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How to Write a Perfect Synthesis Essay for the AP Language Exam

Advanced Placement (AP)

If you're planning to take the AP Language (or AP Lang) exam , you might already know that 55% of your overall exam score will be based on three essays. The first of the three essays you'll have to write on the AP Language exam is called the "synthesis essay." If you want to earn full points on this portion of the AP Lang Exam, you need to know what a synthesis essay is and what skills are assessed by the AP Lang synthesis essay.

In this article, we'll explain the different aspects of the AP Lang synthesis essay, including what skills you need to demonstrate in your synthesis essay response in order to achieve a good score. We'll also give you a full breakdown of a real AP Lang Synthesis Essay prompt, provide an analysis of an AP Lang synthesis essay example, and give you four tips for how to write a synthesis essay.

Let's get started by taking a closer look at how the AP Lang synthesis essay works!

Synthesis Essay AP Lang: What It Is and How It Works

The AP Lang synthesis essay is the first of three essays included in the Free Response section of the AP Lang exam.

The AP Lang synthesis essay portion of the Free Response section lasts for one hour total . This hour consists of a recommended 15 minute reading period and a 40 minute writing period. Keep in mind that these time allotments are merely recommendations, and that exam takers can parse out the allotted 60 minutes to complete the synthesis essay however they choose.

Now, here's what the structure of the AP Lang synthesis essay looks like. The exam presents six to seven sources that are organized around a specific topic (like alternative energy or eminent domain, which are both past synthesis exam topics).

Of these six to seven sources, at least two are visual , including at least one quantitative source (like a graph or pie chart, for example). The remaining four to five sources are print text-based, and each one contains approximately 500 words.

In addition to six to seven sources, the AP Lang exam provides a written prompt that consists of three paragraphs. The prompt will briefly explain the essay topic, then present a claim that students will respond to in an essay that synthesizes material from at least three of the sources provided.

Here's an example prompt provided by the College Board:

Directions : The following prompt is based on the accompanying six sources.

This question requires you to integrate a variety of sources into a coherent, well-written essay. Refer to the sources to support your position; avoid mere paraphrase or summary. Your argument should be central; the sources should support this argument .

Remember to attribute both direct and indirect citations.

Introduction

Television has been influential in United States presidential elections since the 1960's. But just what is this influence, and how has it affected who is elected? Has it made elections fairer and more accessible, or has it moved candidates from pursuing issues to pursuing image?

Read the following sources (including any introductory information) carefully. Then, in an essay that synthesizes at least three of the sources for support, take a position that defends, challenges, or qualifies the claim that television has had a positive impact on presidential elections.

Refer to the sources as Source A, Source B, etc.; titles are included for your convenience.

Source A (Campbell) Source B (Hart and Triece) Source C (Menand) Source D (Chart) Source E (Ranney) Source F (Koppel)

Like we mentioned earlier, this prompt gives you a topic — which it briefly explains — then asks you to take a position. In this case, you'll have to choose a stance on whether television has positively or negatively affected U.S. elections. You're also given six sources to evaluate and use in your response. Now that you have everything you need, now your job is to write an amazing synthesis essay.

But what does "synthesize" mean, exactly? According to the CollegeBoard, when an essay prompt asks you to synthesize, it means that you should "combine different perspectives from sources to form a support of a coherent position" in writing. In other words, a synthesis essay asks you to state your claim on a topic, then highlight the relationships between several sources that support your claim on that topic. Additionally, you'll need to cite specific evidence from your sources to prove your point.

The synthesis essay counts for six of the total points on the AP Lang exam . Students can receive 0-1 points for writing a thesis statement in the essay, 0-4 based on incorporation of evidence and commentary, and 0-1 points based on sophistication of thought and demonstrated complex understanding of the topic.

You'll be evaluated based on how effectively you do the following in your AP Lang synthesis essay:

Write a thesis that responds to the exam prompt with a defensible position

Provide specific evidence that to support all claims in your line of reasoning from at least three of the sources provided, and clearly and consistently explain how the evidence you include supports your line of reasoning

Demonstrate sophistication of thought by either crafting a thoughtful argument, situating the argument in a broader context, explaining the limitations of an argument

Make rhetorical choices that strengthen your argument and/or employ a vivid and persuasive style throughout your essay.

If your synthesis essay meets the criteria above, then there's a good chance you'll score well on this portion of the AP Lang exam!

If you're looking for even more information on scoring, the College Board has posted the AP Lang Free Response grading rubric on its website. ( You can find it here. ) We recommend taking a close look at it since it includes additional details about the synthesis essay scoring.

Don't be intimidated...we're going to teach you how to break down even the hardest AP synthesis essay prompt.

Full Breakdown of a Real AP Lang Synthesis Essay Prompt

In this section, we'll teach you how to analyze and respond to a synthesis essay prompt in five easy steps, including suggested time frames for each step of the process.

Step 1: Analyze the Prompt

The very first thing to do when the clock starts running is read and analyze the prompt. To demonstrate how to do this, we'll look at the sample AP Lang synthesis essay prompt below. This prompt comes straight from the 2018 AP Lang exam:

Eminent domain is the power governments have to acquire property from private owners for public use. The rationale behind eminent domain is that governments have greater legal authority over lands within their dominion than do private owners. Eminent domain has been instituted in one way or another throughout the world for hundreds of years.

Carefully read the following six sources, including the introductory information for each source. Then synthesize material from at least three of the sources and incorporate it into a coherent, well-developed essay that defends, challenges, or qualifies the notion that eminent domain is productive and beneficial.

Your argument should be the focus of your essay. Use the sources to develop your argument and explain the reasoning for it. Avoid merely summarizing the sources. Indicate clearly which sources you are drawing from, whether through direct quotation, paraphrase, or summary. You may cite the sources as Source A, Source B, etc., or by using the descriptions in parentheses.

On first read, you might be nervous about how to answer this prompt...especially if you don't know what eminent domain is! But if you break the prompt down into chunks, you'll be able to figure out what the prompt is asking you to do in no time flat.

To get a full understanding of what this prompt wants you to do, you need to identify the most important details in this prompt, paragraph by paragraph. Here's what each paragraph is asking you to do:

• Paragraph 1: The prompt presents and briefly explains the topic that you'll be writing your synthesis essay about. That topic is the concept of eminent domain.
• Paragraph 2: The prompt presents a specific claim about the concept of eminent domain in this paragraph: Eminent domain is productive and beneficial. This paragraph instructs you to decide whether you want to defend, challenge, or qualify that claim in your synthesis essay , and use material from at least three of the sources provided in order to do so.
• Paragraph 3: In the last paragraph of the prompt, the exam gives you clear instructions about how to approach writing your synthesis essay . First, make your argument the focus of the essay. Second, use material from at least three of the sources to develop and explain your argument. Third, provide commentary on the material you include, and provide proper citations when you incorporate quotations, paraphrases, or summaries from the sources provided.

