Leader-Member Exchange and Supervisor Career Mentoring as Complementary Constructs in Leadership Research

Abstract

The literature on transformational and transactional leadership suggests integrating the leader-member exchange (LMX) approach with research on mentoring. Using LISREL VII confirmatory factor analysis and 183 managerial dyads, we show LMX and mentoring to be empirically distinct from the supervisors' perspective but not from the subordinates' LMX and mentoring each also accounted for meaningful incremental variance over the other with respect to rated performance, salary progress, and promotion rate. Implications are briefly discussed.