Does loneliness matter for leadership? Recent years saw an increase in academic literature trying to answer this question. To evaluate if existing research could support theory and practice of the leader loneliness phenomenon, we reviewed the literature across levels of analysis and research paradigms, including 71 empirical articles. We identified four major conceptual and methodological limitations. First, the conceptual representation of leader loneliness is unclear and often conflates with general loneliness. Therefore, leadership-specific nomological networks are missing in theoretical conceptualizations. Second, the quality of some empirical findings is insufficient to support policy implications based on different research paradigms and levels of analysis have led to some inconsistent and unreconciled conclusions. Specifically, we could identify only two quantitative and three qualitative articles with policy implications. Third, the measurement of leader loneliness is often imprecise: some items are confounded with extroversion-introversion; some others measure the antecedents of loneliness. Fourth, the methodological concerns in prior work hinder the interpretation of many available findings. Specifically, some quantitative studies incur endogeneity issues, lack realism or costly outcomes in laboratory studies, whereas a number of qualitative studies involve research design issues and lack counterfactuals in theorizing. To contribute to better research practices on this timely topic, we offer suggestions for a better definition, improvement areas in measurement, statistical analysis to avoid endogeneity issues, and trustworthy qualitative research.

中文翻译：

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领导者和领导孤独：基于评论的批评和未来研究的路径

孤独对领导力重要吗？近年来，试图回答这个问题的学术文献有所增加。为了评估现有研究是否可以支持领导者孤独现象的理论和实践，我们回顾了不同分析和研究范式层面的文献，包括 71 篇实证文章。我们确定了四个主要的概念和方法上的局限性。首先，领导者孤独感的概念表征并不明确，并且常常与一般孤独感混为一谈。因此，理论概念中缺少特定于领导力的法理网络。其次，一些实证研究结果的质量不足以支持政策含义，基于不同的研究范式和分析水平导致了一些不一致和不可调和的结论。具体来说，我们只能识别出两篇具有政策影响的定量文章和三篇定性文章。第三，领导者孤独感的测量往往不精确：有些项目与外向-内向混淆；其他一些人则衡量孤独的前因。第四，先前工作中的方法论问题阻碍了对许多现有研究结果的解释。具体来说，一些定量研究存在内生性问题，在实验室研究中缺乏现实性或代价高昂的结果，而许多定性研究涉及研究设计问题并且在理论中缺乏反事实。为了有助于更好地研究这一及时主题，我们提供了更好的定义、测量改进领域、避免内生性问题的统计分析以及值得信赖的定性研究的建议。