So basically, you'll have to agree with, disagree with, or qualify the claim stated in the prompt, then use at least three sources substantiate your answer. Since you probably don't know much about eminent domain, you'll probably decide on your position after you read the provided sources.

To make good use of your time on the exam, you should spend around 2 minutes reading the prompt and making note of what it's asking you to do. That will leave you plenty of time to read the sources provided, which is the next step to writing a synthesis essay.

Step 2: Read the Sources Carefully

After you closely read the prompt and make note of the most important details, you need to read all of the sources provided. It's tempting to skip one or two sources to save time--but we recommend you don't do this. That's because you'll need a thorough understanding of the topic before you can accurately address the prompt!

For the sample exam prompt included above, there are six sources provided. We're not going to include all of the sources in this article, but you can view the six sources from this question on the 2018 AP Lang exam here . The sources include five print-text sources and one visual source, which is a cartoon.

As you read the sources, it's important to read quickly and carefully. Don't rush! Keep your pencil in hand to quickly mark important passages that you might want to use as evidence in your synthesis. While you're reading the sources and marking passages, you want to think about how the information you're reading influences your stance on the issue (in this case, eminent domain).

When you finish reading, take a few seconds to summarize, in a phrase or sentence, whether the source defends, challenges, or qualifies whether eminent domain is beneficial (which is the claim in the prompt) . Though it might not feel like you have time for this, it's important to give yourself these notes about each source so you know how you can use each one as evidence in your essay.

Here's what we mean: say you want to challenge the idea that eminent domain is useful. If you've jotted down notes about each source and what it's saying, it will be easier for you to pull the relevant information into your outline and your essay.

So how much time should you spend reading the provided sources? The AP Lang exam recommends taking 15 minutes to read the sources . If you spend around two of those minutes reading and breaking down the essay prompt, it makes sense to spend the remaining 13 minutes reading and annotating the sources.

If you finish reading and annotating early, you can always move on to drafting your synthesis essay. But make sure you're taking your time and reading carefully! It's better to use a little extra time reading and understanding the sources now so that you don't have to go back and re-read the sources later.

A strong thesis will do a lot of heavy lifting in your essay. (See what we did there?)

Step 3: Write a Strong Thesis Statement

After you've analyzed the prompt and thoroughly read the sources, the next thing you need to do in order to write a good synthesis essay is write a strong thesis statement .

The great news about writing a thesis statement for this synthesis essay is that you have all the tools you need to do it at your fingertips. All you have to do in order to write your thesis statement is decide what your stance is in relationship to the topic provided.

In the example prompt provided earlier, you're essentially given three choices for how to frame your thesis statement: you can either defend, challenge, or qualify a claim that's been provided by the prompt, that eminent domain is productive and beneficial . Here's what that means for each option:

If you choose to defend the claim, your job will be to prove that the claim is correct . In this case, you'll have to show that eminent domain is a good thing.

If you choose to challenge the claim, you'll argue that the claim is incorrect. In other words, you'll argue that eminent domain isn't productive or beneficial.

If you choose to qualify, that means you'll agree with part of the claim, but disagree with another part of the claim. For instance, you may argue that eminent domain can be a productive tool for governments, but it's not beneficial for property owners. Or maybe you argue that eminent domain is useful in certain circumstances, but not in others.

When you decide whether you want your synthesis essay to defend, challenge, or qualify that claim, you need to convey that stance clearly in your thesis statement. You want to avoid simply restating the claim provided in the prompt, summarizing the issue without making a coherent claim, or writing a thesis that doesn't respond to the prompt.

Here's an example of a thesis statement that received full points on the eminent domain synthesis essay:

Although eminent domain can be misused to benefit private interests at the expense of citizens, it is a vital tool of any government that intends to have any influence on the land it governs beyond that of written law.

This thesis statement received full points because it states a defensible position and establishes a line of reasoning on the issue of eminent domain. It states the author's position (that some parts of eminent domain are good, but others are bad), then goes on to explain why the author thinks that (it's good because it allows the government to do its job, but it's bad because the government can misuse its power.)

Because this example thesis statement states a defensible position and establishes a line of reasoning, it can be elaborated upon in the body of the essay through sub-claims, supporting evidence, and commentary. And a solid argument is key to getting a six on your synthesis essay for AP Lang!

Step 4: Create a Bare-Bones Essay Outline

Once you've got your thesis statement drafted, you have the foundation you need to develop a bare bones outline for your synthesis essay. Developing an outline might seem like it's a waste of your precious time, but if you develop your outline well, it will actually save you time when you start writing your essay.

With that in mind, we recommend spending 5 to 10 minutes outlining your synthesis essay . If you use a bare-bones outline like the one below, labeling each piece of content that you need to include in your essay draft, you should be able to develop out the most important pieces of the synthesis before you even draft the actual essay.

To help you see how this can work on test day, we've created a sample outline for you. You can even memorize this outline to help you out on test day! In the outline below, you'll find places to fill in a thesis statement, body paragraph topic sentences, evidence from the sources provided, and commentary :

• Present the context surrounding the essay topic in a couple of sentences (this is a good place to use what you learned about the major opinions or controversies about the topic from reading your sources).
• Write a straightforward, clear, and concise thesis statement that presents your stance on the topic
• Topic sentence presenting first supporting point or claim
• Evidence #1
• Commentary on Evidence #1
• Evidence #2 (if needed)
• Commentary on Evidence #2 (if needed)
• Topic sentence presenting second supporting point or claim
• Topic sentence presenting three supporting point or claim
• Sums up the main line of reasoning that you developed and defended throughout the essay
• Reiterates the thesis statement

Taking the time to develop these crucial pieces of the synthesis in a bare-bones outline will give you a map for your final essay. Once you have a map, writing the essay will be much easier.

Step 5: Draft Your Essay Response

The great thing about taking a few minutes to develop an outline is that you can develop it out into your essay draft. After you take about 5 to 10 minutes to outline your synthesis essay, you can use the remaining 30 to 35 minutes to draft your essay and review it.

