The present research examines the moderating role of need for closure on the relationship between interactional fairness and the leadership effectiveness. Need for closure, reflecting a desire to reduce uncertainty, is proposed here to lead people to rely more strongly on fairness when making judgments about the leader. Because interactional fairness has been found to reduce uncertainty (Van den Bos e Lind, 2002), it has been hypothesized that leadership effectiveness was contingent on interactional fairness especially for employees with a higher motivation toward closure. Results confirmed the hypothesis: the relationship between interactional fairness and leadership effectiveness is stronger for high-need for closure (vs. low need for closure) employees.
Keywords: Leadership interactional fairness, leader-follower relationship, need for closure, uncertainty reduction, effectiveness of leadership.