Leader consideration reconsidered: the l factor in leader behavior

In the current dissertation, I propose that leadership research has progressed by repeatedly reinventing the concept of leader consideration. First, I provide a historical review of the origins of leader consideration. Then, I conduct empirical demonstrations (using both meta-analytic and primary data) to assess the redundancy of various leadership constructs [leader-member exchange (LMX), contingent reward, and transformational leadership] with leader consideration. Results support the existence of a higher-order L factor (general Leadership Factor) that characterizes the overlaps among individual-level follower perceptions of leader consideration, LMX, contingent reward, and transformational leadership. The L factor: (a) is very strongly associated with its subordinate constructs (first-order leadership factors), (b) is shown to carry most of the explanatory power of these lower-order leadership constructs in terms of associations with external variables, and (c) is redundant with the classic construct of leader consideration