what is lmx model?
Informal observation of leadership behavior suggests that leaders action is not the same towards all subordinates. The importance of potential differences in this respect is brought into sharp focus by Graens leader-member exchange model, also known as the vertical dyad linkage theory. The theory views leadership as consisting of a number of dyadic relationships linking the leader with a follower. The quality of the relationship is reflected by the degree of mutual trust, loyalty, support, respect, and obligation.
According to the theory, leaders form different kinds of relationships with various groups of subordinates. One group, referred to as the in-group, is favored by the leader. Members of in-group receive considerably more attention from the leader and have more access to the organizational resources. By contrast, other subordinates fall into the out-group. These individuals are disfavored by the leader. As such, they receive fewer valued resources from their leaders.
Leaders distinguish between the in-group and out-group members on the basis of the perceived similarity with respect to personal characteristics, such as age, gender, or personality. A follower may also be granted an in-group status if the leader believes that person to be especially competent at performing his or her job. The relationship between leaders and followers follows three stages:
The LMX 7 scale assesses the degree to which leaders and followers have mutual respect for each others capabilities, feel a deepening sense of mutual trust, and have a sense of strong obligation to one another. Taken together, these dimensions determine the extent to which followers will be part of the leaders in-group or out-group.
In-group followers tend to function as assistants or advisers and to have higher quality personalized exchanges with the leader than do out-group followers. These exchanges typically involve a leaders emphasis on assignments to interesting tasks, delegation of important responsibilities, information sharing, and participation in the leaders decisions, as well as special benefits, such as personal support and support and favorable work schedules.
According to many studies conducted in this area, it has been found that leaders definitely do support the members of the in-group and may go to the extent of inflating their ratings on poor performance as well. This kind of a treatment is not given to the members of the out-group.
Due to the favoritism that the in-group members receive from their leaders, they are found to perform their jobs better and develop positive attitude towards their jobs in comparison to the members of the out-group. The job satisfaction of in-group members is high and they perform effectively on their jobs. They tend to receive more mentoring from their superiors which helps them in their careers. For these reasons, low attrition rate, increased salaries, and promotion rates are associated with the in-group members in comparison to that of the out-group members.
Leader–member exchange (LMX) theory is a relationship-based, dyadic theory of leadership. According to this theory, leadership resides in the quality of the exchange relationship developed between leaders and their followers.
Leader-member exchange (LMX) refers to the quality of relationship exchange formed between a leader and their subordinate (Gerstner & Day, 1997). Note that in this context, leaders may include supervisors, not just upper-level leaders such as managers or administrators. LMX theory is based on the idea that leaders develop unique relationships with each follower, and the quality of this relationship then has the power to influence various attitudes and behaviors (Illies et al., 2007). Whereas most leadership theories focus entirely on the role that a leader plays, LMX differs in that it emphasizes the dyadic nature of the relationship between leaders and followers; that is, both leader and follower have the power to impact the nature of the relationship and influence each other (Dulebohn et al., 2012). High-quality LMX relationships usually involve a great degree of respect, trust, and obligation between the two parties, whereas low-quality LMX relationships tend to be more transactional in nature, meaning the leader and follower have a more surface-level relationship that is simply based on doing work in exchange for pay (Blau, 1964; Graen & Uhl- Bien, 1995).
LMX is most often measured using the Leader Member Exchange 7 questionnaire (LMX-7), a seven-item scale that considers LMX to be a unidimensional construct. Example items include “I have enough confidence in my leader that I would defend and justify his/her decision if he/she were not present to do so,” “How well does your leader recognize your potential?” and “How would you characterize your working relationship with your leader?” (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995). LMX can also be measured via the LMX-MDM, an 11-item scale which considers LMX as containing four dimensions, including affect (e.g., “I like my supervisor very much as a person”), loyalty (e.g., “My supervisor would defend me to others in the organization if I made an honest mistake”), contribution (e.g., “I do work for my supervisor that goes beyond what is specified in my job description”), and professional respect (e.g., “I respect my supervisor's knowledge of and competence on the job”; Liden & Maslyn, 1998). The LMX-7 and LMX-MDM are highly correlated with each other, indicating that they measure the same construct and that either may be used to measure LMX (Dulebohn et al., 2017).
Both the LMX-7 and LMX-MDM can also be adapted to collect ratings from the leader, rather than the follower. Although there is not an established standard for adapting the measures, there are certain conventions that most researchers seem to follow. When using the LMX-7, the perspective is commonly adapted to reflect a leader’s beliefs about how they think their subordinate feels about them. For example, “I have enough confidence in my leader that I would defend and justify his/her decision if he/she were not present to do so” becomes “Your member has enough confidence in you that they would defend and justify your decision if you were not present to do so.” Conversely, the adaptation of the LMX-MDM usually involves changing the items to reflect a leader’s feelings about their subordinate. For example, “I like my supervisor very much as a person” would instead be “I like my subordinate very much as a person”. Thus, the measures are usually adapted in such a way that they measure LMX from two contrasting perspectives (i.e., what the leader believes the follower’s opinion is of them vs. what the leader’s opinion is of the follower), so practitioners interested in getting leader ratings may want to consider which measurement perspective would best serve their specific purposes.
