We use a laboratory experiment to study how leaders affect workers’ productivity across economic incentive contexts. In four-person groups, three group members work on a production task, with a fourth member potentially serving as a leader. We vary the economic context by changing how worker pay is determined as a function of worker outputs, comparing Revenue Sharing, Weak Link or Tournament incentives while holding constant the activity performed by workers and the incentives for leaders. A second treatment varies whether groups have Active Leaders who can exert influence through messages to workers or Passive Supervisors who exert no influence. The average effect of having an Active Leader on group output is large only under Weak Link incentives. Across all incentive contexts, we find a positive correlation between the productivity increase in output produced by an Active Leader and independent ratings of leader quality based on measures from leadership research. The nature of leaders’ communication varies across incentive contexts, with comparisons between workers most common under Tournament incentives and messages about group earnings, which speak to social considerations, most common with Weak Link incentives.

中文翻译：

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跨经济环境的有效领导


我们使用实验室实验来研究领导者如何在经济激励背景下影响工人的生产力。在四人小组中，三名小组成员执行生产任务，第四名成员可能担任领导者。我们通过改变工人薪酬根据工人产出确定的方式来改变经济环境，比较收入共享、薄弱环节或锦标赛激励，同时保持工人所进行的活动和对领导者的激励不变。第二种处理方法取决于团体是否有可以通过向工人传递信息施加影响的积极领导者或不施加影响的消极监督者。只有在弱环节激励下，活跃领导者对团队产出的平均影响才会很大。在所有激励背景下，我们发现积极领导者产出的生产率提高与基于领导力研究措施的领导者质量独立评级之间存在正相关关系。领导者沟通的性质因激励背景而异，比较最常见的是锦标赛激励下的员工和有关团体收入的信息，这涉及社会考虑，最常见的是薄弱环节激励。