Centre for Leadership and Followership

Who leads, and who follows? Our centre aims to advance theory on leadership and communicate this knowledge to practitioners. We focus on the study of leadership and followership, as well as the intersection of this research with key organisational behaviour topics such as identity, trust, and social networks.

An important aspect of our centre is collaboration and mentorship. We supervise PhD students in this field, have events with renowned international speakers, and work in international collaborations—all for the purpose of advancing the study of leadership and followership.

Latest News

October

• Recognition: Olga Epitropaki, Susanne Braun, and Birgit Schyns featured on the Stanford/Elsevier Top 2% Scientists List 2025 as leading scholars in the field
• Dissemination: research by Olga Epitropaki and Anders Marstand was featured in Forbes magazine
• New role: Ziya Ete is taking over the CLF Co-Director role from Janey Zheng
• New role: Flora Song has taken over from Tim Holmes as student contributor of the Administrative Science Quarterly blog
• Publication: Negative Downstream Consequences of Daily Loneliness for Leaders, by Karolina Nieberle, Janey Zheng, and Olga Epitropaki
• New member: Cong Zhu (PhD student)
• Publication: Dark Side of Inclusive Leadership, by Birgit Schyns
• Publication: New directions for leadership research in AI-driven work contexts, by Birgit Schyns
• Publication: Does leader personality predict abusive supervision?, by Birgit Schyns
• Dissemination: a piece in Psychology Today about how seemingly positive leader traits can backfire, by Tim Holmes
• Publication: The paradoxical effect of colleagues’ social support, by Birgit Schyns

September

• Publication: Identity leadership and group member outcomes by Olga Epitropaki
• Publication: Destructive Leadership and Psychological Functioning of Employees With Common Mental Disorders, by Birgit Schyns and Susanne Braun
• Publication: Measurement scale of job crafting occupational health and safety professionals, by Nora Bergmann

August

• Funding: $100,000 Insights Grant awarded to Bart de Jong (Co-PI) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in Canada for research on trust meta-accuracy.
• Conference: CLF members were involved in more than 30 different symposia, consortia, and paper sessions at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Copenhagen
• Publication: review article on workplace objectification, by Bob Lord
• Award: paper on competitive rewards and bottom-line mentality by Yingli Deng was a finalist for the Best Paper 2024 Award at the Journal of Organizational Behavior. 

July

• Awards: a meta-analysis paper on team hierarchy by Bart de Jong (published in 2018 in the Journal of Applied Psychology) was a finalist for the Most Influential Article Award by the Conflict Management Division of the Academy of Management.

June

• New role: Karolina Nieberle has been promoted to Associate Professor
• New role: Janey Zheng is succeeding Yingli Deng as Co-director of the Centre
• Awards: multiple CLF members receive recognition from DUBS for their research contributions: Yingli Deng, Susanne Braun, Bart de Jong, Olga Epitropaki, Anders Marstand, Maria Kakarika, Ziya Ete, Les Graham, Richard Morgan, Nora Berghoff, Matt Sjoberg, Zi Ye, and Flora Song 
• Certification: Tim Holmes completed the Academy of Management Review Bridge Reviewer Program
• Publication: Exploration, exploitation, and organizational knowledge networks, by Andrew Parker. 
• Publication: Interpersonal sensemaking and cooperation in interviews, by Matt Sjoberg. 
• Funding: $5,000 Druckman Fellowship awarded to Matt Sjoberg by the International Association for Conflict Management. 
• Publication: An actor-centric perspective on leader word-action misalignment, by Anders Marstand, Olga Epitropaki, and Ziya Ete.

More News