What Type of Follower Will I Be? Leader Behavior and the Motivational Processes Underlying Follower Role Orientation

In a society fixated on leaders, where does that leave followers? Followership highlights the follower in the leadership process, examines who are followers, and explores how and why people follow. Much of the existing literature on followership has focused on classifying followers into follower types. However, less is known about why an employee might enact a particular follower role. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand how leaders influence the likelihood that followers to enact a particular follower role orientation, either coproducing or passive. Specifically, this research contributes to understanding the impact of transformational leadership on follower motivation and follower role orientation. An additional contribution of this dissertation is to establish the theoretical mechanism that explains the connection between leader behavior and follower role orientation by integrating self-determination theory (SDT) into the process of followership. Through SDT, we gain understanding of the origins of these roles by explaining their underlying motivation. Study 1 consisted of sequential experiments with a between-subject design that used distinct vignettes for transformational leadership and work-based need satisfaction. Findings support the causal relationship between transformational leadership and follower needs satisfaction; however, the casual relationship between follower need satisfaction and follower role orientation was not significant. Study 2 was a two-wave field study of full-time employed adults located in the United States. Results from Study 2 indicated that transformational leadership relates to coproduction follower orientation through competence need satisfaction and to passive follower orientation through autonomy/relatedness needs satisfaction. These findings contribute to our understanding of how different follower role orientations develop.