Leadership styles revisited: From conceptual conflation to causal explanation and practical relevance
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: • We comment on Liden et al. (2025) ’s review of leadership research, highlighting the problems of construct conflation, endogeneity, and unwarranted causal language in leadership style research. • Conceptually, many leadership style constructs conflate leader behaviors with followers’ subjective evaluations. • Empirically, endogeneity undermines causal inference in research with leadership style questionnaires. • Despite conflation and endogeneity, leadership style research often uses unwarranted causal language. • We outline a research agenda based on dissecting leadership styles into their components and studying their interrelationships to enhance causal rigor and practical relevance. In this commentary on Liden, Wang, and Wang (2025) , we identify three recurring problems in leadership style research that they—and much of the field—did not fully address. These omissions matter because they affect which conclusions about leadership styles can be drawn. First, many leadership style constructs conflate leader behaviors with followers’ evaluations, leading to causal indeterminacy—a conceptual problem for which methodological fixes do not suffice. Second, endogeneity frequently limits the causal interpretation of relationships between leadership styles and outcomes. Third, despite these limitations, the use of causal language is common, possibly misguiding practice. Sharing with Liden et al. the aim of advancing the field, we address these challenges and outline an agenda that seeks to revitalize leadership style research. We propose to move from single, conflated leadership style constructs to multi-construct theories that model relationships among behaviors, evaluations, and context, thereby improving causal explanation and practical relevance.
Source: Journal of Business Research
Authors: Thomas Fischer, Joerg Dietz, John Antonakis
Institutions: University of Geneva, University of Lausanne
Language: English
Subfield: Strategy and Management
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,440
OpenAlex ID: W7130407758