RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The dissertation answers four research questions:
I. To what extent are the concepts of supervisory and strategic leadership distinct?
This research question is relevant in order to establish the added value of conceptualizing and
operationalizing a new strategic leadership model. Supervisory and strategic leadership are
conceptualizations of leadership at different levels of analysis. Whereas supervisory leadership is
played out at the leader-follower level, strategic leadership is aimed at the level of the organizational
system in interaction with its environment. These two conceptualizations of leadership have been kept
apart by means of disciplinary boundaries, i.e. supervisory leadership being embedded in the
psychology discipline and strategic leadership originating from the field of strategic management.
These disciplinary traditions have remained separate; there is however no empirical evidence whether
the two concepts can be identified as distinct.
II. Is leadership manifested differentially across organizational levels?
The extent to which organizational level is (still) an important antecedent for the manifestation and
effectiveness of strategic and supervisory leadership is an unsettled concern. The term strategic
leadership emerged as the responsibility of the top management team. Yet, more and more researchers
argue that strategic leadership is an ability which needs to be manifested by members at all
organizational levels (normative claim). Likewise, even though evidence on supervisory leadership
stems from studies on lower-level managers, top-level managers also have subordinates they need to
motivate. The topic of how top-level managers motivate their subordinates has remained largely
unexplored. Moreover, if the manifestation of strategic and supervisory leadership behaviors shows a
different relationship with organizational level, this would further support the argument that the
concepts are distinct.
III. To what extent is leadership effectiveness (in terms of subordinate’ job satisfaction) moderated
by organizational level?
The manifestation of behaviors does not tell us anything about the desirability of those behaviors at
different organizational levels. There are two different perspectives on this. The continuity perspective
posits that skills associated with leadership effectiveness at lower organizational levels are also
important at higher organizational levels. In contrast, the discontinuity perspective theorizes that
effective leadership behaviors at a certain organizational level can become ineffective for the next