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Research has confirmed that leader behavior influences group and organizational behavior, but we know less about how senior leaders ensure that group and organizational members implement their decisions. Most organizations have multiple layers of leaders, implying that any single leader does not lead in isolation. We focused on how the consistency of leadership effectiveness across hierarchical levels influenced the implementation of a strategic initiative in a large health care system. We found that it was only when leaders' effectiveness at different levels was considered in the aggregate that significant performance improvement occurred. We discuss the implications of these findings for leadership research, specifically, that leaders at various levels should be considered collectively to understand how leadership influences employee performance.

Understanding the relationship between personality and behavior requires accounting for a broad set of traits within each person and the demands of a specific role or situation. To address these requirements, we assessed the relevance or ordering of traits within an individual (an idiographic approach) and compared these orderings across individuals occupying similar organizational situations (a nomothetic approach). We illustrate the utility of this semi-idiographic approach with a longitudinal study of Masters of Business Administration (MBA) students. The MBAs whose personalities were more similar to a template of the successful young manager received more job offers upon graduating and, subsequently, earned higher salaries, were more likely to be working full-time, and had changed jobs less often than did those who fit the managerial template less well.

Leadership has been a central, and sometimes controversial, topic in the study of organizations. In spite of claims to the contrary, there is substantial evidence that leadership is positively related to a variety of individual and organizational outcomes. While research has confirmed that leadership-performance associations exist, less attention has been paid to how senior leaders ensure that their strategic decisions are implemented. In this study, we investigated one mechanism of action, exploring how the consistency of leadership effectiveness across hierarchical levels enhanced or impeded influenced the implementation of a strategic initiative in a large health care system. We found that medical department performance was not affected by any one leader's (CEO, medical center leader, department leader) effectiveness but rather, it was only when leadership effectiveness at different levels were considered in the aggregate that significant performance improvement occurred. We discuss the implications of these findings for leadership research, specifically, that leaders at various levels should be considered collectively to understand how leadership influences strategic change.