Recruiting Transformational Leaders : The Link Between Recruitment Messages and Applicant Transformational Leadership Qualities

Abstract

Firms are moving toward flattened leadership structures (Wulf, 2012), allowing broader subordinate responsibilities and leadership opportunities (Powell, 2002). This creates a need for organizations to recruit individuals capable of leading at all levels of the organization (Trosten-Bloom, 2014). While these business models are important, scholarship still focuses on vertical structures, and it is possible that organizations are also lagging behind. Person-Organization fit research suggests that job seekers who desire leadership opportunities will look for evidence that leadership is valued within firms’ rhetoric. Considering 70% of organizations use websites for recruitment (Rowh, 2005; Berry 2005), it is likely that applicants will look to websites for information about what the company values in employees. Because transformational leadership (TL) has been linked with employee productivity through motivation (Middleton, 2015), alignment with company values (Piccolo, 2006), goals (Jiang & Men, 2015), and desire to excel (Shamir et al., 1993), TL should be highly valued. However, most TL studies focus on managers, ignoring non-managerial employees with leadership qualities (Wang et. al., 2011). This study analyzes how five flattened firms communicate TL elements through job descriptions on their websites, to understand how firms can best attract transformational applicants through strategic messages.