Increasing subordinates' willingness to follow
In close connection with the above-described effects, we found that MNT leaders who successfully manage language-induced emotions are held in high esteem among their subordinates, who appreciate and willingly follow their initiatives. A German MNT leader explained how an emotionally aware approach increased a Japanese subordinate's contribution to the team:
In the beginning, X-San wasn't integrated into the team. He just sat there and left after the meeting. When I took over the team I started to assign jobs to him, which he can clarify with his Japanese colleagues and bring back to the team. I encourage him in this work, so he feels like an accepted team member. I can really see how he has been thriving since he started on these tasks. He is always very cooperative, fulfills his jobs very well. I think he feels good about this.
Subordinates, who willingly embraced the culture their MNT leader aimed to inculcate in the group, shared this positive appraisal of emotionally aware leadership:
We are adopting the “we can do it”-mentality from the Americans. I have to say that the leaders of our global functional teams do a pretty good job in rallying everyone around this culture.
Considering definition of leadership as “the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and en- able others”, inspiring a willingness to follow is a hallmark of effective leaders. Thus, if the successful management of language- induced emotions enhances MNT members' preparedness to follow their leaders, it secures the prerequisite for any type of impact these leadership personalities can make. Table 7 illustrates the positive leadership outcomes of the above outlined emotion manage- ment strategies with exemplary quotations.
Overall, the positive outcomes of language-related emotion management through MNT leaders we identified in our study support the widespread view that effective team leadership enhances the outcomes of multicultural and multilingual teams even believe “that effective leadership processes represent perhaps the most critical factor in the suc- cess of organizational teams”, once again highlighting the relevance of our study's topic.
Discussion
To summarize and systematize the inductively generated findings from our study, we generated a model which is depicted in Fig. 1. It illustrates the relationship between language barriers and negative emotions, which ultimately lead to reduced performance outcomes, but also details the moderating effect of leadership strategies geared to mitigate this relationship and presents their posi- tive leadership outcomes. Providing a systematization of potential problems, our study revealed that MNT members' negative emo- tional reactions to language barriers can be subsumed under two central categories: self-directed anxiety and other-directed resentment. On this basis, we outlined a range of emotion management measures, which MNT leaders can engage in thanks to their formally assigned position power. We categorized these measures into three strategies: reducing the impact of language bar- riers; redirecting attention away from language barriers; and reducing the negative appraisal of language barriers. By employing these strategies and thus showing good leadership, MNT leaders not only mitigate negative emotions, but also generate sensemaking with their followers, create a productive team climate and increase team members' willingness to follow their leadership initiatives. Given that previous studies have already established the detrimental performance implications of negative emotions