| The commonly accepted management model in organizations is that older,more experienced leaders manage younger,less experienced employees(Linton,1936).With the standardization of management,performance-based promotions gradually replaced seniority-based promotions in companies,and the performance-oriented promotion ignored the lack of employees in terms of job qualifications,management experience and abilities,allowing more and more junior employees to manage senior employees and normalizing dual relationship which is against the traditional social perception,such as "young leaders-older subordinates," "short-serving leaders-long-serving subordinates," and "low-educated leaders-well-educated subordinates"(Kunze&Menges,2017).What is the result of the interaction between dual relationship which is against the traditional social perception?Does the anti-traditional social perception of the dual relationship affect the subordinates’ attitudes and behaviors,and how does it do so?At present,domestic and foreign scholars have not formally summarized this phenomenon,and the studies are mainly limited to single dimensions such as age or gender,ignoring the influence of other factors(e.g.,knowledge and skills,etc.).Such unidimensional studies have limited interpretation of results.This paper introduces the phenomenon of "reverse leadership" and explores the impact of this phenomenon on employees.In the first stage,sort out and refine the phenomenon of reverse leadership which the role characteristics of leaders-subordinates counter traditional social perceptions.Subsequently,four dimensions of reverse leadership(including reverse demographic characteristics,reverse technical skills,reverse interpersonal skills,and reverse conceptual skills)compiled through open-ended coding of relevant literature and semistructured interviews with 16 employees.Finally,we developed the reverse leadership scale.In the second stage,the 168 samples were analyzed by fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis using software such as Mplus 18.0 and FsQCA to identify the antecedent constructs of reverse leaders influencing employees’ attitudes and behaviors,including the cause constructs that inhibit employees’ attitudes and behaviors,and the solution constructs that promote employees’ attitudes and behaviors.This study summarizes the phenomenon of the leaders-subordinates which is against the traditional social perception,filling the research gap of reverse leadership.In addition,the research reveals the mechanism of the role of each element of reverse leadership on employees’ attitudes and behaviors,providing suggestions for the improvement of employees’ attitudes and behavioral performance,which is of great significance to the study of reverse leadership effectiveness. |