Since you'll outline your essay before you start drafting, writing the essay should be pretty straightforward. You'll already know how many paragraphs you're going to write, what the topic of each paragraph will be, and what quotations, paraphrases, or summaries you're going to include in each paragraph from the sources provided. You'll just have to fill in one of the most important parts of your synthesis—your commentary.

Commentaries are your explanation of why your evidence supports the argument you've outlined in your thesis. Your commentary is where you actually make your argument, which is why it's such a critical part of your synthesis essay.

When thinking about what to say in your commentary, remember one thing the AP Lang synthesis essay prompt specifies: don't just summarize the sources. Instead, as you provide commentary on the evidence you incorporate, you need to explain how that evidence supports or undermines your thesis statement . You should include commentary that offers a thoughtful or novel perspective on the evidence from your sources to develop your argument.

One very important thing to remember as you draft out your essay is to cite your sources. The AP Lang exam synthesis essay prompt indicates that you can use generic labels for the sources provided (e.g. "Source 1," "Source 2," "Source 3," etc.). The exam prompt will indicate which label corresponds with which source, so you'll need to make sure you pay attention and cite sources accurately. You can cite your sources in the sentence where you introduce a quote, summary, or paraphrase, or you can use a parenthetical citation. Citing your sources affects your score on the synthesis essay, so remembering to do this is important.

Keep reading for a real-life example of a great AP synthesis essay response!

Real-Life AP Synthesis Essay Example and Analysis

If you're still wondering how to write a synthesis essay, examples of real essays from past AP Lang exams can make things clearer. These real-life student AP synthesis essay responses can be great for helping you understand how to write a synthesis essay that will knock the graders' socks off .

While there are multiple essay examples online, we've chosen one to take a closer look at. We're going to give you a brief analysis of one of these example student synthesis essays from the 2019 AP Lang Exam below!

Example Synthesis Essay AP Lang Response

To get started, let's look at the official prompt for the 2019 synthesis essay:

In response to our society's increasing demand for energy, large-scale wind power has drawn attention from governments and consumers as a potential alternative to traditional materials that fuel our power grids, such as coal, oil, natural gas, water, or even newer sources such as nuclear or solar power. Yet the establishment of large-scale, commercial-grade wind farms is often the subject of controversy for a variety of reasons.

Carefully read the six sources, found on the AP English Language and Composition 2019 Exam (Question 1), including the introductory information for each source. Write an essay that synthesizes material from at least three of the sources and develops your position on the most important factors that an individual or agency should consider when deciding whether to establish a wind farm.

Source A (photo) Source B (Layton) Source C (Seltenrich) Source D (Brown) Source E (Rule) Source F (Molla)

In your response you should do the following:

• Respond to the prompt with a thesis presents a defensible position.
• Select and use evidence from at least 3 of the provided sources to support your line of reasoning. Indicate clearly the sources used through direct quotation, paraphrase, or summary. Sources may be cited as Source A, Source B, etc., or by using the description in parentheses.
• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

Now that you know exactly what the prompt asked students to do on the 2019 AP Lang synthesis essay, here's an AP Lang synthesis essay example, written by a real student on the AP Lang exam in 2019:

[1] The situation has been known for years, and still very little is being done: alternative power is the only way to reliably power the changing world. The draw of power coming from industry and private life is overwhelming current sources of non-renewable power, and with dwindling supplies of fossil fuels, it is merely a matter of time before coal and gas fuel plants are no longer in operation. So one viable alternative is wind power. But as with all things, there are pros and cons. The main factors for power companies to consider when building wind farms are environmental boon, aesthetic, and economic factors.

[2] The environmental benefits of using wind power are well-known and proven. Wind power is, as qualified by Source B, undeniably clean and renewable. From their production requiring very little in the way of dangerous materials to their lack of fuel, besides that which occurs naturally, wind power is by far one of the least environmentally impactful sources of power available. In addition, wind power by way of gearbox and advanced blade materials, has the highest percentage of energy retention. According to Source F, wind power retains 1,164% of the energy put into the system – meaning that it increases the energy converted from fuel (wind) to electricity 10 times! No other method of electricity production is even half that efficient. The efficiency and clean nature of wind power are important to consider, especially because they contribute back to power companies economically.

[3] Economically, wind power is both a boon and a bone to electric companies and other users. For consumers, wind power is very cheap, leading to lower bills than from any other source. Consumers also get an indirect reimbursement by way of taxes (Source D). In one Texan town, McCamey, tax revenue increased 30% from a wind farm being erected in the town. This helps to finance improvements to the town. But, there is no doubt that wind power is also hurting the power companies. Although, as renewable power goes, wind is incredibly cheap, it is still significantly more expensive than fossil fuels. So, while it is helping to cut down on emissions, it costs electric companies more than traditional fossil fuel plants. While the general economic trend is positive, there are some setbacks which must be overcome before wind power can take over as truly more effective than fossil fuels.

[4] Aesthetics may be the greatest setback for power companies. Although there may be significant economic and environmental benefit to wind power, people will always fight to preserve pure, unspoiled land. Unfortunately, not much can be done to improve the visual aesthetics of the turbines. White paint is the most common choice because it "[is] associated with cleanliness." (Source E). But, this can make it stand out like a sore thumb, and make the gargantuan machines seem more out of place. The site can also not be altered because it affects generating capacity. Sound is almost worse of a concern because it interrupts personal productivity by interrupting people's sleep patterns. One thing for power companies to consider is working with turbine manufacturing to make the machines less aesthetically impactful, so as to garner greater public support.

[5] As with most things, wind power has no easy answer. It is the responsibility of the companies building them to weigh the benefits and the consequences. But, by balancing economics, efficiency, and aesthetics, power companies can create a solution which balances human impact with environmental preservation.

And that's an entire AP Lang synthesis essay example, written in response to a real AP Lang exam prompt! It's important to remember AP Lang exam synthesis essay prompts are always similarly structured and worded, and students often respond in around the same number of paragraphs as what you see in the example essay response above.

Next, let's analyze this example essay and talk about what it does effectively, where it could be improved upon, and what score past exam scorers awarded it.

To get started on an analysis of the sample synthesis essay, let's look at the scoring commentary provided by the College Board:

• For development of thesis, the essay received 1 out of 1 possible points
• For evidence and commentary, the essay received 4 out of 4 possible points
• For sophistication of thought, the essay received 0 out of 1 possible points.

This means that the final score for this example essay was a 5 out of 6 possible points . Let's look more closely at the content of the example essay to figure out why it received this score breakdown.

Thesis Development

The thesis statement is one of the three main categories that is taken into consideration when you're awarded points on this portion of the exam. This sample essay received 1 out of 1 total points.

