Despite growing work on the positive outcomes resulting from ambidextrous leadership, limited research has examined whether ambidextrous leadership always has desirable consequences on followers. In order to achieve explorative and exploitative innovation, ambidextrous leaders are required to perform two styles of leadership behaviors, namely opening and closing leadership behaviors. The present study argues that as followers are reliant on their leaders to provide them with information and clarification about the tasks, by engaging in ambidextrous leadership behaviors to try and foster innovative behaviors amongst their followers, the leader may unintendedly increase the follower’s job stress and role ambiguity. Drawing on a sample of 416 leader–follower dyads, we established that while ambidextrous leadership contributes to the innovative behaviors of followers, it also increases followers’ job stress and role ambiguity, which subsequently reduces innovative behaviors. The results suggest that ambidextrous leadership has two faces, enabling and burdening, which can both enhance and stifle innovative behaviors.

中文翻译：

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双刃剑：灵巧型领导对追随者创新行为的影响

尽管关于灵巧型领导产生的积极结果的研究越来越多，但有限的研究已经检验了灵巧型领导是否总是对追随者产生理想的影响。为了实现探索性创新和剥削性创新，灵巧型领导者需要执行两种领导行为，即开放型领导行为和封闭型领导行为。本研究认为，由于追随者依赖他们的领导向他们提供有关任务的信息和澄清，通过参与灵巧的领导行为来尝试在追随者中培养创新行为，领导者可能会无意中增加追随者的工作压力和角色歧义。以 416 个领导者-追随者二元组为样本，我们确定，虽然灵巧型领导有助于追随者的创新行为，但它也增加了追随者的工作压力和角色模糊性，从而减少了创新行为。结果表明，灵巧型领导有两个方面，赋能型和负担型，它们既可以增强创新行为，也可以抑制创新行为。