I Like My Leader; Not Yours!

Abstract

Organizations depend on the output of their employees to attain their organizational goals through sustainable competitive advantage. Individuals' outcomes are an indicator of this. Thus, contextual factors may be directly or indirectly related to employee performance. One of these factors is leader-follower cultural fit. Considering that a leader can also shape the organizational culture, the fit between the leader's and his/her followers' values can be transformed into a high-performance outcome. Since personal values are shaped by one's culture of origin, employees who observe, assess, and judge their leader according to their own values reflect on how congruent their perceived values are with those of their leader and act accordingly. By utilizing convenience sampling procedures, this research surveyed 202 full-time employees working in public institutions and organizations in Istanbul and its districts. The theoretical model was tested by moderated mediation analyses based on bootstrap methods. The research results revealed the collectivist traits of the region under analysis and indicate that individualistic tendencies may also be present. We found support to our theoretical model.