1. a model of leadership emergence and evaluation that assumes that individuals make inferences about leadership ability by observing and interpreting certain environmental and behavioral cues. Like leader categorization theory, this theory assumes that followers respond more positively to a leader who displays the qualities and behaviors that match their implicit leadership theories. See also leader prototype; leadership theories. [proposed in 1982 by U.S. industrial and organizational psychologists Robert G. Lord (1946–  ), Roseanne J. Foti (1954–  ), and James Steven Phillips]

2. a model that suggests leaders observe their followers’ behavior, make inferences about the causes of that behavior (i.e., whether it is the result of internal, personal factors or of external, circumstantial ones), and then respond on the basis of those inferences. For example, a manager who makes an internal attribution by concluding that an employee’s poor performance on a recent project was due to some characteristic of that person (e.g., lack of motivation) is likely to decide on a harsher disciplinary action than if he or she made an external attribution by concluding the poor performance was due to the situation (e.g., a rushed completion schedule). [proposed in 1979 by U.S. social psychologist Stephen G. Green (1945–  ) and U.S. industrial and organizational psychologist Terence R. Mitchell (1942–  )]