Relational Identification: Scaling Formal and Informal Relations 

David Sluss, Academy of Management 2025, Day 3, Sunday, July 27th

”I guess I’m getting old. I’m a recent grandpa now. So as we talk about leadership and identification today, I have two goals:

1. Stay on time (wish me luck).

2. More importantly, spark your interest in relational identity and relational identification— because, based on what I’ve heard from other speakers here, this concept can actually help answer many of the critical questions we’re all grappling with.

Leadership as a Relationship — Not a Transaction

Before anything else, let me ground us in a foundational belief:

Leadership is a relationship, not a transaction.

When we think about leader–follower relationships, we often focus on formal ones: manager–employee, supervisor–subordinate. But we miss the informal relationships — peer-to-peer, coworker-to-coworker — where leadership and followership happen dynamically and often without a title.

The analysis I’ll present today focuses squarely on these formal dyadic relationships — but keep in mind: the informal side is just as rich and underexplored.

Why Relational Identification Matters (To Me)

Here’s a photo from a recent retirement gathering. You might recognize a face there — Blake Ashforth. He’s the one with the most hair, back when we all had a bit more. This was his retirement party, and it hit me hard. It was the first Academy conference without him.

Blake wasn’t just my advisor — he was part of my life. And that’s the point:

Our mentors don’t just influence us — they become part of who we are.

That is relational identification.

Defining Relational Identification

Let’s unpack the concept a bit:

• Relational identity: Part of how we define ourselves through a given role relationship (e.g. supervisor–subordinate).

• It consists of role-based identities (what we do) and person-based identities (who we are).

• When these combine positively, relational identification emerges.

Here’s my soapbox moment:

Identity is a thing. Identification is how much that thing is part of who you are.

For example, I might belong to a social category, but unless that category is core to who I am, the identification is weak.

In leader–follower dynamics, we create a shared relational identity only when both role-based and person-based identities align in a meaningful way.

Our Meta-Analysis: 141 Studies, 157 Samples

So we asked: Does relational identification really matter?

Working with an amazing team — including Katie Badura and UA (a doctoral student at the time) — we reviewed:

• 141 studies

• 157 independent samples

And yes, we found a strong, consistent link between relational identification and many important outcomes.

Leadership Behaviors: Role-Based vs. Person-Based

We categorized leadership behaviors in our data set:

• Role-based: Charisma, integrity, supervisor support.

• Person-based: Humility, authenticity.

Our finding?

Role-based leadership behaviors had stronger associations with relational identification than person-based ones.

But here’s the catch. I couldn’t stop asking:

What do these behaviors actually mean? Are we even measuring them correctly?

Jingle-Jangle in Leadership Research

That led us to recent work — including one by Ava et al. — showing that many so-called “distinct” leadership styles may, in fact, be measuring the same underlying thing.

In my view, the time has come to retire the concept of “leadership styles” and shift to leadership behaviors — behaviors that leaders perform across a spectrum, from task-oriented to relational.

The opportunity here is to reconceptualize what leadership behavior actually is, not just what we call it.

Culture Matters — But Which Dimensions?

We also explored cultural moderators, particularly:

• Collectivism

• Power distance

Why only those two? Because, frankly, there’s almost no data on the others.

Key insight:

Leader–follower dynamics — especially identification — look different across cultures. High collectivism + high power distance (e.g. Korea) creates very different conditions for relational identification than low collectivism + low power distance (e.g. U.S.).

There’s a huge opportunity here to theorize these differences, especially around informal leadership in high-context cultures.

What About the Follower’s Role?

Most studies to date have looked at leader traits, but we wanted to understand the follower’s contribution to identification:

• So far, we’ve mostly captured demographic traits (age, gender, etc.)

• But we need to look deeper at motivations, relational capacity, and identity motivesof followers.

Decoding Identification Motives

Let me close with something more conceptual — a sort of deconstruction of the identification process itself.

The classic metaphor we use is:

Inclusion via self-expansion (Aron & Aron, 2000)

But I think we can expand the theory. Here are three qualitatively different identification motives I’ve been exploring:

1. Inclusion (self-expansion) – You include the other in yourself, fully.

2. Interdependence (self-enhancement) – The other enhances your identity but remains separate.

3. Personal belonging (entwined) – You and the other are distinct but closely connected — woven together.

Each of these motives may drive different types of relational identification — and we should be exploring them.

Scaling Leadership: From Start-up to Scale-up

One final thought on scaling leadership.

In start-ups, founders are told: “Focus, focus, focus — on the product.” But when that start-up grows, that same focus on what can become a liability.

As you scale, you need to switch from product focus to people focus.

One founder in Israel told me, “I realized I didn’t even know everyone in my company anymore. How could I keep it personal?”

That’s where personalization comes in — not just knowing people’s birthdays, but understanding their career identities and being personable yourself as a leader.

Final Reflection

Relational identification is not just a concept. It’s a lens — a practical, cultural, behavioral lens — that helps us understand:

• How leaders and followers connect

• How trust forms across formal and informal lines

• How we scale relationships, not just products

Let’s keep asking:

Who are we to each other in this organization?

And how do we make that relationship a part of who we are?

Thank you very much.”