Give them a fishing rod, if it is not urgent: The impact of help type on support for helpers’ leadership.

Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 109(4), Apr 2024, 551-572; doi:10.1037/apl0001155Taking a follower’s perspective on leadership and contributing to the new research stream on behaviors conducive to its emergence, we examined how distinct types of instrumental (task focused) helping—autonomy- versus dependency-helping—affected recipients’ support for their helpers’ leadership. Based on the literature on employees’ needs for autonomy and mastery, combined with the empowering nature of autonomy-helping, we reasoned that autonomy- (vs. dependency-) helping typically signals greater benevolence toward recipients, enhancing their support for their helpers’ leadership. Our findings were generalized across various samples (of U.S. and Israeli employees), manipulations, and research settings: simulations (Studies 1 and 2b), workplace role-play scenario (Study 2a), and recollections of helping events in the workplace (Study 3). We found that autonomy- (vs. dependency-) helping increased recipients’ support for their helpers’ leadership by heightening perceptions of helpers’ benevolence-based (rather than ability-based) trustworthiness (Studies 1 and 3). We also showed time pressure to be a boundary condition under which the advantage of autonomy-helping disappeared (Studies 2a and 2b)—with dependency-helping then inducing comparable levels of perceived benevolence and thus similar support for the helper’s potential leadership. Overall, we shed light on the dev...
Source: Journal of Applied Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research