How is leadership maintained? A longitudinal mediation model linking informal leadership to upward voice through peer advice seeking.

Whereas scholars have identified individual antecedents of emerging as an informal leader among one's peers, our research seeks to understand how established informal leaders maintain their leadership status. Guided by principles from expectation states theory, we predict that being seen as an informal leader in a workgroup motivates other members to seek one out for work-related advice and, accordingly, facilitates the informal leader's engaging in upward voice directed toward the formal leader. Upward influence on behalf of the group may, in turn, reinforce leadership status among peers. Cross-lagged panel analysis of four-wave survey responses from 375 employees in 63 duty-free shops supported our hypotheses. Advice network centrality partially mediated the positive relationship between informal leadership and supervisor ratings of upward voice. The time-lagged effect of informal leadership on peer advice seeking was stronger among employees in a more central position of the friendship network. However, the theorized effect of upward voice on subsequent informal leadership received more limited support. Our research identifies a mechanism that stabilizes workgroup leadership structure. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).