Now, here's why: the thesis statement clearly and concisely conveys a position on the topic presented in the prompt--alternative energy and wind power--and defines the most important factors that power companies should consider when deciding whether to establish a wind farm.

Evidence and Commentary

The second key category taken into consideration when synthesis exams are evaluated is incorporation of evidence and commentary. This sample received 4 out of 4 possible points for this portion of the synthesis essay. At bare minimum, this sample essay meets the requirement mentioned in the prompt that the writer incorporate evidence from at least three of the sources provided.

On top of that, the writer does a good job of connecting the incorporated evidence back to the claim made in the thesis statement through effective commentary. The commentary in this sample essay is effective because it goes beyond just summarizing what the provided sources say. Instead, it explains and analyzes the evidence presented in the selected sources and connects them back to supporting points the writer makes in each body paragraph.

Finally, the writer of the essay also received points for evidence and commentary because the writer developed and supported a consistent line of reasoning throughout the essay . This line of reasoning is summed up in the fourth paragraph in the following sentence: "One thing for power companies to consider is working with turbine manufacturing to make the machines less aesthetically impactful, so as to garner greater public support."

Because the writer did a good job consistently developing their argument and incorporating evidence, they received full marks in this category. So far, so good!

Sophistication of Thought

Now, we know that this essay received a score of 5 out of 6 total points, and the place where the writer lost a point was on the basis of sophistication of thought, for which the writer received 0 out of 1 points. That's because this sample essay makes several generalizations and vague claims where it could have instead made specific claims that support a more balanced argument.

For example, in the following sentence from the 5th paragraph of the sample essay, the writer misses the opportunity to state specific possibilities that power companies should consider for wind energy . Instead, the writer is ambiguous and non-committal, saying, "As with most things, wind power has no easy answer. It is the responsibility of the companies building them to weigh the benefits and consequences."

If the writer of this essay was interested in trying to get that 6th point on the synthesis essay response, they could consider making more specific claims. For instance, they could state the specific benefits and consequences power companies should consider when deciding whether to establish a wind farm. These could include things like environmental impacts, economic impacts, or even population density!

Despite losing one point in the last category, this example synthesis essay is a strong one. It's well-developed, thoughtfully written, and advances an argument on the exam topic using evidence and support throughout.

4 Tips for How to Write a Synthesis Essay

AP Lang is a timed exam, so you have to pick and choose what you want to focus on in the limited time you're given to write the synthesis essay. Keep reading to get our expert advice on what you should focus on during your exam.

Tip 1: Read the Prompt First

It may sound obvious, but when you're pressed for time, it's easy to get flustered. Just remember: when it comes time to write the synthesis essay, read the prompt first !

Why is it so important to read the prompt before you read the sources? Because when you're aware of what kind of question you're trying to answer, you'll be able to read the sources more strategically. The prompt will help give you a sense of what claims, points, facts, or opinions to be looking for as you read the sources.

Reading the sources without having read the prompt first is kind of like trying to drive while wearing a blindfold: you can probably do it, but it's likely not going to end well!

Tip 2: Make Notes While You Read

During the 15-minute reading period at the beginning of the synthesis essay, you'll be reading through the sources as quickly as you can. After all, you're probably anxious to start writing!

While it's definitely important to make good use of your time, it's also important to read closely enough that you understand your sources. Careful reading will allow you to identify parts of the sources that will help you support your thesis statement in your essay, too.

As you read the sources, consider marking helpful passages with a star or check mark in the margins of the exam so you know which parts of the text to quickly re-read as you form your synthesis essay. You might also consider summing up the key points or position of each source in a sentence or a few words when you finish reading each source during the reading period. Doing so will help you know where each source stands on the topic given and help you pick the three (or more!) that will bolster your synthesis argument.

Tip 3: Start With the Thesis Statement

If you don't start your synthesis essay with a strong thesis statement, it's going to be tough to write an effective synthesis essay. As soon as you finish reading and annotating the provided sources, the thing you want to do next is write a strong thesis statement.

According to the CollegeBoard grading guidelines for the AP Lang synthesis essay, a strong thesis statement will respond to the prompt— not restate or rephrase the prompt. A good thesis will take a clear, defensible position on the topic presented in the prompt and the sources.

In other words, to write a solid thesis statement to guide the rest of your synthesis essay, you need to think about your position on the topic at hand and then make a claim about the topic based on your position. This position will either be defending, challenging, or qualifying the claim made in the essay's prompt.

The defensible position that you establish in your thesis statement will guide your argument in the rest of the essay, so it's important to do this first. Once you have a strong thesis statement, you can begin outlining your essay.

Tip 4: Focus on Your Commentary

Writing thoughtful, original commentary that explains your argument and your sources is important. In fact, doing this well will earn you four points (out of a total of six)!

AP Lang provides six to seven sources for you on the exam, and you'll be expected to incorporate quotations, paraphrases, or summaries from at least three of those sources into your synthesis essay and interpret that evidence for the reader.

While incorporating evidence is very important, in order to get the extra point for "sophistication of thought" on the synthesis essay, it's important to spend more time thinking about your commentary on the evidence you choose to incorporate. The commentary is your chance to show original thinking, strong rhetorical skills, and clearly explain how the evidence you've included supports the stance you laid out in your thesis statement.

To earn the 6th possible point on the synthesis essay, make sure your commentary demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the source material, explains this nuanced understanding, and places the evidence incorporated from the sources in conversation with each other. To do this, make sure you're avoiding vague language. Be specific when you can, and always tie your commentary back to your thesis!

What's Next?

There's a lot more to the AP Language exam than just the synthesis essay. Be sure to check out our expert guide to the entire exam , then learn more about the tricky multiple choice section .

Is the AP Lang exam hard...or is it easy? See how it stacks up to other AP tests on our list of the hardest AP exams .

Did you know there are technically two English AP exams? You can learn more about the second English AP test, the AP Literature exam, in this article . And if you're confused about whether you should take the AP Lang or AP Lit test , we can help you make that decision, too.

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Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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AP Lang Essay 8: Is College Worth It?

Your next synthesis essay is about the value of college. The prompt and source materials are available here on pages 2-8.

The essay is due on Sunday, December 30 via Google Docs.

Assignment requirements:

• Your response should be at least 900 words and demonstrate a clear understanding of the thesis and topic sentence structure we have worked on all year.
• You should have a STAMPY introduction that is no more than 6 sentences, including the thesis.
• You need to use at least 4 kernels of text from the source material and at least a total of 6 citations (quotes and paraphrases).
• You must use at least  four of the sources in your essay , and may not use any additional outside research .
• You need to include at least one naysayer.
• Your essay must have a conclusion that does not merely restate the essay. Advance the intro, tie off the story, develop it into something of interest.
• Your essay must show evidence of careful proofreading and attention to detail.

