

Klassiker der Organisationsforschung (48): Max Weber

Gerpott, F., Kerschreiter, R. (2023), Klassiker der Organisationsforschung (48): Max Weber: Bürokratie oder Bürokratisierung?, Organisationsentwicklung, Vol. 42 (3), pp. 96-100.

Management Group

Van Quaquebeke, N., Gerpott, F. (2023), Tell-and-sell or ask-and-listen? A self-concept perspective on why it needs leader-ship communication flexibility to engage subordinates at work, Current Opinion in Psychology, Vol. 53, 101666.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F. (2023), Designing work for change and its unintended side effects, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 145, 103913.

Management Group

Schweitzer, V. M., Gerpott, F., Rivkin, W., Stollberger, J. (2023), (Don't) mind the gap? Information gaps compound curiosity yet also feed frustration at work, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 178, 104276.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Rivkin, W., Gerpott, F. (2024), Good for you, bad for me? The daily dynamics of perspective taking and well-being in coworker dyads, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol. 29 (1), pp. 1-13.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Rivkin, W., Unger, D. (2022), Stop and go, where is my flow? how and when daily aversive morning commutes are negatively related to employees’ motivational states and behavior at work, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 107 (2), pp. 169-192.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Bledow, R., Kühnel, J. (2022), Inspire but don’t interfere: managerial influence as a double-edged sword for innovation, Applied Psychology : an International Review, Vol. 71 (2), pp. 359-379.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F. (2022), Knowledge transfer between younger and older employees: a temporal social comparison model, Work, Aging and Retirement, Vol. 8 (2), pp. 146–162.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Kerschreiter, R. (2022), A conceptual framework of how meeting mindsets shape and are shaped by leader-follower interactions in meetings, Organizational Psychology Review, Vol. 12 (2), pp. 107-134.

Management Group

Hemshorn De Sanchez, C. S., Gerpott, F., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. (2022), A review and future agenda for behavioral research on leader–follower interactions at different temporal scopes., Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 43 (2), pp. 342-368.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F. (2022), Why do or don’t older employees seek knowledge from younger colleagues? a relation-opportunity model to explain how age-inclusive HR practices foster older employees’ knowledge seeking from younger colleagues., Applied Psychology : an International Review, Vol. 71 (4), pp. 1385-1406.

Management Group

Rivkin, W., Diestel, S., Gerpott, F., Unger, D. (2022), Should I stay or should I go? The role of daily presenteeism as an adaptive response to perform at work despite somatic complaints for employee effectiveness, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol. 27 (4), pp. 411-425.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Van Quaquebeke, N. (2023), Kiss-up-kick-down to get ahead: a resource perspective on how, when, why, and with whom middle managers use ingratiatory and exploitative behaviors to advance their career, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 60 (7), pp. 1855-1883.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F., Dietz, L. (2023), Getting ready for the future, is it worth it? A dual-pathway model of age and technology acceptance at work, Work, Aging and Retirement, Vol. 9 (4), pp. 358-375.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Wenzel, R., Voelpel, S. (2021), Age diversity and learning outcomes in organizational training groups: the role of knowledge sharing and psychological safety, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 32 (18), pp. 3777-3804.

Management Group

Burmeister, A., Gerpott, F., Hirschi, A., Scheibe, S., Pak, K., Kooij, D. (2021), Reaching the heart or the mind? Test of two theory-based training programs to improve interactions between age-diverse coworkers, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Vol. 20 (2), pp. 203-232.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F. (2021), To share or not to share: a social-cognitive internalization model to explain how age discrimination impairs older employees’ knowledge sharing with younger colleagues, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 30 (1), pp. 125-142.

Management Group

Schlamp, S., Gerpott, F., Voelpel, S. (2021), Same talk, different reaction? Communication, emergent leadership and gender, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 36 (1), pp. 51-74.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F., Unger, D. (2021), Give and take? Knowledge exchange between older and younger employees as a function of generativity and development striving, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 25 (10), pp. 2420-2443.

Management Group

Wer führt hier wen und wozu führt das?

Gerpott, F., Kerschreiter, R. (2021), Wer führt hier wen und wozu führt das? eine 3x3 Matrix (in)formeller Führung, PERSONALquarterly : Wissenschaftsjournal für die Personalpraxis, Vol. 73 (4), pp. 22-27.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Fasbender, U., Burmeister, A. (2020), Respectful leadership and followers’ knowledge sharing: a social mindfulness lens, Human Relations, Vol. 73 (6), pp. 789-810.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Scheibe, S. (2020), Is work and aging research a science of questionnaires? Moving the field forward by considering perceived versus actual behaviors, Work, Aging and Retirement, Vol. 6 (2).