LMX is most commonly measured from the perspective of the follower but can be measured from the perspective of the leader, follower, or both. However, research indicates that results may differ based on who is giving the ratings (Sin et al., 2009). There tends to be only moderate consistency between ratings given by leaders and ratings given by subordinates, which researchers believe may stem from a couple different sources. Firstly, the scale items were originally intended to reflect leader behaviors rather than follower behaviors, so changing the perspective of the items may lead to less consistency. Additionally, because the items seem to measure leader behaviors, leaders may perceive ratings as a form of self-evaluation and inflate their ratings in a socially desirable manner (Sin et al., 2009). Thus, it may be more important to collect ratings from subordinates’ perspectives than those of the supervisor.
Inherent in the definition of LMX is the idea that leaders develop differentiated relationships with followers, or relationships of varying quality. Thus, researchers have examined the effects of variability in the quality of relationships between the leader and subordinates across a team, known as LMX differentiation (Yu et al., 2018). LMX differentiation can be operationalized and measured in a number of different ways. It can be looked at using central tendency (the average or median LMX quality in a team), dispersion (the degree of variation in LMX quality across a team), or relative position (the location of a team member’s LMX quality compared to other team members’ LMX quality with the same leader). For more information about how to best measure LMX differentiation, see Martin and colleagues (2018).
LMX is important because high LMX quality is positively associated with follower behaviors and attitudes in the workplace. When measured from followers’ perspectives, LMX is moderately associated with better follower job performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviors (i.e., behaviors that go beyond those specified in a formal job description, like altruism, courtesy, and job dedication; Dulebohn et al., 2012; Eisenberger et al., 2019; Gerstner & Day, 1997; Illies et al., 2007; Martin et al., 2016).
There is a moderate negative relationship between LMX and counterproductive performance, meaning that higher LMX quality is associated with fewer counterproductive behaviors such as acts of theft, deviance, aggression, and property misuse in the workplace (Martin et al., 2016). High LMX quality is also moderately associated with lower turnover intentions but is not associated with the actual rate of turnover (Gerstner & Day, 1997).
LMX differentiation is not associated with group performance but does have a negative relationship with group processes (e.g., conflict, coordination) and attitudes like organizational commitment and perceptions of justice (Yu et al., 2018). Together these findings illustrate that LMX matters in both an absolute and relative sense; having a poor-quality LMX is associated with a variety of negative individual work outcomes, and having a poor-quality LMX amongst coworkers with a high-quality LMX may have other negative effects of its own. In light of this, leaders should aim to reduce the amount of variability in their relationships with subordinates, preferably by developing high-quality relationships with all of them. When there is variability, leaders should take particular care to ensure that relationship quality does not differ based on follower diversity characteristics, such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, or other social identities.
Research still has a long way to go in learning about how LMX develops over time, but researchers tend to emphasize the importance of having open channels of communication between leader and follower in order to better foster a high-quality relationship (Banks et al., 2014; Gerstner & Day, 1997). Based on role theory, some researchers have suggested that LMX quality is determined through a series of interactions in which the follower and leader set expectations, respond to the expectations, evaluate each other’s responses, and ultimately reinforce and develop a set of normative behaviors in their relationship (Graen & Scandura, 1987, as cited in Sin et al., 2009). Other researchers emphasize that liking one another may contribute to, though not guarantee, the formation of a high-quality LMX relationship (Dulebohn et al., 2017).
Meta-analytic evidence on the antecedents of LMX indicates that many variables are associated with LMX, which tend to fall under three categories: follower characteristics, leader characteristics, and interpersonal behaviors (Dulebohn et al., 2012). Follower characteristics that are moderately associated with LMX include things like competence, positive affectivity, and having an internal locus of control. There are also modest associations between LMX and follower agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and negative affectivity. Leader characteristics and behaviors appear to have the strongest relationship with LMX (Dulebohn et al., 2012). High-quality LMX is more likely when leaders display contingent reward behaviors, practice transformational leadership behaviors (e.g., giving followers an inspiring vision to work toward, encouraging growth and ambitious goal setting, challenging followers to think creatively, and providing individualized help for each follower’s specific needs), have high expectations of follower success, and when leaders are more highly extraverted and agreeable. High-quality LMX may also be associated with certain interpersonal behaviors and attitudes like when the leader trusts the follower, when there is high perceived similarity between the leader and follower, and when the follower self-promotes or tries to ingratiate themselves with the leader (Dulebohn et al., 2012).
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Martin, R., Guillaume, Y., Thomas, G., Lee, A., & Epitropaki, O. (2016). Leader-member exchange (LMX) and performance: A meta-analytic review. Personnel Psychology, 69(1), 67–121.
Martin, R., Thomas, G., Legood, A., Dello Russo, S. (2018). Leader-member exchange (LMX) differentiation and work outcomes: Conceptual clarification and critical review. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(2), 151–168.
Sin, H.-P., Nahrgang, J. D., & Morgeson, F. P. (2009). Understanding why they don’t see eye to eye: An examination of leader-member exchange (LMX) agreement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(4), 1048–1057.
Yu, A., Matta, F. K., & Cornfield, B. (2018). Is leader-member exchange differentiation beneficial or detrimental for group effectiveness? A meta-analytic investigation and theoretical integration. Academy of Management Journal, 61(3), 1158–1188.
Sarah Stepanek, MA, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Megan Paul, PhD, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
