A systematic literature review on the effects of secure and insecure attachement on leader-member exchange-based relationships

A systematic literature review on the effects of secure and insecure attachement on leader-member exchange-based relationships

The purpose of this literature review was to integrate research on Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) and attachment, by evaluating the effect of attachment styles on
LMX quality. The strength and robust findings supporting attachment theory have long been recognized in clinical psychology. More recently, researchers in organizational psychology have found that secure and insecure attachment patterns explain and predict the quality of relationships between leaders and their associates, under the framework of an important leadership theory: LMX theory. However,
because of the applied nature of leadership research, we expect that a large number of studies remain buried in grey literature, such as organizational reports, academic
theses, and working papers. The objective of this thesis is to collect systematically the results of all available research on the effect between secure and insecure
attachment patterns and the strength of LMX-Based Relationships for leaders. To date there is no review available on the aggregate size associated with the
relationship between a leader’s attachment and the quality of related LMX relationships, in spite of LMX theory being one of the most influential leadership theories of the 20th century. This thesis will fill a critical gap in the psychological literature by providing a systematic review of accessible academic databases and Google Scholar. Articles retrieved from these sources were included or excluded based on replicable criteria. Each article was evaluated regarding its methodological quality and in terms of its results and conclusions. The results arising from this thesis provided the data necessary to make overall recommendations regarding the strength of the effect between a leader’s attachment and the quality of related LMX
relationships based on all relevant studies, including the identification of patterns of effect within the focal articles.