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Abstract
The study of dyadic relationships in the workplace has gained increasing importance in the organizational sciences, with one such relationship being the leader-follower relationship. While relationship quality can be operationalized in multiple ways, the most prevalent theoretical framework for leader-follower relationships is Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), which focuses on the quality of reciprocal exchanges within the relationship. High-quality LMX relationships are linked to a variety of beneficial outcomes for organizations; however, we still know very little about predictors of high-quality LMX relationships that are derived from the relationship itself. This dissertation addresses this gap in the LMX literature by drawing upon the multidisciplinary relationship sciences to examine relational predictors of LMX from both a cognitive and affective lens. From a cognitive perspective, this work examines leader-follower agreement in implicit theories of relationships (i.e., growth and destiny beliefs) and the relationship-specific communal motive as predictive of both leader and follower LMX. From an affective perspective, this work examines the emotional tone of the relationship by accounting for the simultaneous influence of cognition and emotion in predicting both leader and follower LMX, as well as adopting a more holistic perspective of emotion to examine the ratio of positive to negative emotional tone in LMX relationships. Overarchingly, this work contributes to a better understanding of how both leaders’ and followers’ cognitions and emotions about their relationship influence the quality of the reciprocal exchanges in their LMX relationship.