In particular, pay attention to:

• well-developed paragraph structure (with sub-topics when possible).
• use of evidence to support your arguments, not make them.
• proofreading.
• clear thesis statements and topic sentences that show transitions.
• evaluating the best evidence available to you.
• making sure that the essay makes a clear argument.

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The relationship between leadership and adaptive performance: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Department of Economics and Management, University of Parma, Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Industries, University of Parma, Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Economics and Management, University of Parma, Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Roles Formal analysis, Methodology, Software, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Industries, University of Parma, Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Roles Conceptualization, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

• Alice Bonini, 
• Chiara Panari, 
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• Marco Giovanni Mariani

• Published: October 18, 2024
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304720
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This research presents a comprehensive review and meta-analysis of literature to examine the impact of various leadership styles on organizational adaptive performance (AP). AP is essential for job performance, especially in environments undergoing rapid changes. Previous reviews on AP found that transformational and self-leadership had had a positive influence on job adaptivity, while the relationship between other leadership styles and AP had not been clear. First, authors outlined the theoretical framework of AP and leadership, clarifying how job adaptivity and the different leadership styles are defined and discussed in the scientific literature. Subsequently four scientific databases were explored to identify studies that investigate the Leadership and AP’ relationship. 32 scientific articles and 2 conference papers were investigated for review, of which 31 were used to conduct a meta-analysis; 52 different effect sizes from 32 samples were identified for a total sample size of 11.640 people. Qualitative synthesis revealed that the influence of different leadership styles on AP depended on contextual variables and on aspects related to the nature of the work. Moreover, it was found that leadership supported AP through motivational and relational aspects. Through this meta-analysis, it was found that a significant positive relationship between leadership and AP existed ( Z r = .39, SE = .04, p < .001. 95%CI [.32, .47], r = .37). However, no differences emerged from the different leadership styles examined in the studies. This review deepens the importance of leadership as organizational factor that affect the employees’ likelihood of dealing with continuously emergent changes at work, extended the search to emerging leadership approaches to highlight the value of collective contributions, ethics, and moral and sustainable elements that could positively affect AP.

Citation: Bonini A, Panari C, Caricati L, Mariani MG (2024) The relationship between leadership and adaptive performance: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS ONE 19(10): e0304720. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304720

Editor: Faisal Shafique Butt, COMSATS University Islamabad - Wah Campus, PAKISTAN

Received: March 11, 2024; Accepted: May 17, 2024; Published: October 18, 2024

Copyright: © 2024 Bonini et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All data files are available from the following link https://osf.io/rz82g/ .

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

In order to remain competitive on the labor market, companies are increasingly requesting their human resources to be able to adapt to changes and to learn new skills. For instance, technology applied to work has been constantly evolving and requires lifelong learning efforts in the acquisition of new digital skills functional to its use [ 1 , 2 ]. Most of the scientific literature is centered around individual differences, rather than around organizational factors that can affect job adaptivity [ 3 ]. Reflecting on contextual aspects, it is possible to read leadership as an organizational resource that activates motivational processes promoting high performance, commitment, and proactive behaviors [ 4 ].

Particularly, leadership plays a crucial role in involving the worker in proactive and positive attitudes in facing change and promoting adaptive performance (AP), by way of modifying their organizational features and encouraging bottom-up initiatives, such as job crafting [ 5 – 7 ] This suggests that leadership, focused on human resources by encouraging followers’ self-determination and developing their intrinsic motivation, creates the ground to foster adaptivity [ 8 ]. Individual or group adaptation passed through the leader’s ability to reinforce collaborators’ personal skills, such as tension to results and autonomy, and the leader’s capacity to pay attention to his/her followers’ individual motivational differences and needs. Following the self-determination theory [ 9 ], transformation in collaborators occur when, the leadership contribute to satisfied their basic human psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness) are satisfied. In the same way, paying attention to relational dynamics helped create and maintain trust in leaders and stimulated adaptive performance by sharing and managing emotional states related to changes [ 10 ].

Despite the recognized importance of leadership in facilitating adaptive performance, the understanding of how different leadership styles specifically contribute to this dynamic remains fragmented in literature. An updated systematic review and meta-analysis are necessary to consolidate existing research, identify gaps in our knowledge, and understand the nuanced ways in which leadership can effectively foster an environment conducive to adaptability. This will enable organizations to develop more targeted strategies in leadership development, directly addressing the evolving challenges of the modern workplace.

Based on these assumptions, the primary goal of this review was to emphasize how the relationship between adaptivity to work changes and leadership had been studied as an organizational antecedent that could promote or inhibit one’s adaptive job performance. Particularly, the purpose of this study was to provide a contribution to the existing literature on adaptive performance, by conducting a systematic review and a meta-analysis that would allow for a qualitative and quantitative synthesis of the scientific evidence currently available on the relationship between leadership and AP.

The secondary aim of this review was to dig deeper into the theoretical distinction among different leadership styles, so to understand what peculiarities, differences and dimensions characterize the different styles that could potentially influence AP. So, to guide this exploration, we pose three research questions:

• RQ 1. How does leadership influence an individual’s adaptive performance?
• H1: We hypothesized a strong and positive relationship between leadership and Adaptive Performance.
• RQ2: What specific leadership styles are most effective in promoting adaptive performance among employees?
• H2: We hypothesized a different level of strength in the relationship between styles and Adaptive Performance; in particular, we hypothesized that leadership styles emphasizing members’ involvement, such as transformational leadership, emergent approaches, and members’ leadership, would be more strongly related to Adaptive Performance than control-based leadership approaches, such as transactional or directive ones (H3).

With these aims, the following sections will detail the theoretical foundations of AP and leadership, leading into a comprehensive discussion based on the systematic review and meta-analysis that synthesizes our findings on the interplay between leadership, with his styles, and AP.

We assumed that the findings could be able to help organizations understand what leadership-related strategies and tools to use to decrease change resistance and promote adaptivity.

Literature background

Adaptive performance: definition and antecedents..

