Abstract

New leaders often face challenges during transition into the leadership role such as they must learn to perform in a new position with new work tasks, and they may not yet know others’ goals and expectations that partly define their role in the organization (Hill, 1992). We suggest that setting and striving to attain shared goals with their followers is an important channel that directs new leaders’ learning and helps them make sense of their new situation. In similar lines, Transactive goal dynamics theory (Fitzsimons et al, 2015) argues that people within groups, such as leaders and followers, have intertwined goal setting and pursuits, i.e. shared goals. Furthermore, we propose that how new leaders’ progress with these shared goals with their followers has important consequences for interpersonal processes between them that in turn influence how new leaders perceive themselves as leaders (leader identity). Specifically, based on theory and research on the consequences on leader expectations on followers’ behavior, i.e. Pygmalion effect (e.g., Eden, 1992), we argue that leader expectations influence their leadership behavior that in turn influence their followers’ feedback about the leadership. In other words, “expectations determine important dimensions of leadership behavior. Leaders lead best when they expect success.” (Eden, 1992, p. 290). This way new leaders’ expectations may enhance also social validation of their leadership from the followers. When responses from followers to new leaders are positive, the validation helps develop a leader identity and makes them feel able to perform in the job. Unfortunately, to our knowledge there has been no research on the role of new leaders’ shared goals in leader development and how they might influence on interpersonal processes between new leaders and followers (cf., Bateman et al. 2002). Thus, we aim to examine how new leaders’ shared goals relate to interpersonal processes between them and their followers, i.e. their performance expectations and followers’ positive feedback (i.e. social validation), and how these in turn relate to leader development as indicated by leader identity. Leader identity refers to what extent a person see her-/himself as a leader (e.g., Day & Dragoni, 2015). Leader identity is important for leader development, since it may enhance motivation to learn leadership skills, behavior and thus leader effectiveness (Day & Dragoni, 2015; Lord & Hall, 2005).