The Impact of Followers

December 3, 2025

The Impact of Followers’ Expectations on Leaders’ Behavior: A Case Study of Church Leadership in Jordan

Emil Abujaber | 2018

Abstract

Leadership is in the eye of the beholder was one of the foundational and revolutionary concepts of implicit leadership theory (ILT) that transformed the way leadership observers and scholars viewed the process and development of leaders in social settings. The focus of the literature moved to the cognitive structure and sense making processes of followers and their role in the system. Little attention was given to leaders and the influence of their information-processing mechanisms and ILT structure on their behavior. To that end, this study explored the influence of followers’ expectation on leaders’ behavior. Through a qualitative bounded case study design of six Christian leaders in local churches in Amman, Jordan, the study sought to answer three questions: How would leaders act and behave if their ILTs were in direct conflict with those of their followers? Would pastors conform to followers’ expectations if they clash with their own expectations, specifically if they conflict with the biblical core values? How do leaders develop the content of their ILT? The answers to the questions found that leaders’ behavior and adaptation under pressure depend on two factors: mature character and motivation. The study also found a number of pressure sources and confirmed that parents and other contextual variables influence the leader’s ILT structure. The study contributes to the scholarly and practitioner literature in filling a research gap of leaders’ ILT in a specific culture and provides several recommendations for future studies and applications.

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