Well-Connected Leaders: The Impact of Leaders' Social Network Ties on LMX and Members' Work Attitudes

We examined the proposition that leaders' social network ties in the larger organization influence the quality of their leader-member exchange (LMX) with their employees, which, in turn, impacts these employees' job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Using multilevel, multisource data from a field study of 184 bank employees nested within 42 branch managers, we found that leaders who had higher quality relationships with their bosses and who were more central in their peer networks were perceived by their subordinates as having greater status in the organization and, therefore, were able to form higher quality relationships with them. Further, the effects of the leaders' perceived status on LMX were stronger when subordinates were less central in their own peer network. Finally, LMX mediated the impact of leaders' perceived status in the organization on subordinates' job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.