The present study supports the notion that employee-centered leaders differentiate between task and interpersonal characteristics of their employees and hence are field-independent. Field-independent persons are known to have a non-social orientation. Yet, the sensitivity of the field-independent managers to social stimuli is attributable to the cognitive factor of social intelligence rather than to motivational factors such as social orientation. Data from 45 managers with engineering backgrounds indicate that employee-centered leadership style is positively related to field-independence and probably to social intelligence but not to the social orientation, whereas the job-centered style is negatively related to field-independence and to social intelligence.
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