Substitutes for Leadership

Leadership Neutralizers

In 1977 and 1978, articles by leadership expert Steve Kerr and management scholar John Jermier extended the idea of contingency theories by suggesting that certain situational factors may completely neutralize and at times replace (substitute for) the impact of a leader's behavior on followers' performance and attitudes. Leadership neutralizers are those characteristics of followers, their work tasks, or their organization that decrease or eliminate the [Page 1505]effectiveness of the leaders' influence on followers. Followers who are extremely independent may resist a leader's influence, causing certain leader behaviors to have little or no effect. A high degree of spatial or geographic distance between a leader and followers can also decrease the leader's effectiveness. In 1990, scholars Jon Howell, David Bowen, Peter Dorfman, Steve Kerr, and Philip Podsakoff published “Substitutes for Leadership: Effective Alternatives to Ineffective Leadership,” which included the example of Kinko's, a company that provides photocopying services at widely dispersed locations, to show how the neutralizing effect of geographic distance caused major leadership problems for regional managers. These regional managers were not able to provide new store managers with enough personal guidance, direction, and support through occasional visits, phone calls, and e-mail. The new store managers needed more continuous personal interaction, but that was not possible given the company's organizational structure.

In 2001, Howell and the management scholar Dan Costley described other examples of leadership neutralizers, including organizational reward systems based on union contracts or civil service policies that do not allow leaders to reward the best performers, or senior managers who habitually countermand or change effective directions by a lower-level manager and prevent that manager from having the influence he or she needs. Although neutralizers are often dysfunctional, and most leaders probably try to avoid or eliminate them, they can be useful in blocking the influence of an incompetent manager. If politics or seniority make it impossible to replace a problem manager, a neutralizer such as the removal of monetary rewards from the leader's discretion may be created to minimize the problems the problem manager causes.

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