Response to Reviewers

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By what is requested, Level 2 and 3 headings were modified using 16 and 14pt font

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Please see the comment above.

4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

As you suggested, we reviewed the reference list. Ten references were added:

33. Desti Febrian, W., Muliyati, Lily, Rajab, M. ., & Thamrin AR, M. . (2023). Transactional Leadership: Employee Performance and Organizational Performance (Literature Review). East Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 2(3), 1129–1142. https://doi.org/10.55927/eajmr.v2i3.3410

35. Hall, M. L., Meyer, C. K., & Clapham, M. M. (2023). Leadership theories and styles understood and synthesised. Journal of Business and Behavioral Sciences, 35, 93–102.

42. Martinez, S.-A. and Leija, N. "Distinguishing Servant Leadership from Transactional and Transformational Leadership", Advances in Developing Human Resources, 25(3), pp. 141-188. Copyright © 2023, The Author(s) . Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.1177/15234223231175845

46. Yagil, D., & Oren, R. (2021). Servant leadership, engagement, and employee outcomes: The moderating roles of proactivity and job autonomy. Revista de Psicología del Trabajo y de las Organizaciones, 37(1), 58-65. 10.5093/jwop2021a1

50. Ahmed, E. I. (2023). A systematic review of authentic leadership literature in educational research from 1997 to 2021. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 17411432221120467.

psychological empowerment. Management Research Review, 42(5), 605-624.

56. Kim, M., Beehr, T. A., & Prewett, M. S. (2018). Employee Responses to Empowering Leadership: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 25(3), 257–276. https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051817750538

57. Kundu, S. C., Kumar, S., & Gahlawat, N. (2019). Empowering leadership and job performance: mediating role of

113. Rus D, Van Knippenberg D, Wisse B. Leader self-definition and leader self-serving behavior. Leadersh Q. 2010 Jun;21(3):509–29.

114. Lammers J, Burgmer P. Power increases the self‐serving bias in the attribution of collective successes and failures. Eur J Soc Psychol. 2019 Aug;49(5):1087–95.

115. Dobbins GH, Russell JM. Self-Serving Biases in Leadership: A Laboratory Experiment. J Manag. 1986 Dec;12(4):475–83.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Dear Authors,

I have gone through the article and my comments to improve the manuscript are as under

1. What is the contribution of your study in the existing set of literature, the study is silent on it, please clearly document the contribution of your study.

2. How your study is different from earlier studies, please clearly elaborate.

1.2. As you suggested, we have added a mention of the contribution of this study and the difference from earlier ones in the “conclusion” paragraph (lines 567 – 572), which can enrich the paper. This is the phrase we inserted: “These findings contribute to the literature on the association between leadership and AP as they a) provided a summary of the effect size and variability of this association, and b) discovered a high variance of this association, which was not previously evidenced in the literature. Hence, although none of the considered variables emerged as significant mediators, present findings clarify the extent to which leadership and AP are associated. So, it could become a starting point to deepen the knowledge about organizational variables and leadership-related variables acting as predictive of AP.”

3. What is the research gap in the existing literature, the study is silent on it. Please elaborate.

3. Thank you for this advice. We mentioned the research gap in the “introduction” paragraph. Now we added this sentence: “Despite the recognized importance of leadership in facilitating the adaptive performance, the understanding of how different leadership styles specifically contribute to this dynamic remains fragmented in literature” (lines 59-61.)

4. Can this study construct a comprehensive scale based on this study for future research, if so, then please make a part of this paper.

4. Thank you for your suggestion. However, could you give us a clarification about your request? Regarding future research, we suggest integrating a comprehensive longitudinal study design to explore the interplay between leadership styles, AP, and organizational culture (see lines 573-578). Regarding the development of a scale based on this study, we believe that this study does not allow us to construct a comprehensive scale for future research. Still, we appreciate your suggestion about this point.

5. The authors have used the word “thanks to” while recognizing the theorists. Such words are normally not used in the literature.

5. As you pointed out, we removed the words “thanks to” and changed it to “because of” or replaced it with better wording.

6. Table 1 and Table 2 should be shifted in the Appendix.

6. We understand the reviewer’s concern and acknowledge that shifting the tables to the appendix would make the text easier to follow. However, unless the Editor raises space concerns, we would like to maintain tables in the text, as we believe that this would facilitate readers’ understanding.

