Trust as leadership principel: Effects of leaders' trust on employees' job performance and well-being.

• Applicant: Dr. Christoph Nohe
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 425412325

Employees’ trust in the leader is an important component of many leadership theories. In this research project, we change the perspective and examine leaders’ trust in employees (i.e., trust as leadership principle). Our first aim is to examine whether trust as leadership principle pays off in terms of positive employee outcomes (i.e., higher work motivation, better well-being, less counterproductive work behavior). Thereby, our research can provide first insights about whether trust is qualified as a general leadership principle. Our second aim is to examine three boundary conditions upon which the positive effects of trust is likely to depend. Thereby, our research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of trust processes in the context of leadership and integrates mixed findings regarding positive and negative effects of trust that can be found in the literature. Our third aim is to provide practical implications for leaders and organizations regarding trust and control. Our research project combines experimental studies (1-3) to infer causality with field studies (4-6) to gain a high external validity. We assess our process and outcome variables via behavior (Studies 1-3), physiological measures (Studies 2, 5, 6), expert-ratings (Study 6), and self-reports (Studies 1-6). The aim of Studies 1 and 2 is to examine positive effects of trust as leadership principle on employees’ work motivation, well-being, and counterproductive work behavior. Additionally, we examine whether the positive effect of trust is mitigated when employees (i) report low levels of self-efficacy, (ii) interpret leaders’ trust as driven by dishonest motives, and (iii) report a low endorsement of reciprocity norms. Study 3 goes above and beyond Studies 1 and 2 by examining the effects of trust as leadership principle on the trusting leader. That is, Study 3 examines whether trust as leadership principle has advantages for the trusting leader herself/himself in terms of higher leader performance and better leader well-being. Three field studies will generalize and extend the findings from the experiments. In Study 4, we use the critical incident technique to explore implications, boundary conditions, and potential dark sides of trust. In Study 5, we use a daily diary paradigm to examine positive implications and boundary conditions of trust as leadership principle. Finally, in Study 6, we use teams of firefighters to further examine the implications of trust as leadership principle.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Guido Hertel