2011/11/28 by Marianne Schmid Mast, Klaus Jonas, Christina Kloeckner Cronauer +1 · 4 citations
Psychology · Business, Management and Accounting · #Emotional Intelligence and Performance #Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior #Personality Traits and Psychology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2011.00852.x
openalex publication_date 2011/11/28 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
This research is aimed at showing that interpersonal sensitivity (being attuned to and correctly inferring another person's thoughts and feelings) is an important aspect of what people expect from a good leader and that interpersonally sensitive leaders have more satisfied subordinates. In the first study, participants indicated how much they expected a good superior to be interpersonally sensitive (among other characteristics). People expect leaders to be interpersonally sensitive more so than subordinates. In the second study, participants interacted in same‐gender dyads as leaders and subordinates. We measured subordinate satisfaction and leader interpersonal sensitivity. More interpersonally sensitive leaders had more satisfied subordinates. Interpersonal sensitivity is important for good leadership: It is expected from leaders, and it contributes to increased subordinate satisfaction.