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Originalarbeit

Romance of Leadership und die Qualität von Managemententscheidungen

Published Online:October 14, 2009https://doi.org/10.1026/0932-4089.53.4.163

Abstract

Das Konzept der Romantisierung von Führung (Romance of Leadership) besagt, dass der Einfluss von Führungskräften auf den Unternehmenserfolg überschätzt und der Bedeutung wichtiger Kontextfaktoren zu wenig Beachtung geschenkt wird (Meindl et al., 1985). Als Weiterführung dieses Ansatzes wird in dieser Studie untersucht, inwieweit Romance of Leadership die Qualität von Managemententscheidungen negativ beeinflussen kann. Dazu wurden 124 Führungskräften standardisierte Managementszenarien vorgelegt, bei denen es um die Befürwortung oder Ablehnung von Projekten ging. In den Szenarien wurden die Erfolgsaussichten der Projektleiter systematisch variiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Personen, die stärker zur Romantisierung von Führung neigen, weniger rationale und angemessene Entscheidungen treffen. Obwohl explizit darauf hingewiesen wurde, dass der Erfolg eines bestimmten Projekts nicht von dem Projektleiter abhängig ist, machen Personen, die stärker zur Romantisierung von Führung neigen, ihre Entscheidung dennoch von den Erfolgsaussichten der Führungskraft abhängig. Die theoretischen und praktischen Implikationen z. B. für Führungskräftetrainings werden diskutiert.


Romance of Leadership and the quality of management decision-making

It is a basic assumption of the concept of Romance of Leadership that the influence of leaders on success or failure of organizations is overestimated, while the influence of context factors is underestimated (Meindl et al., 1985). Extending this approach, in this study the potential negative impact of Romance of Leadership on management decision-making was examined. Therefore in an experimental setting, 124 leaders were presented several standardized managerial decision scenarios dealing with the approval or disapproval of projects. In the scenarios the probability of success of the leader was systematically varied. Results revealed that persons with a higher level of Romance of Leadership make less rational decision. Though the participants were informed that the success of a specific project did not depend on the project manager, persons higher on Romance of Leadership based their decision on the leaderʼs probability of success. The theoretical and practical implications, e. g., for executive training, are discussed.

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