The construct of AP, coined by Neal and Hesketh [ 11 ], was born to differentiate between task and contextual job performance [ 12 ] with reference to a set of behaviors that arising from a person’s ability to transfer his/her own knowledge to different contexts and to adapt to new job requirements (Allworth and Hesketh, 1999 [ 13 ]), but nowadays, it may be assumed that both the task and contextual job performance can be declined in an adaptive way [ 14 ]. Park and Park, while studying AP-related literature found that some construct definitions emphasized personal characteristics, while others focused on behavioral responses or on cognitive aspects of knowledge acquisition and skills transfer [ 5 , 15 ]. Despite these differences, all definitions considered adaptation as the implementation of behaviors in response to changing working conditions. Pulakos, in particular, proposed a multidimensional model of adaptive performance based on directly observable and measurable behaviors identifying eight dimensions, which involved task and contextual characteristics, connected with: one’s ability to deal with unpredictable and stressful work situations, managing frustration through resilience and directing one’s efforts towards functional solutions; one’s capacity to perform dynamically, taking actions in mutable situations by changing goals, priorities or actions; learning and acquiring new tasks, procedures or working methods by using past experiences to anticipate possible changes and, finally, to be creative in coping with new situations or to find new work resources and be able to adapt—cognitively, emotionally and physically—in interpersonal relationships, as well as in heterogeneous cultural and social environments [ 16 , 17 ]. All these assumptions implied that adaptive performance should be seen as a form of proactive adaptation that implies a degree of event anticipation as an effective response to change [ 11 , 18 ]. For instance, the new model of work role performance proposed by Griffin, Neal and Parker was thought of as innovative, because it was multidimensional and structured starting from insecurity and uncertainty in the work environment. The authors incorporated proficiency, adaptivity and proactivity into three different levels (individual, group and organizational), as key elements of the response to changes. This model introduced the concept of adaptivity, both individually and collectively, with reference to the degree and the way in which people cope with and support organizational changes, either individually or as members of a group and organization [ 19 ].

Many studies investigated the personal features that could influence adaptivity, whereas contextual, situational and organizational aspects remained little explored [ 13 , 20 , 21 ] In this sense, the systematic review of Park and Park [ 15 ] was one of a few studies that, in addition to highlighting individual antecedents, examined contextual and organizational AP antecedents, by emphasizing the crucial role of leadership, analyzed both at the organizational and individual levels. The authors reported that transformational leadership had an impact at the collective level, as it contributed to creating a cooperative and sharing climate that allowed for openness when solving problems in non-traditional ways and that provided the motivation for employees to make an extra effort when coping with complexity [ 22 , 23 ]. At the individual level, the authors focused on self-leadership affecting individual adaptivity at the cognitive, behavioral and emotional levels, through the development of constructive thinking and goal-achievement behaviors, as well as through planning and monitoring of adaptive strategies and, from an emotional point of view, by decreasing negative feelings towards situations and by increasing job satisfaction [ 24 – 26 ]. Also Griffin and colleagues find that leadership vison can promote behavioural changes, in particular work adaptivity and proactivity [ 21 ]. Anyway, in summary, we consider individual adaptive performance as the behavior exhibited by employees when they respond to and manage significant changes within their work environment. This includes adapting to new tasks, processes, technological advancements, and shifting roles. Adaptive performance is characterized by behaviors such as effectively learning new skills, creatively solving problems, handling unexpected situations, and successfully navigating interpersonal dynamics under change. These behaviors are essential in ensuring that individuals can continue to perform effectively in dynamic and evolving workplaces [ 16 , 17 ].

Leadership styles: Literature overview and the relationship with job adaptive performance.

Studies on leadership span from approaches that focus on a leader’s intrinsic aspects, which support the existence of personality traits that are positively related to group performance [ 27 ], to approaches that emphasize a holistic vision of leadership, where not only the characteristics of the leader him/herself are taken into consideration, but also those of the collaborators, including the nature of their professional tasks, the goals to be achieved and the overall work situation [ 28 ]. The focus of the most recent perspectives has also been on the characteristics displayed by organizational members and on the leadership process, where leaders and followers mutually influence one another. These leader-member relationships affect an organization’s outcomes, which can include efficacy and job performance [ 29 ].

Neo-charismatic theories: Transactional and transformational leadership.

Transactional and transformational theories, for example, study those leadership’s strategic aspects that affect performance efficacy. While the transactional style focuses on planning, supervision and evaluation of team members’ performance through a system of rewards and punishments, the transformational theory emphasizes a leader’s charisma as a personal quality of someone who is able to promote followers’ loyalty to the organization and to balance an individual’s wellbeing with that of the organization [ 22 , 23 , 30 , 31 ]. Since adaptivity is usually not imposed “from the top” but emerges from the bottom, transactional leaders are likely to contribute to the creation of a context that is conducive to adaptive behaviors, by clearly specifying and communicating performance expectations [ 32 ]. However, this seems to leave little executive autonomy to workers and it is the reason why there are few studies on the transactional leadership style and AP [ 33 ].

On the other hand, among contextual antecedents of AP, transformational leadership is one of the most investigated styles in literature [ 23 , 31 , 34 ]. Vera and Crossan, found that this style was particularly effective in situations of uncertainty, unpredictability and highly changing contexts, because it helped to create an organizational culture that valued adaptability and risk assumption by the members [ 35 ].

The emergent approaches: Servant, inclusive, authentic, humble and empowering leadership.

These emerging forms of leadership focus on ethical and moral aspects, interpersonal dynamics and how this relationship could translate into positive results, in relation to conformity with organizational objectives, increase in motivational aspects and pro-social behavior [ 36 ].

Servant leadership has been one of the most studied emerging leadership types [ 37 – 39 ]. Greenleaf, who was the first to develop the construct [ 40 ], argued that a servant leader has the natural predisposition to put followers’ needs before personal or organizational ones. Moreover, empathy, altruism and interest in the community are the elements that lead a servant leader’s actions [ 41 ]. The desire to help collaborators should not be confused with a servile attitude; what motivates servant leaders is their decision to put others before themselves, supporting the personal and professional growth of the latter through the exercise of leader power [ 42 ]. Concerning performance, servant leaders understand that effectiveness on performance largely depends on the degree of the followers’ involvement and motivation, and that the use of transparent, ethical and persuasive communication is functional to the enrichment of relationships and to the achievement of positive long-term results with the group [ 38 , 39 , 43 – 45 ].

Employees’ involvement is the principal feature of the inclusive leadership style [ 46 ]. Despite the difference in status, the inclusive leader is open and available, and his/her relationships with colleagues are friendly. Additionally, this type of leader values his/her colleagues’ differences, ideas and propositions; encourages them to share knowledge and expresses divergent thoughts thus contributing to consolidating the team’s sense of belonging and a safe work environment.

