SUPERVISOR’S POSITIONAL POWER INFLUENCE ON TRUST DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES EFFECTIVENESS

Abstract

This research aims to identify the managerial levers
of trust development, depending on the context of the
supervisor-subordinate relationship. An initial exploratory study leads us to postulate that the supervisor’s
positional power conditions the effectiveness of two
leadership strategies for developing trust, exchange of
resources and work group membership. Results from
a survey study on a sample of former graduates from
French engineering schools, support our hypothesis,
showing that a supervisor with strong positional
power must favor the exchange of resources as the key
strategy of trust building. Conversely, a supervisor
with low power must promote membership in the
group to build trust. Our research is a first empirical
validation of the role of a contextual variable, the
positional power of the leader, in the development
of trust.