رهبری تحول گرا و عملکرد زمینه ای: نقش اتحاد میان متخصصان IT هندوستان Transformational Leadership and Contextual Performance: Role of Integrity among Indian IT Professionals

Introduction In every organization, managers expect their employees to be more involved in their work, to be positively engaged in pursuit of common goal and to exert extra effort than what is specified in their job description. In a nutshell, managers desire their employees to go the proverbial extra mile and not restrict themselves to the formal job roles and responsibilities (Borman and Motowidlo, 1993; Motowidlo and Van Scotter, 1994; Van Scotter and Motowidlo, 1996). These extra role behaviors which are not formally asked of but supplement the task behaviors of the employee are called contextual behaviors. This set of interpersonal and volitional behavior Downloaded by University of Florida At 06:27 05 January 2018 (PT) 2 encompasses behaviors such as voluntarily helping peers who are lagging behind, acting amiably so as to maintain good working relationships, exerting extra effort for the timely completion of a task, and introducing a new employee to the work culture etc. Unlike, the task behaviors, contextual behaviors are same or similar across the rank and file of the organization. Another important distinction between the two performances is that unlike task performance, contextual performance doesn’t depend on one’s competency or talent rather on one’s attitude and compassion towards others (Borman and Motowidlo, 1993). Several management scholars have maintained that employee performance and leadership style are instrumental in contributing immensely towards organizational performance (Almatrooshi et al., 2016). One of the several ways by which employees can be motivated to exert extra effort is through a compelling vision, leader’s charisma and mutual cognizance of the enormity and desirability of the goal. Transformational leadership, which embodies these features exhort their followers to move beyond their selfish interests and act according to the larger interest (Bass, 1985). The larger organizational interest can be attained when employees demonstrate concern and care for all the stakeholders involved, and display positive attitude towards organizational rules and policies. These efforts to achieve organizational goals are in line with the ideas of contextual performance i.e., performance that go beyond formal roles and obligations (Bass & Riggio, 2006). In contrast to transactional leaders, transformational leaders look at long term goals and holistic development of employees. Such leaders motivate employees to focus on deeper concerns associated with organizational growth rather than concentrating on fulfilling their basic security concerns (Avolio et al., 1991). Transformational leaders inspire their followers to exert extra endeavour, have amiable relationship with all stakeholders, and uphold organizational rules so as to achieve personal, group and organizational goals (Bass, 1985; Yammarino and Bass, 1990). Bass (1985) reported that transformational leaders communicate organizational vision in a compelling manner and convince their followers to exert extra effort, thus resulting in followers displaying more of discretionary pro-social behaviors. Although, previous studies have claimed a positive effect of transformational leadership on extra role behaviours (Piccolo and Colquitt, 2006), yet, the number of studies investigating the effects of transformational leadership on contextual performance is quite few (Judge and Piccolo, 2004).