Employee political skill influence the perception and success of leader's transformational leadership

变革型领导行为是管理研究中研究最多的领导行为之一。然而，经验证据表明，这种行为并不总是导致预期的成功。这一领域的研究主要集中在单向的、以领导者为中心的观点上，即管理者如何领导员工。相比之下，本项目采用互动的领导方法，考察员工的政治技能是否有助于他们正确认识领导者的预期领导行为，并在此基础上提高他们的工作绩效。通过在两阶段调节的中介模型中考虑员工的政治技能，我试图解释先前关于领导力的研究中矛盾和反直觉的结果。我的第一个目标是检验员工的政治技巧方面“社会敏锐度”和“网络能力”是否能帮助他们更好地理解他们的领导者的变革型领导行为。我希望这些方面的有益影响对于变革型领导的模糊行为尤其如此，因为这些方面可以更准确地解释领导者的行为。此外，为了提供一个解释性的区分，这种影响应该发生在先前建立的员工人格特征的影响之上。其次，对政治技巧方面的“人际影响”影响感知到的领导行为如何转化为更好的工作绩效的假设进行了检验。人际影响应该有利于这个过程，因为它可以帮助员工轻松地调整他们的行为以适应不同的情况，并选择最适合情境的行为以获得成功。第三，我考察了政治技巧在变革型领导和不同形式的工作绩效相互作用中的作用，因为到目前为止，研究只确定了变革型领导对工作奉献的影响，而其他类型的工作绩效的结果则是喜忧参半。此外，在考虑其他形式的领导行为的同时，对工作绩效类型的影响进行了测试，为政治技能对变革型领导的影响提供了额外的解释差异。通过为这种关于领导过程和政治技巧作用的新视角提供经验证据，本项目为领导力在实践中的研究和改进开辟了新的途径和机会：与其仅仅关注主管，不如对其员工进行正确识别和有效利用领导尝试的培训。

Tranformational leadership behavior is one of the most studied leader behaviors in management research. However, empirical evidence shows that this behavior does not always lead to the intended success. Research in this area primarily focused on a unidirectional, leader-centered perspective on how supervisors lead employees. In contrast, this project utilizes an interactional approach on leadership and examines whether political skill of employees helps them to correctly recognize the intended leadership behavior of their leader and on this basis increase their job performance. By considering employee political skill in a two-staged moderated mediation model I seek to explain contradictory and counter-intuitive results of previous research on leadership.My first goal is the examination if employee political skill facets "social astuteness" and "networking ability" help them to better understand the transformational leadership behavior of their leader. I expect that the beneficial effect of these facets is especially true for ambiguous behaviors of transformational leadership since these facets allow a more accurate interpretation of the behavior of the leader. In addition, to provide an explanative differentiation this effect should occur above previously established effects of employee personality characteristics.Secondly, the hypothesis is tested that the political skill facet "interpersonal influence" affects how perceived leader behavior is translated into better job performance. Interpersonal influence should be beneficial for this process because it helps employees to easily adapt their behavior to different situations and select the most context-appropriate behavior to be successful. Thirdly, I examine the role of the facets of political skill in the interplay of transformational leadership and different forms of job performance because until now research has only established an effect of transformational leadership on job dedication whereas results for other types of job performance are mixed. Furthermore, the effects on job performance types are tested while considering other forms of leadership behavior to provide an additional explanative differentiation for the effects of political skill on transformational leadership. By providing empirical evidence for this new perspective on the leadership processes and the role of political skill, this project opens new avenues and opportunities for research and improvement of leadership in practice: Instead on focusing solely on supervisors, their employees should also be trained in correctly recognizing and effectively utilizing leadership attempts.