Impact Of Lmx Congruence On Subordinate Performance, Promotability And Organization Commitment

2 Over the years leader member exchange (LMX) theory, which emphasizes that each leader has a uniquw relationship with each member, has been researched widely, but despite being a dyadic theory, only a limited number of studies actually considered and studied both the leaders' and members' perspective while establishing the relationship between LMX and subordinate outcomes. Even fewer studies have addressed the issue of the match or congruence of perception in leader member dyads. In quest of analyzing LMX quality a lot of researchers ignored the fact that a match or congruence between the leaders' and members' perception is significant in order to determine task and behavior related outcomes (Coglister et al., 1999). Based on balance theory (Heider, 1958), we propose that a mismatch may have more negative impact on subordinate than poor LMX. Using a sample of 60 matched dyads of leaders and subordinates, we examine the impact of congruence, in leader and subordinate LMX ratings; and its impact on job performance, organization commitment and promotability of the subordinate. LMX congruence is assessed through the framework given by Coglister et. al (2009) which conceptualizes four types of congruence; balance high (high leader and subordinate LMX), balance low (low leader and subordinate LMX), follower overestimation (low leader but high subordinate LMX) and follower underestimation (high leader but low subordinate LMX). The four types of LMX congruence are hypothesized to be the predictors of job performance (measured from leader perspective), promotability (measured from leader perspective) and organization commitment (measured from the subordinate perspective) of the subordinates. For this first MANCOVA was conducted on the entire model, which was followed by ANOVA for each one of the three independent variables. As anticipated, balance high (low) relationships correlated with higher (lower) levels of performance, promotability and organization commitment. Follower underestimation resulted in highest levels of job performance and promotability as perceived by the leader; and lowest levels of organization commitment, as perceived by the subordinate. Results support our assertion that a mismatch in leaders' and members' perceptions predicts employee outcomes significantly. Results are discussed for theoretical and practical implications.