Management Group

Columbus, S., Münich, J., Gerpott, F. (2020), Playing a different game: situation perception mediates framing effects on cooperative behaviour, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 90, 104006.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Voelpel, S., Van Vugt, M. (2019), It's not just what is said but when it's said: a temporal account of verbal behaviours and emergent leadership in self-managed teams, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 62 (3), pp. 717-738.

Management Group

Burmeister, A., Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F. (2019), Consequences of knowledge hiding: the differential compensatory effects of guilt and shame, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 92 (2), pp. 281-304.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Van Quaquebeke, N., Schlamp, S., Voelpel, S. (2019), An identity perspective on ethical leadership to explain organizational citizenship behaviour: the interplay of follower moral identity and leader group prototypicality, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 156 (4), pp. 1063-1078.

Management Group

Beide Seiten einer Medaille

Gerpott, F., Burmeister, A., Fasbender, U. (2019), Beide Seiten einer Medaille: Umdenken im Wissenstransfer zwischen Generationen, Wirtschaftspsychologie aktuell : Zeitschrift für Personal und Management.

Management Group

Klonek, F., Gerpott, F., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Parker, S. K. (2019), Time to go wild: how to conceptualize and measure process dynamics in real teams with high-resolution, Organizational Psychology Review, Vol. 9 (4), pp. 245–275.

Management Group

There and back again

Rivkin, W., Gerpott, F., Unger, D. (accepted), There and back again: the role of morning- and evening commute recovery experiences for daily resources across the commute-, work-, and home domain, Human Relations.

Management Group

Klonek, F., Gerpott, F., Parker, S. K. (2023), A conceptual replication of ambidextrous leadership theory: an experimental approach, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 34 (4), 101473.

Management Group

Brosi, P., Gerpott, F. (2023), Stayed at home - can’t stop working despite being ill?! Guilt as a driver of presenteeism at work and at home, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 44 (6), pp. 853-870.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Rivkin, W., Unger, D. (2023), Autonomous or controlled self-regulation, that is the question: a self-determination perspective on the impact of commuting on employees' domain-specific functioning, Organizational Psychology Review, Vol. 13 (1), pp. 67-95.

Management Group

Schweitzer, V. M., Rivkin, W., Gerpott, F., Diestel, S., Kühnel, J., Prem, R., Wang, M. (2023), Some positivity per day can protect you a long way: a within-person field experiment to test an affect-resource model of employee effectiveness at work, Work & Stress, Vol. 37 (4), pp. 446-465.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Rivkin, W., Diestel, S. (2023), Keep it steady? Not only average self-control demands matter for employees’ work engagement, but also variability, Work & Stress, Vol. 37 (4), pp. 509-530.

Management Group

Van Der Velde, A., Gerpott, F. (2023), When subordinates do not follow: a typology of subordinate resistance as perceived by leaders, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 34 (5), 101687.

Management Group

Lanz, L., Briker, R., Gerpott, F. (2024), Employees adhere more to unethical instructions from human than AI supervisors: complementing experimental evidence with machine learning, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 189 (3), pp. 625–646.

Management Group

Van Quaquebeke, N., Gerpott, F. (2023), The now, new, and next of digital leadership: how artificial intelligence (AI) will take over and change leadership as we know it, Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, Vol. 30 (3), pp. 265-275.

Management Group

Klassiker der Organisationsforschung (48): Max Weber

Gerpott, F., Kerschreiter, R. (2023), Klassiker der Organisationsforschung (48): Max Weber: Bürokratie oder Bürokratisierung?, Organisationsentwicklung, Vol. 42 (3), pp. 96-100.

Management Group

Van Quaquebeke, N., Gerpott, F. (2023), Tell-and-sell or ask-and-listen? A self-concept perspective on why it needs leader-ship communication flexibility to engage subordinates at work, Current Opinion in Psychology, Vol. 53, 101666.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F. (2023), Designing work for change and its unintended side effects, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 145, 103913.

Management Group

Schweitzer, V. M., Gerpott, F., Rivkin, W., Stollberger, J. (2023), (Don't) mind the gap? Information gaps compound curiosity yet also feed frustration at work, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 178, 104276.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Rivkin, W., Gerpott, F. (2024), Good for you, bad for me? The daily dynamics of perspective taking and well-being in coworker dyads, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol. 29 (1), pp. 1-13.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Rivkin, W., Unger, D. (2022), Stop and go, where is my flow? how and when daily aversive morning commutes are negatively related to employees’ motivational states and behavior at work, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 107 (2), pp. 169-192.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Bledow, R., Kühnel, J. (2022), Inspire but don’t interfere: managerial influence as a double-edged sword for innovation, Applied Psychology : an International Review, Vol. 71 (2), pp. 359-379.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F. (2022), Knowledge transfer between younger and older employees: a temporal social comparison model, Work, Aging and Retirement, Vol. 8 (2), pp. 146–162.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Kerschreiter, R. (2022), A conceptual framework of how meeting mindsets shape and are shaped by leader-follower interactions in meetings, Organizational Psychology Review, Vol. 12 (2), pp. 107-134.

