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Leader political skill and employee reactions: A social-political perspective

Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2024

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Main Author: Daweti, Baphiwe
Other Authors: Wöcke, Albert
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: University of Pretoria 2024
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access_status_str Open Access
author Daweti, Baphiwe
author2 Wöcke, Albert
author_browse Daweti, Baphiwe
Wöcke, Albert
author_facet Wöcke, Albert
Daweti, Baphiwe
author_sort Daweti, Baphiwe
collection Thesis
dc_rights_str_mv © 2024 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria.
description Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2024
format Thesis
id oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/98406
institution University of Pretoria (South Africa)
language English
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:39:10.429Z
license_str Other — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository
publishDate 2024
publishDateRange 2024
publishDateSort 2024
publisher University of Pretoria
publisherStr University of Pretoria
record_format dspace
source_str UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository
spelling oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/98406 Leader political skill and employee reactions: A social-political perspective Daweti, Baphiwe Wöcke, Albert social identity Leadership Political influence Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2024 Organisational leaders have used political skill to influence employees who are similar to the leader. Yet, extant literature has directed little attention to leaders who exert political skill to influence employees who are different from the leader, particularly when considering the process of transformation of an organisation. Leaders face political tensions when using political skill to transform organisations to become more diverse and inclusive, based on race and gender. Anchored in political influence theory and drawing on social identity, the study examines employee perceptions of a leader who exercises political skill to manipulate resistant employees if a leader is different from employees. In contrast, the employee may cooperate with a collaborative leader who uses political skill to influence employees, where the leader is similar to the employees. This research conducts a survey to collect data of junior lecturers to full professors’ perceptions of direct managers who exercised political skill to influence academic employees during the transformation of two public higher education institutions located in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Leaders have influenced employees who were divided according to race and gender during apartheid, and integrated during democracy, amid workplace transformation tensions. The study shows that employee perceptions of a leader who uses political skill are influenced by social identity categories of race, gender, nationality, and language differences. This research closes the gap by contributing social identity categories of race, gender, nationality, and language differences to the political influence perspective characterised by irrational leaders who oversee limited resources distributed amongst competing employee interests in the workplace. In contrast, the study demonstrates that employees are likely to act cooperatively towards a collaborative leader who uses political skill to influence employees if the leader and employees have a similar gender identity, rather than race, nationality as well as language identities. Employees prefer to work with a leader who shares a similar gender identity with employees if the leader is collaborative towards employees for the transformation progression in the workplace. Since employees prefer to socially interact with a collaborative leader of a similar gender to the employee for a sense of belonging, leaders ought to promote gender difference as a mechanism to build gender transformation beyond race, nationality, and language differences, to become more diverse, inclusive, and equitable. pagibs2024 2024-10-01T09:18:04Z 2024-10-01T09:18:04Z 2024 2024-09-30 Dissertation * A2024 http://hdl.handle.net/2263/98406 en © 2024 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. application/pdf University of Pretoria
spellingShingle social identity
Leadership
Political influence
Daweti, Baphiwe
Leader political skill and employee reactions: A social-political perspective
title Leader political skill and employee reactions: A social-political perspective
title_full Leader political skill and employee reactions: A social-political perspective
title_fullStr Leader political skill and employee reactions: A social-political perspective
title_full_unstemmed Leader political skill and employee reactions: A social-political perspective
title_short Leader political skill and employee reactions: A social-political perspective
title_sort leader political skill and employee reactions a social political perspective
topic social identity
Leadership
Political influence
url http://hdl.handle.net/2263/98406
work_keys_str_mv AT dawetibaphiwe leaderpoliticalskillandemployeereactionsasocialpoliticalperspective