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LEADERS’ EXPERIENCE WITH EMOTION IN THE TRUST PROCESS WITH EMPLOYEES by GIGI AMANDA BURKE (Under the Direction of Wendy E.A. Ruona) ABSTRACT Trust has become a significant factor in a leader’s ability to be effective in the workplace. While the leader’s role in establishing trust in organizations has been well documented, research has mainly focused on the cognitive and behavioral aspects of trust development. There has been less of a focus on the emotional aspect of trust development with employees. This is significant because how leaders’ understand and manage their feelings can influence the type and level of trust that they develop with their employees. This study’s purpose was to understand leaders’ experience with emotion in building, sustaining, and repairing trust with their employees. Two research questions guided this study: (1) what are leaders’ beliefs about emotion as related to building, sustaining, and repairing trust with employees? and (2) what techniques do leaders use to manage their emotions? A basic interpretive qualitative research design was used and semi- structured interviews were the method of data collection. Convenience sampling was used to identify twelve leaders representing various occupations in business, education, and government. The data analysis revealed five key themes regarding beliefs about emotion in the trust process and three broad areas of techniques that leaders used to manage their emotions that led to three primary conclusions. First, leaders’ general views about emotion suggest overall that caution should be used when experiencing and expressing emotion with building, sustaining, and repairing trust. Second, leaders’ management of their emotions in the trust process parallels much of the emotion work literature except when dealing with gender and race issues. Third, there is still more to learn about emotion work and emotional intelligence and how it can be effectively used in building, sustaining, and repairing trust. Implications for theory, research, and practice are presented. INDEX WORDS: Trust, Leadership, Relationships, Workplace Emotion, Aesthetics, Emotion Work, Emotional Labor, Emotion Regulation, and Emotional Intelligence LEADERS’ EXPERIENCE WITH EMOTION IN THE TRUST PROCESS WITH EMPLOYEES by GIGI AMANDA BURKE B.A., The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1997 M.Ed., The Pennsylvania State University, 1999 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2010 © 2010 Gigi Amanda Burke All Rights Reserved LEADERS’ EXPERIENCE WITH EMOTION IN THE TRUST PROCESS WITH EMPLOYEES by GIGI AMANDA BURKE Major Professor: Wendy E.A. Ruona Committee: Laura L. Bierema Karl Kuhnert Karen E. Watkins Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2010 DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to all of the leaders working to help their respective organizations thrive in increasingly challenging and ever-changing circumstances. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Completing this dissertation represents the pinnacle of a life-changing journey. I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to those individuals who encouraged and supported me in achieving this personal and professional milestone. First and foremost, thank you Wendy Ruona. You have been with me from the beginning of my journey as my advisor. I admire your passion for human resource development and value your insight into the field as well as my personal research interests. I am also truly grateful to you for pushing me to “dig deep” with my thoughts and to think of scholarship as a conversation. Your support and encouragement has helped me to become a better scholar. I want to thank my committee Laura Bierema, Karl Kuhnert, and Karen Watkins. Each of you provided excellent feedback and suggestions for enhancing my research. It was truly an honor to have you on my committee. On this journey, I have met many interesting people while taking courses, and attending conferences and workshops. In particular, I want to thank DeRetta Cole for her support in helping me complete this process. I also want to thank Rubina Malik for lending me her ear on numerous occasions and always giving me great advice that helped me both professionally and personally. People would often ask me, “How are you pursuing a doctoral degree and working a full- time job?” The answer is that I had wonderful and supportive leader and colleague, Lisa Littlefield. Thank you for allowing me the flexibility to attend my classes and meetings with my advisor. I wish you the best of luck in completing your doctoral degree. Completing this v dissertation would not have been possible without the research participants. Thank you for taking time from your busy schedules to share your stories with me about emotion and trust. Finally, I want to extend a special thank you to my family. Amanda Peters Simpson, my grandmother, who was a constant source of guidance and support to me in this journey until her passing in 2007. To my grandfather, Ivan William Simpson, thank for you for the career advice you have given while completing this dissertation. To my parents, Jerry and Yolanda Burke, thank you for encouraging me to keep moving forward in this journey. To my three wonderful, dynamic sisters Tracy Burke Shepard, Mardell Burke Artis, and Aisha Burke, each of you are a source of inspiration and support, which has helped me to grow personally and professionally. Thank you for listening to my ideas, offering suggestions, and participating in my research. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ v LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................... x LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1 Trust in the Workplace ......................................................................................... 1 Leaders and Trust ................................................................................................. 2 The Significance of Emotion ................................................................................ 5 Problem Statement ............................................................................................... 8 Purpose of the Study .......................................................................................... 10 Significance of the Study ................................................................................... 10 2 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .......................................................................... 13 Challenge of Defining Trust ............................................................................... 13 The Role of Emotion in Trust ............................................................................. 24 Conceptualizing Emotion ................................................................................... 28 Sources of Workplace Emotion .......................................................................... 32 Leaders’ Aesthetic Experience with Emotion ..................................................... 35 Emotion Work ................................................................................................... 38 vii Emotional Intelligence ....................................................................................... 45 Global Personality Traits and Emotion ............................................................... 48 Gender, Power, and Emotion .............................................................................. 50 The Price Tag on Managing Emotions................................................................ 51 Chapter Summary .............................................................................................. 52 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ............................................................................. 54 Theoretical Perspective ...................................................................................... 54 Design of the Study ............................................................................................ 56 Pilot Study ......................................................................................................... 58 Sample Selection ................................................................................................ 60 Data Collection .................................................................................................. 61 Data Analysis ..................................................................................................... 65 Trustworthiness of the Data................................................................................ 69 Bias and Subjectivity ......................................................................................... 71 Chapter Summary .............................................................................................. 73 4 FINDINGS .............................................................................................................. 74 The Participants ................................................................................................
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