Leadership styles, mentoring functions received, and job-related stress

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382 J. J. SOSIK AND V. M. GODSHALK purposes, and meanings via experiences and self-awareness over time (DiTomaso, 1993). In fact, Sosik and Dworakivsky (1998) found elements of leader wisdom (i.e., private self-awareness and purpose-in-life) to be positively related to charismatic leadership. Given that a mentor shares experience, wisdom, knowledge and perspective with a proteÂ geÂ (Kram, 1985), it may be that a mentor's charisma facilitates receipt of mentoring functions by the proteÂ geÂ . To test this speculation, we performed a post-hoc test which involved correlating the components of transformational leadership (i.e., idealized in¯uence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration), contingent reward leadership, and laissezfaire leadership with psychosocial support and career development functions of mentoring. Results indicated that psychosocial support was positively related to two aspects of charismatic leadershipÐidealized in¯uence (r ˆ 0.21, p 5 0.01) and inspirational motivation (r ˆ 0.17, p 5 0.05)Ðas well as individualized consideration (r ˆ 0.18, p 5 0.04) and contingent reward (r ˆ 0.22, p 5 0.01). No leadership behaviors were associated with the career development function of mentoring. These results suggest that mentors who augment contingent reward behavior with charismatic and individually considerate behaviors may provide psychosocial support to proteÂ geÂ s. Future research should identify which aspects of leadership or substitutes for leadership (e.g., proteÂ geÂ development-linked reward systems and aspects of jobs) may in¯uence the career development function of mentoring (Aryee et al., 1996). Two additional key ®ndings of the present study were that proteÂ geÂ receipt of mentoring functions was negatively related to proteÂ geÂ job-related stress and that proteÂ geÂ receipt of mentoring functions strengthened the negative relationship between mentor transformational leadership behavior and proteÂ geÂ job-related stress. The former ®nding provides support for theoretical and empirical indications that mentoring can allay stress experienced by proteÂ geÂ s (e.g., House, 1981; Kram and Hall, 1989; Parker and DeCotiis, 1983). However, given that both mentoring functions received and job-related stress were reported by proteÂ geÂ s, this result should be interpreted with caution since common method variance may be a potential alternative explanation for this ®nding. The latter ®nding provides support for Bass (1998) and House (1981) who suggested that development-oriented leadership (i.e., transformational leadership) coupled with social support (i.e., mentoring functions received) can reduce stress experienced by proteÂ geÂ s. Thus, it may be that social support provided by mentoring and the sense of identity with a social network of support emphasized in transformational leadership may help allay proteÂ geÂ job-related stress. Future research should explore the mechanisms by which transformational leadership and proteÂ geÂ receipt of mentoring functions may interact to allay proteÂ geÂ job-related stress. Implications Results of the present study suggest several managerial implications. First, to enhance proteÂ geÂ receipt of mentoring functions, mentors should be trained to avoid laissez-faire behaviors and to exhibit transformational leadership behaviors, such as idealized in¯uence and individualized consideration. Because contemporary management thought encourages providing autonomy to one's subordinates, mentors may fall into the trap of confusing empowerment with laissez-faire behaviors. To avoid such a folly, mentors should be trained to di€erentiate between empowerment and laissez-faire leadership. Empowerment encompasses providing psychological support and tangible resources to bolster autonomy and ecacy of proteÂ geÂ e€orts. In contrast, laissezfaire represents the absence and abdication of mentor involvement in the mentor±proteÂ geÂ relationship (Bass, 1998). Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 21, 365±390 (2000)
LEADERSHIP, MENTORING AND STRESS 383 Second, Senge (1996) argues that to be competitive in the next millennium, an organization's intellectual capital (i.e., knowledge resources and learning structures) should be mentored by leaders who possess wisdom. Given that charisma can be de®ned in terms of wisdom (DiTomaso, 1993), our results suggest that mentors should focus on exhibiting idealized in¯uence and inspirational motivation to build e€ective mentoring relationships. Both idealized in¯uence and inspirational motivation represent charismatic leadership, a relationship in which followers form a strong emotional attachment to the leader based on common internalized values and identi®cation with the leader (Bass, 1985; House, 1996). To the extent that psychosocial support involves mentor±proteÂ geÂ value congruence, proteÂ geÂ respect and emulation of the mentor, and mentor emotional encouragement of the proteÂ geÂ (Kram, 1985; Thibodeaux and Lowe, 1996), study ®ndings suggest that idealized in¯uence and inspirational motivation may be useful behaviors for promoting mentoring e€ectiveness. Third, given increased levels of job-related stress experienced by organizational members (Brockner et al., 1992), organizations should implement and support mentoring programmes to help allay employee job-related stress. This implication is important since employee stress has been associated with signi®cant costs, both ®nancial (Laws, 1996) and health-related (Manning et al., 1996). Results of the present study suggest that organizations should couple mentoring programmes with transformational leadership training for mentors to maximize reductions in proteÂ geÂ job-related stress (and its associated costs). Limitations and future research paths Certain limitations of the study, which are suggestive of future research paths, should be noted. First, the sample consisted of graduate student participants, who collectively represented employees from a wide variety of ages, backgrounds, and industries. Such a sample was judged preferable to using employees within the same organization due to the potential for data re¯ecting shared participant pool, organizationally-speci®c values, or mentoring relationships that may or may not be representative of the general population. Nevertheless, the limitations of generalizations from `convenient' sample data are acknowledged. Subsequent investigations could employ samples from speci®c organizations and industries. Second, MLQ-5X items employed in the present study to measure the laissez-faire construct may be subject to socially desirable responses. While prior research (Bass and Avolio, 1989) has indicated that the MLQ leadership measures are not likely to be associated with social desirability bias, the potential for such bias in self-reports on laissez-faire items cannot be ruled out. Future independent research should be conducted on potential social desirability bias in self and other ratings of MLQ-5X items, especially those measuring laissez-faire leadership. Third, given that 91 per cent of our sample were involved in informal mentoring relationships, results of the present study are generalizable to informal mentoring relationships. Chao, Walz, and Gardner (1992) noted distinctions in process between formal and informal mentoring relationships. Future research should replicate the present study using a sample comprised of primarily formal mentoring relationships. Fourth, the present study examined the linkage between mentor transformational leadership behavior and proteÂ geÂ job-related stress under high and low levels of mentoring functions received. Other important variables may potentially moderate this linkage. For example, future research could focus on how cross-gender (Burke and McKeen, 1990), and/or cross-cultural (Cox, 1993) issues may a€ect transformational leadership and job-related stress. In addition, Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 21, 365±390 (2000)
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