Restorative followership in Africa: Antecedents, moderators, and consequences

Abstract

In this paper, we report on three studies that examine one perspective of strategic followership: restorative followership. It centers on the restorative behavior of followers in bad leadership contexts. In Study 1, we leverage insight from restorative behavior theory to examine the question, what are the antecedents of restorative followership? Data from working MBA students (n = 185) in Ghana in 2015 support our expectation that bad leader influence (incompetent communication and lack of participative decision-making) positively relates to restorative behaviors of followers. In Study 2, we examine active engagement as a mechanism by which bad leader behaviors influence restorative behavior of followers, and the extent to which follower-leader value congruence moderates the relationship. Data from executive MBAs (n = 179) in Ghana in 2016 show support for the mediating and moderating effects. In Study 3, we examine one consequence of restorative behavior – restorative value – using relational capital theory and data from 193 workers from a media organization in Ghana in 2017. We find support for restorative value ratings by supervisors as an outcome of restorative behavior. We discuss the overall findings in support of restorative followership. Our use of data from Ghana, an African country, to test the theory, suggests we adopted a context-specific approach in the three studies.