John J. Sosik’s research while affiliated with Pennsylvania State University and other places

There have been calls to elevate character alongside competencies and commitment in leadership research. Given the potential importance of character in leadership, it is surprising that the construct has not been more fully integrated into the nuanced nomological network of leadership processes. We built out the nomological network and, specifically, examined the relationship between character and stress coping responses in two field studies involving law enforcement officers. The results of our structural equation models revealed that character had both direct and indirect effects on coping responses through motivation to lead. Furthermore, our results indicated that character was discriminably different from related, empirically validated constructs of personality traits and psychological capital. The correlation between character and psychological capital was positive and significant, and they both predicted stress coping responses.

Drawing upon career stage theory, we investigate the long-term effect of deviance in adolescence on lifetime career success. Specifically, we propose that individuals’ destructive deviance in adolescence is positively related to risk-taking propensity, which is then negatively related to their long-term career success (e.g., income increase). The analyses of growth models with a multilevel longitudinal dataset, which includes 12,686 participants with 33,334 year-level career tracks, generally support the hypotheses. Further, we find that educational achievement moderates the relationship between risk-taking propensity and long-time career success. We discuss the implications of these results for research on career development and parenting.

Over the centuries, philosophers, theologians, psychologists, historians and managers have considered the topic of character and its importance to leadership. Character of leaders and followers represents malleable traits, cognition, affect, and behavior that reflect either the best (virtue) or worst (vice) in humanity and their outcomes (levels of ethics, happiness, well‐being, and effectiveness). Character is influenced by self‐awareness, self‐regulation, similarity with followers, and situations that embed leaders and followers. Elements of character extend beyond the virtue of integrity and include wisdom/knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Leaders display a variety of specific character strengths that reflect these virtues through their behavior to express their self‐identity and influence their followers’ motivation to work toward constructive outcomes. The extent to which leaders are able to display character strengths and followers can perceive such strengths depends on the characteristics of the followers and the context surrounding the leader and the follower.

Over the centuries, philosophers, theologians, psychologists, historians and managers have considered the topic of character and its importance to leadership. Character of leaders and followers represents malleable traits, cognition, affect, and behavior that reflect either the best (virtue) or worst (vice) in humanity and their outcomes (levels of ethics, happiness, well‐being, and effectiveness). Character is influenced by self‐awareness, self‐regulation, similarity with followers, and situations that embed leaders and followers. Elements of character extend beyond the virtue of integrity and include wisdom/knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Leaders display a variety of specific character strengths that reflect these virtues through their behavior to express their self‐identity and influence their followers’ motivation to work toward constructive outcomes. The extent to which leaders are able to display character strengths and followers can perceive such strengths depends on the characteristics of the followers and the context surrounding the leader and the follower.

Purpose – On the basis of theories of social cognition and moral identity and the meta-theoretical principle of “too-much-of-a-good-thing,” the purpose of this study is to develop and test a model that explains when and why leader honesty/humility promotes subordinate organizational citizenship behavior directed at individuals (OCBI) as mediated through subordinate moral identity centrality. Design/methodology/approach – In this field study, with online surveys, multisource data were collected from 218 United States Air Force officers and their subordinates. Data were analyzed with MEDCURVE SPSS macro tools. Findings – A nonlinear indirect effect of leader honesty/humility on subordinate OCBI through subordinate moral identity centrality was found. This conditional indirect effect occurred through a curvilinear (inverted U-shape) relationship between leader honesty/humility and subordinate moral identity centrality and a positive linear relationship between subordinate moral identity centrality and OCBI.

Evidence from a growing number of studies suggests leader character as a means to advance leadership knowledge and practice. Based on this evidence, we propose a process model depicting how leader character manifests in ethical leadership that has positive psychological and performance outcomes for leaders, along with the moderating effect of leaders’ self-control on the character strength–ethical leadership–outcomes relationships. We tested this model using multisource data from 218 U.S. Air Force officers (who rated their honesty/humility, empathy, moral courage, self-control, and psychological flourishing) and their subordinates (who rated their officer’s ethical leadership) and superiors (who rated the officers’ in-role performance). Findings provide initial support for leader character as a mechanism triggering positive outcomes such that only when officers reported a high level of self-control did their honesty/humility, empathy, and moral courage manifest in ethical leadership, associated with higher levels of psychological flourishing and in-role performance. We discuss the implications of these results for future theory development, research, and practice.

Although researchers have identified affective experiences (e.g., emotions, moods) as integral to charismatic leadership processes and outcomes, it remains unclear when the experience of positive and negative affect by leaders is particularly or less effective with respect to the display of charisma leadership. Based upon an integration of the self-control framework of the cognitive-affective processing system, dual-tuning perspective, and the charismatic leadership literature, we described how leader self-control interacts with high arousal positive and negative affective experiences to increase displays of charismatic leadership. Using multisource data from 218 U.S. Air Force officers and their subordinates, we hypothesized and found a three-way interaction by which officers’ high arousal positive affective experience had the strongest positive relationship with charismatic leadership when their high arousal negative affective experience and self-control were both high. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.