Transformational Leadership Style and ASD (Parr, Hunter, and Ligon)

Questioning Universal Applicability of Transformational leadership: Examining employees with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Introduction:

I think that this paper is super cool; it’s a really interesting take on leaders and employees with ASD. The research is done by several I/O psychologists and they conducted an experiment to test the universal applicability of transformational leadership (description below if you need it). They interviewed 52 employees with ASD. The sample size is on the lower side, which is definitely not unusual for studies with individuals with ASD. I believe this is mostly due to the fact that most employers who hire people with ASD hire small numbers at a time (which is perfectly understandable, btw…the Autism Speaks think tank on the topic noted that programs that hire large cohorts at a time tend to fail).

So, in case you are unfamiliar with the term, transformational leadership is, generally speaking, when leaders transform their followers by making them more aware of the importance of their task outcomes, by making them more aware of their importance in the bigger picture of the organization. (I had to dig up my old I/O psychology textbook for this definition…leadership theory is definitely not my speciality. =) Reference of said textbook is below.) Anyway, they accomplish this by employing at least one of the following: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Based on this and other leadership theories, it is believed that influencing and motivating followers is essential for successful leaders. So, there definitely seems to be sound reasoning behind the researchers’ concern that individuals with ASD may not react well to this type of leadership.

Top Points:

Some of the Results:

• Employees with ASD tend to get more anxiety when leaders use inspirational motivation.
• Employees with ASD do not become more anxious when leaders use idealized influence (when leaders “clearly articulate a vision providing more structure and guidance to their employees to better understand performance expectations” (p. 612).
• Employees with ASD have lower levels of anxiety when leaders use individualized consideration.
• Employee anxiety has a negative effect on organizational commitment, but does not have a negative effect on performance.

My Thoughts:

• The whole concept of this paper was interesting to me because it brings up the fact that people with ASD may react differently to management styles than neurotypical people (people without ASD or other neurologically atypical issues). Managers would do well to consider such issues when working with all communities, I think.
• It was certainly not a huge surprise that employees with ASD responded less well to inspirational motivation, especially since there is some research that suggests that employees with ASD need more specific instruction. Having to guess what is expected of you would probably cause anyone stress.
• Additionally, I thought it was interesting that they found that employees reacted well to individualized consideration, something that seems to show up a lot in the literature.

Additional Notes:

The authors of this paper briefly mentioned that several participants in the study did not self-disclose their condition to their employer, and the authors thought that they may have been afraid of discrimination and/or disadvantages of other kinds. I thought that this was an important and interesting topic. Since many successful employer/employee with ASD relationships require that the employer be more accommodating and flexible, it would seem that NOT disclosing would be doing the employee a great disservice. However, it is also understandable that they may not want to disclose their disorder. There is actually an interesting paper (I seem to describe all papers interesting..haha!) on disclosing disabilities, which I will discuss at a future time.

References:
Parr, A. D., Hunter, S. T., and Ligon, G. S. (2013). Questioning universal applicability of transformational leadership: Examing employees with autism spectrum disorder. The Leadership Quarterly: 24; pp. 608-622.

Link to the Actual Paper

Muchinsky, P. (2003). Psychology applied to work. Thomson Wadsworth: Belmont, CA.