Colleagues,
Please help us celebrate the 40th anniversary of the LMX Research Program during 2012 in both San Diego in April and Boston in August. In 1972, we began our quest for the holy grail of the heart and soul of the leadership of fellow employees in bureaucratic organizations. We searched for the stuff that transforms two or more authentic people into more than their independent sum. We researched newly-formed, hierarchical and direct reporting relationships during their development from strangers to long-term relationships. We were skeptical of the research on so-called "leader's style" because our subjects reported very different interactions with the same boss. We discovered that our holy grail emerged from the effectiveness and strength of the working alliance between a particular boss and one of his direct reports. Later, we discovered that this leadership motivated excellence (LMX) approach, when practiced by Federal professions and their managers, produced dramatic gains in engagement and hard productivity.
Several other subsequent models purporting to have found the holy grail appear to have piggy-backed on LMX and share over 50% common variance. However, none of them provides the clear motivation for accepting an LMX alliance with one's boss as does LMX theory.
Finally, we are at the end of the beginning and will not rest until all managers of people effectively perform both parts of their jobs -- the administration of business unit and the leadership of one's people. In large, the baby-boomers have failed miserably at this, but we cannot afford to fail the new millennium workers. What do you think?Cheers,George Graenjag