Chapter 5: Influence Tactics and Leader Effectiveness

This chapter reviews major findings in research on the effectiveness of various proactive influence tactics when used for influencing subordinates, peers, and bosses in organizations. Proactive tactics are differentiated from reactive tactics, impression management tactics, and political tactics. We describe issues and problems concerning the types of research methods that have been used, the criteria of influence effectiveness, and the use of higher-order constructs such as metacategories and influencer profiles. A survey field study, an incident study, and a laboratory experiment are described to demonstrate how these three methods have contributed to our understanding of proactive influence tactics. Suggestions for future research and theory development are also presented.