Accessibility, which is one of the hallmarks of authentic leadership, is representative of other forms of positive leadership, including the transformational, the servant and the ethical [ 47 , 48 ]. The authentic leader is one who has the ability to gain his/her followers’ respect by way of reliability, credibility and transparency, and he/she is functional to the establishment of an organizational culture that is based on transparency [ 48 , 49 ].

Recently the studies have focus on the concept of humility. Similarly to previous styles, the humble leadership is a collaborators-centered approach in which leader is empathic, interested in members growth, recognizing own personal limitations and appreciate collaborators contribution [ 50 ]. It is interesting to note that scholars found that this style contribute to promote the employee’ initiative both at individual and collective level, increasing proactive behaviors [ 50 – 52 ].

Finally, even if the empowering leadership focus on organizational results, this style was included in the emergent approaches because the leader creates an environment where responsibilities given to collaborators increase and where individual expression is encouraged, as well as a collaborative climate, collective decision-making and sharing of knowledge within the group [ 53 – 57 ]. For these reasons, this style is associated with positive individual and group outcomes, with an increase in group creativity as well as with adaptability and autonomy [ 53 ].

Members’ leadership: shared and self-leadership.

Companies show more interest in a multidisciplinary approach that promotes teamwork and this legalized the birth of an alternative model of leadership that, from a collective point of view, recognized the importance of the actions of all members.

Differently from leadership focused on a single figure, the leadership distributed among two or more individuals called shared leadership, is another perspective that meets the trend of a flat organizational structure, which is much less based on hierarchy and more centered on the transversality of roles and on skills’ overlapping. The core of shared leadership style is the interaction among group members and their mutual influence [ 58 , 59 ]; this social network leads them to work in a coordinated way to achieve the team’s organizational goals [ 60 ] and contribute to the improvement of complex task performance [ 58 ]. Some authors believed that group performance had improved because of shared leadership, as opposed to a single-figure leadership style [ 61 , 62 ] and that this positively affected the adaptive collective performance at the team level [ 62 ].

If the shared leadership is centered on collective and interactive dimensions, self-leadership is focused on processes of behavior monitoring, control and regulation, to achieve organizational goals [ 25 ] that allow a person to understand whether his/her performance falls within prefixed standards and help to keep his/her motivation high [ 63 ].

The principal features of leadership styles mentioned above are summarized in Table 1 .

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304720.t001

Starting from the aforesaid assumptions, this systematic review intends to: a) explore what forms of leadership included in recent literature are considered as antecedents of adaptive performance; b) understand and deepen their relationship with adaptivity in the workplace.

Materials and methods

Search strategy.

In order to identify the relationship between leadership and adaptive performance, a comprehensive systematic literature review was conducted following Davis and colleagues recommendations for systematic review and metanalysis in social sciences [ 73 ]. To locate relevant studies, we used multiple electronic databases including Scopus, Web of Science, APA PsychINFO and Emerald Insight databases. The databased’ exploration ended in February 2024. Search keywords were “adaptive performance” OR “adaptivity” AND “leadership”, and the Boolean operators we used were OR and AND in showed search combination. The search results included articles containing the above words in the title, abstract or keywords.

To minimize the reproducibility bias and ensure that the selected articles assessed the constructs of AP and Leadership, it was decided to not use the terms of “adaptive ability”, “adaptive expertise” and “adaptability”, as synonyms of adaptive performance, because, based on previous exploratory research, it emerged that the above terms mainly referred to cognitive aspects, personality traits, skills, attitudes and individual predisposition to adaptation [ 74 , 75 ]. This review aimed to focus on behavioral aspects of adaptivity in the workplace and both adaptive performance and adaptivity terms are the constructs that best highlight the behavioral aspects that are used to cope with work changes [ 16 , 17 , 19 ]. Therefore, as previously indicated, we consider adaptive performance as behavior and not from an ability perspective.

Eligibility criteria

The research team agreed into locate and select the studies that investigated the relationship between AP and leadership and that had been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Since the term “adaptive performance” appeared for the first time in 1999 [ 13 ], no restrictions on the year of publication were placed; furthermore, all the articles were relatively recent and none of the selected articles had a publication year prior to 2010. To select the studies to include in this review, researchers decided to follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA statements) guidelines [ 76 ].

The inclusion criteria were articles: (a) written in English, (b) published in peer-reviewed scientific journals or (c) conference papers, (d) that reported studies with quantitative measurements and correlation indexes of leadership style and AP, (e) featuring measurement instruments specifically designed to assess the variables of interest, and (f) that contained studies conducted in public or private organizations.

The exclusion criteria were: (a) studies not published in scientific journals, such as thesis reports or books; (b) theoretical qualitative or review articles; (c) articles reporting studies conducted in scholar contexts, measuring scholars’ adaptive performance; (d) studies assessing qualitatively AP and leadership style (e) or that quantitatively evaluated either one of it alone; (f) studies that did not measure the relationship between the two constructs and, finally, (g) the duplicate of articles found in different databases.

Study selection

The study selection was conducted by one author (AB) screening the title, abstract and keywords. A total of 358 articles were found through this literature research. The application of the eligibility criteria previously described reduced the number of articles to 76. Then, the first and the second author (CP), checked and reviewed the studies included on this first step. They agreed that 34 papers were deemed suitable for the review and 31 for the meta-analysis. The third author (MGM) supervised the process. Only two articles elicited indecision with respect to include or exclude it form the review. So, we calculated the Kappa score to estimate the level of agreement intra judges and it indicated an almost substantial agreement between the two authors (k = 0.725–95,24% of agreement). Fig 1 PRISMA flow chart representing the described screening process.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304720.g001

Data collection and coding

Two reviews revised any paper retrieved independently to check for agreement and increase the validity of the study coding. Then, they used Microsoft Excel 2019 program (For Mac version) to organize data extraction categorizing and together they decided to divided and classified each article selected for the review according to the leadership style investigated (see Table 2 ). Any discrepancies in reviewers’ classification were resolved by discussion.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304720.t002

Due to the heterogeneity of the studies found in the articles that had been selected, we chose to combine a qualitative narrative approach and a quantitative meta-analysis to explain the leadership and AP relationship.

Principal descriptive information of the studies included in review are reported in the follow paragraph titled: “Results: Article Description” and synthetized in Table 3 where Pearson’s r correlation coefficients were reported and used to determine the effect size for the meta-analysis (see Table 3 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304720.t003

Results: Articles description

All articles contained studies that investigated the relationship between leadership and adaptive AP; some of them read AP at the individual level (n. 24), while others measured it at the team level (n. 6) or at both levels (n. 3). Han and Williams, who studied the differences between individual performance and team adaptive performance, found that the two constructs were closely related, concluding that a high level of individual adaptivity extended to the team through members’ coordination and cooperation capacity.

