their work or lives. He is serious at work and never shows his intentions
frankly. He has harsh words if his followers fail to meet his requirements.
He is also very strict about himself. He conducts his personal life in an
ethical manner and sets an example of how to do things in the right way for
his followers. (Authentic PL leader, ABC)
Mr. Chen is a supervisor who is inconsiderate towards his followers.
He refuses to provide a hand when the followers have troubles in their work
or lives, because he would see these as their own personal issues. He has a
casual attitude towards his followers. He does not have high expectations for
them and refuses to criticize them even when they cannot meet his require-
ments. In addition, he may take advantage of his followers, or promote his
private interests under the guise of serving the public. Sometimes, he may say
one thing and do another, seize the honor and shift the blame. (Laissez-faire
PL leader, abc)
Table 6.1(see the columns headed ‘‘Ideal leader choice) shows the
distribution of the respondent’s choice of ideal leaders among the eight
types of PL leader. Several interesting findings emerge from the data.
First, only four types of leader received a significant number of votes
as ideal leaders. The most popular one was Type 5 Selfless benefactor
(aBC) (48.3%), followed by Type 1 Authentic (ABC) (26.0%), Type 7
Ideological (abC) (18.1%), and Type 3 Disciplinarian (AbC) (5.7%).
The remaining four types, i.e. Type 2 Godfather (ABc), Type 4 Dicta-
torial (Abc), Type 6 Indulgent (aBc), and Type 8Laissez-faire(abc),
combined received only 2.0% of the votes. Second, as a whole, what
distinguishes ideal leaders from non-ideal leaders is the moral character
of the leader. Only PL types with high moral character received votes
as ideal leaders. None of the PL types with low moral character
received a significant number of votes. Finally, Type 1 Authentic
(ABC) emerged as the second most popular type as it received 26.0%
of the total votes. This indicates that Authentic PL is a viable form of
PL according to Taiwanese employees in private firms.
Distribution of the eight types of paternalistic leader
in organizations
To examine the actual distribution of leaders across the eight PL
types and subordinate responses to each type, we reanalyzed the data
from two samples reported in Cheng, Chou, and Farh ( 2000 ). The
school sample included 501 teachers describing the leadership style
of their principals in 175 schools, while the firm sample included
Paternalistic leadership in Chinese organizations 187