Management Group

Hemshorn De Sanchez, C. S., Gerpott, F., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. (2022), A review and future agenda for behavioral research on leader–follower interactions at different temporal scopes., Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 43 (2), pp. 342-368.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F. (2022), Why do or don’t older employees seek knowledge from younger colleagues? a relation-opportunity model to explain how age-inclusive HR practices foster older employees’ knowledge seeking from younger colleagues., Applied Psychology : an International Review, Vol. 71 (4), pp. 1385-1406.

Management Group

Rivkin, W., Diestel, S., Gerpott, F., Unger, D. (2022), Should I stay or should I go? The role of daily presenteeism as an adaptive response to perform at work despite somatic complaints for employee effectiveness, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol. 27 (4), pp. 411-425.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Van Quaquebeke, N. (2023), Kiss-up-kick-down to get ahead: a resource perspective on how, when, why, and with whom middle managers use ingratiatory and exploitative behaviors to advance their career, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 60 (7), pp. 1855-1883.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F., Dietz, L. (2023), Getting ready for the future, is it worth it? A dual-pathway model of age and technology acceptance at work, Work, Aging and Retirement, Vol. 9 (4), pp. 358-375.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Wenzel, R., Voelpel, S. (2021), Age diversity and learning outcomes in organizational training groups: the role of knowledge sharing and psychological safety, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 32 (18), pp. 3777-3804.

Management Group

Burmeister, A., Gerpott, F., Hirschi, A., Scheibe, S., Pak, K., Kooij, D. (2021), Reaching the heart or the mind? Test of two theory-based training programs to improve interactions between age-diverse coworkers, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Vol. 20 (2), pp. 203-232.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F. (2021), To share or not to share: a social-cognitive internalization model to explain how age discrimination impairs older employees’ knowledge sharing with younger colleagues, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 30 (1), pp. 125-142.

Management Group

Schlamp, S., Gerpott, F., Voelpel, S. (2021), Same talk, different reaction? Communication, emergent leadership and gender, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 36 (1), pp. 51-74.

Management Group

Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F., Unger, D. (2021), Give and take? Knowledge exchange between older and younger employees as a function of generativity and development striving, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 25 (10), pp. 2420-2443.

Management Group

Wer führt hier wen und wozu führt das?

Gerpott, F., Kerschreiter, R. (2021), Wer führt hier wen und wozu führt das? eine 3x3 Matrix (in)formeller Führung, PERSONALquarterly : Wissenschaftsjournal für die Personalpraxis, Vol. 73 (4), pp. 22-27.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Fasbender, U., Burmeister, A. (2020), Respectful leadership and followers’ knowledge sharing: a social mindfulness lens, Human Relations, Vol. 73 (6), pp. 789-810.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Scheibe, S. (2020), Is work and aging research a science of questionnaires? Moving the field forward by considering perceived versus actual behaviors, Work, Aging and Retirement, Vol. 6 (2).

Management Group

Columbus, S., Münich, J., Gerpott, F. (2020), Playing a different game: situation perception mediates framing effects on cooperative behaviour, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 90, 104006.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Voelpel, S., Van Vugt, M. (2019), It's not just what is said but when it's said: a temporal account of verbal behaviours and emergent leadership in self-managed teams, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 62 (3), pp. 717-738.

Management Group

Burmeister, A., Fasbender, U., Gerpott, F. (2019), Consequences of knowledge hiding: the differential compensatory effects of guilt and shame, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 92 (2), pp. 281-304.

Management Group

Gerpott, F., Van Quaquebeke, N., Schlamp, S., Voelpel, S. (2019), An identity perspective on ethical leadership to explain organizational citizenship behaviour: the interplay of follower moral identity and leader group prototypicality, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 156 (4), pp. 1063-1078.

Management Group

Beide Seiten einer Medaille

Gerpott, F., Burmeister, A., Fasbender, U. (2019), Beide Seiten einer Medaille: Umdenken im Wissenstransfer zwischen Generationen, Wirtschaftspsychologie aktuell : Zeitschrift für Personal und Management.

Management Group

Klonek, F., Gerpott, F., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Parker, S. K. (2019), Time to go wild: how to conceptualize and measure process dynamics in real teams with high-resolution, Organizational Psychology Review, Vol. 9 (4), pp. 245–275.

Get in touch with us –

We look forward to hearing from you

WHU Campus Düsseldorf

Entrance 228c
WHU Campus Düsseldorf
WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management
Erkrather Straße 224a
40233 Düsseldorf