Exploring the Experience of the African-American Male Worker Assigned to the African-American Male Leader

This research employs a phenomenological approach to better understand the essence of the experience of African-American male workers who have reported to African-American male leaders within the context of large, for-profit organizations. In-depth, structured interviews with eight African-American male workers revealed high level exchange quality existed in every dyadic relationship. More specifically, high levels of trust existed between each worker and leader, as well as extremely open, unguarded patterns of communication existed between the workers and leaders. Lastly, the workers and leaders demonstrated mutually supportive behaviors that not only enhanced the relationships, but also led to outstanding work outputs