Comparing identity-, task-, and relationship-oriented leadership behaviours regarding the effects on different work-related outcomes

In an everchanging world, companies have to adapt their way of working to remain successful. With that, new demands on leaders emerge. Literature suggests that to be successful, leaders should implement identity leadership behaviours. In this study, the effects of relationship-oriented, task-oriented, and identity leadership behaviours are evaluated in the context of a German company. Relationship-oriented leadership behaviour is proposed to predict identification with the team, trust towards the leader, and job satisfaction. Further, task-oriented leadership behaviour is proposed to predict innovative work behaviours and organizational citizenship, while identity leadership behaviour is proposed to predict all dependent variables mentioned, mediated by the identification with the team. The study consists of two parts. Firstly, an online questionnaire with a sample of 309 employees investigates the relation between leadership behaviours and the employees’ identification with the team, trust towards the leader, job satisfaction, innovative work behaviour, and organizational citizenship. Secondly, the findings are validated and enhanced by the leaders’ perspective in interviews with four leaders in the company. Conducting linear regression analyses, results suggest that relationship-oriented and task-oriented leadership behaviours are better predictors for identification with the team, trust towards the leader, job satisfaction, innovative work behaviours, and organizational citizenship compared to identity leadership behaviour. Overall, relationship-oriented and task-oriented leadership behaviours sufficiently cover the positive effects identity leadership behaviour was found to have in other studies. Thus, leaders can be successful even without identity leadership behaviours.