Introverted and Extroverted Personality Traits of Leaders and OCB of Followers: A Moderating Effect of Leader-Member Relationship of IT Industry in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Research on relationship between personality and leadership supports the notion that individual differences may be the predictors of leadership effectiveness in contemporary organizations. Extended studies stress that each of the Big- Five broad personality dimensions is related to leader criteria and identified introversion-extroversion as a key element of an individual personality. In general, the main differences between effective leaders and less effective ones are that, effective leaders differ themselves from their personality traits and the relationship building with followers. However, relatively few studies have tested how and why introvert and extrovert leader’s personality traits relate to follower behaviors, in addition, if so, the mechanisms through which a leader’s personality traits relate to follower behaviours. Accordingly, the main aims of the present study are to examine whether the introverted personality traits of leaders and extroverted personality traits of leaders affect the organizational citizenship behaviour of followers and to examine the role of leader-member relationship as a moderator, in social exchange process. To advance the understanding of these, simple regression analysis and moderator regression analysis were performed to test hypotheses with a sample size of 46 introvert managers and 50 extrovert managers as leaders and 92 and 100 subordinates as their followers respectively from IT industry in Sri Lanka. The study found that there is a positive direct effect of introverted personality traits of leaders and no negative direct effect of extroverted personality traits of leaders on organizational citizenship behaviour of followers. Yet, leader-member relationship moderates the positive and negative relationships between introverted, extroverted personality traits of leaders and organizational citizenship behaviour of followers. Present study makes several theoretical contributions to path-goal theory of leadership with the support from theory of trait leadership and big five model. Further, managerial contributions of the present study make IT firms successful through better selection of leaders based on personality traits which facilitates organizational citizenship behaviour.