Examples of LMX in a sentence
Relationship-based approach to leadership: Development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years: Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective.
In line with these surveys, studies in organizational behavior (OB) stress the importance of so-called leader-member exchange relationships (LMX) and perceived supervisor support (PSS) for workers’ motivation.
LMX theory establishes that a manager can develop high-quality relationships or exchanges with some of his subordinates, “characterized by high levels of trust, interaction, support and formal and informal rewards” (Ilies et al., 2007).
Through this process the manager and the subordinate develop a high-quality relationship that allows them to work in an open and collaborative way, characterized by exchange in the form of greater empowerment, commitment, harder work and increased tolerance for errors.These variables also describe what happens in high-quality exchanges as depicted in the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory (Dansereau et al., 1975; Gerstner and Day, 1997; Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995; House and Aditya, 1997).
LMX meta-analysis found that high quality relations between leaders and followers can explain between 9% and 30% of followers’ performance ratings (Gerstner and Day, 1997).
A key consequence of high-quality LMX relationships is their positive impact on subordinate performance.
They go in the same direction than those found in LMX and coaching research and, thus, support our decision of using this theoretical approach.
Building on the Social Exchange framework and Role Theory, LMX establishes that a leader can develop high-quality relationships with his subordinates; these relationships are characterized by high degrees of mutual trust, respect and obligation between both parties (Dansereau et al., 1975; Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995; Liden and Maslyn, 1998; Sparrowe and Liden, 1997).In LMX relationships, leaders usually initiate the exchange by providing more information, support and assistance.
A recent meta-analysis on the consequences of LMX on performance and other organizational constructs found a positive correlation between LMX and performance (Gerstner and Day, 1997) and other scholars also found a positive correlation between coaching and performance (Agarwal et al., 2009; Ellinger et al., 2005; Trépanier, 2010).
In the Theoretical Framework section we assumed that LMX was a significant theory to explain the high quality exchanges that take place in a coaching relationship and the positive consequences on salesperson behavior and performance.