Research
Employees experience every policy, program, and initiative through a leader.
Organizations put a lot into new strategies, programs, and ways of working, but whether any of it works depends on the leaders who carry it out. That's what my research is about.
Research areas
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Leader implementation of key business practices
Why the same initiative works in one department and falls flat in the next. I look at how managers carry out the practices their organizations hand them, and how that shapes what employees think of them as leaders.
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The roles that leaders play in organizational culture
Every organization says what it values. Leaders decide, through what they do every day, whether that's actually true.
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The effects of inconsistent leader behaviors
What happens when a leader is supportive one day and dismissive the next. I'm studying how employees make sense of unpredictable leaders and what it costs them in stress, trust, and performance.
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Leadership ethics and morality
Why people keep admiring leaders who deliver results while cutting ethical corners, and how employees react when their leader seems to have no moral compass at all.
Publications
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2026 · Journal of Business and Psychology
Forgetting morals, focusing on performance: The role of moral decoupling in explaining admiration of high-performing/amoral managers
Webster, B. D., & Steffensen, D. S., Jr.
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2022 · Journal of Business and Psychology
Does leader same-sex sexual orientation matter to leadership effectiveness? A four-study model-testing investigation
Wang, G., Steffensen, D. S., Jr., Perrewé, P. L., Ferris, G. R., & Jordan, S. L.
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2022 · Journal of Business and Psychology
“You’ve got mail”: A daily investigation of email demands on job tension and work-family conflict
Steffensen, D. S., Jr., McAllister, C. P., Perrewé, P. L., Wang, G., & Brooks, C. D.
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2021 · Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice
Validation of the Teamwork Situational Judgment Test
Littlepage, G. E., Steffensen, D. S., Jr., Yi, J., & Hembree, H.
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2020 · Harvard Business Review
How to cope with that “always-on” feeling
McAllister, C. P., Steffensen, D. S., Jr., Perrewé, P. L., Brooks, C. D., & Wang, G.
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2019 · Journal of Management
Putting the “management” back in human resource management: A review and agenda for future research
Steffensen, D. S., Jr., Ellen, B. P., III, Wang, G., & Ferris, G. R.
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2018 · Human Resource Management Review
High performance work practice implementation and employee impressions of line manager leadership
Russell, Z. A., Steffensen, D. S., Jr., Ellen, B. P., III, Zhang, L., Ferris, G. R., & Bishoff, J.
Current work
Right now I'm focused on three questions. First, what unpredictable leader behavior does to employees, and how leaders who protect their people change the picture. Second, how leaders keep an organization's practices clear and consistent, including a large meta-analysis of how leadership and organizational practices work together and a study of why performance reviews succeed or fail. Third, how employees respond to leaders who are effective but amoral, and how strong leaders manage to overcome poor organizational practices. I'm also starting a study on why reluctant leaders end up taking on leadership roles anyway.
Interested in collaborating?
I'm always looking for co-authors and for organizations willing to partner on data collection. Tell me a little about yourself and what caught your interest.