This study extends earlier attribution research on leadership regard
ing the "high-high" effective leader stereotype. Stories depicting man
agers using either high-high or low-low leadership styles were rated by
859 business students. For both styles, when group performance was
high, managers were seen as engaging in more initiating structure and
consideration behavior than when performance was low. The high-high
style was also evaluated more favorably than the low-low style,
independent of the effect of performance. Combined with results from
previous research, these results demonstrate that a view of the effective
leader as high-high in behavior is a strongly-held implicit theory of
leadership and not a myth as far as observers are concerned. Such a
view can be used by leaders to their advantage.
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