7. The data should be represented through Venn diagrams, histograms, etc. for better presentation.

7. Could you please clarify what kind of data should be better represented in Venn diagrams or histograms? We tried to cross different types of data (country, leadership style, job sector, and auto and hetero leadership evaluation) but the results were not significant either at a content level or at a visual level. For more clarity, we inserted in Table 2 the number of articles selected for review and meta-analysis, beside the “leadership style” we added several items using it.

8. What are the suggestions to policymakers as an outcome of research, without it, the research work has no meaning. The given policy implications are meager, please elaborate on this section keeping in mind the outcome of the study.

8. Thank you for this comment which allows us to highlight the practical implications that can also be used from an organizational development perspective.

Concerning this point, there was a sentence in the “Practical implications” paragraph: “In summary, the study advocates for leadership practices that support adaptability through skill development, flexibility, self-awareness, and alignment with organizational objectives, aiming to create more resilient and adaptable organizations.

Now we also have added: “Additionally, findings suggest investing in organizational training aimed to increase awareness about the importance of governance and managerial roles in supporting changes and their influence on subordinates’ adaptivity. The awareness that leadership creates the basis to foster adaptivity should stimulate managers to have an active role in preparing and supporting collaborators in organizational development paths, facing resistance to change which is often the result of a lack of sharing and participation in which leadership has a crucial influence.” (lines 600-606).

9. I suggest the Key Characteristics of Each of the Leadership styles in Tabular form by giving the brief characteristics for the reader’s interest.

9. Following your suggestion, we added a table to resume the principal features of different leadership styles (page 9 - line 225).

10. The region-wise or country-wise studies should be shown in the Venn diagram for better understanding.

10. It is difficult for us to understand how to use the Venn diagram to illustrate the distribution of countries. We will be available to add this diagram if we receive from you further guidance.

Alternatively, do you think it would be useful to include a histogram of the countries?

Regarding the country of origin of the studies, you can find this information in the text (lines 323-324). In the previous version, the number of Asian articles was wrong, we modified it in “Asia (n. 17)”.

11. The study has not been given in the conceptual model of AP.

11. As you suggested, the conceptual model of AP was further explored in the literature background paragraph (lines 101 - 110) trying to illustrate and deepen the differences and similarities between the dimensions of the different theoretical models (Pulakos’ and Neal, Griffin &Parker’s model).

12. The study has designed the hypothesis in the LR part, but later on, there is no discussion on these hypotheses. Authors are requested to discuss the results with respect to these hypotheses. Besides, only two hypotheses are meager for the study, please consider further hypotheses for the study.

12. Following your suggestion, we enlarged the hypotheses and reported the hypotheses in the “Meta-analysis discussion” paragraph.

13. I suggest a brief section on the theories of leadership and adaptive performance.

13. In the literature background paragraph, we describe AP definitions and leadership theories.

Thank you for your suggestion: at the end of the paragraph, we added a table to resume the principal features of different leadership styles.

Regards

Reviewer #2: Your abstract provides a clear overview of the purpose, methodology, and findings of your research. It effectively communicates the importance of studying the relationship between leadership styles and adaptive performance (AP) in organizational settings undergoing rapid changes. The inclusion of the theoretical reference framework and the methodology employed adds to the comprehensiveness of the abstract. However, I suggest rephrasing the sentence "The theoretical reference framework for the study of leadership and AP was outlined first" for clarity and conciseness.

1. Thank you very much for your precious suggestions that allow us to improve and enhance our paper. We rephrased the sentence as you indicated.

While the introduction effectively highlights the importance of adaptive performance in the face of changing work environments, it could provide more context on the specific gaps in existing literature that the study aims to address

2. We have already mentioned the research gap in the “introduction” paragraph but, following your suggestion, we added a sentence read as follows: “Despite the recognized importance of leadership in facilitating adaptive performance, the understanding of how different leadership styles specifically contribute to this dynamic remain fragmented in literature” (lines 59-61)

While the introduction briefly discusses the theoretical underpinnings of adaptive performance and leadership, it would benefit from a more in-depth exploration of relevant theories and their application to the study.

3. Following your precious advice, the conceptual model of AP was further explored in the literature background paragraph (from line 101 to 118) trying to illustrate and deepen the differences and similarities between the dimensions of the different theoretical models (Pulakos and Neal, Griffin &Parker). Also, in the paragraph “Leadership styles: literature overview and the relationship with job adaptive performance”, we choose to discuss the more relevant leadership theories and their relationship with AP for the past literature. For more cl

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