Except for the studies of Kaltiainen and Hakanen [ 90 ] and Curado and Santos [ 78 ], which detected AP as a multidimensional construct, all studies explored AP as a mono-dimensional construct and the scales mostly used to assess job adaptivity were: Griffin, Neal and Parker’s scale [ 19 ] and Charbonnier-Voirin and Roussel’s scale [ 20 ].

As for the sample, the majority of the articles reported surveys that had been carried out on workers; only two surveys had collected data from students [ 80 , 86 ]. All of the studies were carried out in one or more organizations, with the exception of the one by Sanchez-Manzanares and colleagues [ 86 ], who conducted their research in an artificial context of simulation. In most of the cases, nr. 13, data were collected from private companies, 8 studies are conducted in public sector and 2 studies in enterprises of both sectors, private and public. With respect to the type of organizations involved, it ranges from textile and manufactory industry, bank financial and accounting firms, ICT/electronic firms, health care and human service sector organizations and hospitality industries. One article used an online crowdsourcing platform (MTurk) to collect data and 10 articles did not present sufficient elements for us to understand what type of organizations the data were collected from.

Finally, all the selected articles were recent, with the year of publication ranging from 2010 to 2024, and most of the studies was conducted in Europe (n. 12), followed by Asia (n. 17), North America (n. 4) and Africa (n.1).

Leadership and adaptive performance: The relationship

Many of the studies included not only additional designs aimed to analyze the primary relationship of interest, but also the covariate and moderators’ effects. Of the 34 articles included in our systematic review, the majority (n. 33) probed the relationship between a specific leadership style and employee AP and one focused on leader’s personality and leader’s adaptivity.

All articles we selected showed studies with a statistically significant relationship between leadership and AP (see Table 3 ). Regarding the direction of that relationship, only one study revealed a negative correlation between guidance coaching style and AP. As hypothesized by the authors, this could be because people who had received guidance coaching were “ less able to adjust their behaviors to respond to changed tasks and/or job environment” , as opposed to facilitator coaching, which encouraged the exploration and active learning that would help to cope with new experiences [ 83 ].

Seven articles included in our review linked transformational leadership with AP. As previously mentioned, this adaptation-facilitating style is one of the most widely studied in literature.

Two articles studied the subject of transformational leadership and AP in healthcare companies [ 78 , 82 ] by using respectively job satisfaction and organizational identification as principal mediators. Both founded the same positive results of transformational leadership on healthcare operators’ AP. Adams and Webster (2021), on the other hand, explored transformational leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic. They included the aforesaid leadership style as a control variable and took into consideration the leader’s gender, as a moderator in the relationship between task or relationship-oriented leadership and adaptivity [ 142 ]. The authors connected transformational task-oriented leadership behaviors and a leader’s Interpersonal Emotion Management (IEM) [ 143 ] with the AP of collaborators and their confidence towards the leader. The authors found that IEM mitigated, both directly and indirectly, the impact of negative emotions that employees faced during exceptional and unexpected job demands, which is typical of AP, when they trusted their leader, especially if the leader was a woman. Conversely, task-oriented behaviors seemed to directly influence AP in crisis situations, reducing uncertainty when collaborators were given clear and precise instructions on what to do, without affecting trust between leaders and followers.

Like the previous study, Lichtenthaler and Fischbach showed that employee-oriented leadership, through job crafting, had a greater positive effect on adaptivity than on proactive and task performance. On the other hand, the actions aimed at job crafting prevention had a negative impact on both the employees’ health and their performance. Wang, Demerouti and Le Blanch (2017) found that a positive relationship between transformational leadership and AP favor job crafting, however, organizational identification seemed to decrease the strength of the leadership-AP relationship, probably because the identification with transformational leader and the identification with the organization were mutually exclusive. Charbonnier-Voirin et colleagues [ 23 ] and Pratoom [ 79 ] studied transformational leadership at the collective level, as well as transformational leadership climate, as an organizational antecedent that influence adaptivity.

Two articles detected the relationship between transactional leadership and AP. Hoandră investigate AP at the team level and results highlighted that the contingent reward component of transactional leadership could improve the discussion among group members, when a specific task was to be solved rapidly thus encouraging an adaptive approach to sharing innovative strategies for problem solving and task execution [ 33 ]. While AlAbri and colleagues proposed transactional leadership as moderator between some HR Management practices, including performance appraisal, job enlargement, employee’ involvement, job enrichment and training finding that this style moderate only the relationship between job enrichment and AP probably because it focus on punishment and rewards [ 77 ]. Also Sanchez-Manzanares and colleagues [ 86 ] showed that a directive leadership style, which is similar to the transactional one, could have a better positive influence on AP than empowering leadership style, in an emergency situation but they explained the results by attributing them to the context of the experimental simulation, the participants’ unfamiliarity with the tasks and the time constraints; all contextual factors that could improve the influence of directive leadership on AP.

The Huntsman and colleagues’ studies [ 84 , 87 ], on the other hand, investigated the AP of firefighters who exercised in real organizational structures where job activities usually took place in situations of urgency and emergency. The authors explored the follower empowerment practices that allowed for professional growth, autonomy and possibility of individual expression with supervisors, discovering that these elements contributed to AP even in contexts where rigid hierarchical structures persisted. Similarly, Rousseau and Aubé [ 85 ], who worked with public companies that provided public safety services, showed that empowering leadership behaviors, implemented by superiors and perceived by team members, influenced the group’s adaptivity through the development of shared leadership and Xu and Zhang [ 56 ] stated that empowering leadership influence University Teachers ‘AP individually trough the mediating role of leader-member exchange (LMX) relationship [ 56 ].

Tung and Shih paper compare transformational and lasses-faire leadership style as moderators in shared leadership and AP relationship providing evidence that shared leadership is complementary to the “top down” styles and an perception of high transformational leadership is a facilitator of team adaptivity thanks to shared leadership while laissez-faire style decrease the shared leadership and the team AP too [ 81 ].

Five papers deepen the relationship between servant leadership and adaptive performance, in particular Balti and colleagues in a recent study detect that building a “servant leadership climate” in workplace, could influence emotional intelligence and contribute to individual adaptive performance development [ 92 ]. Kaltiainen and Hakanen developed a longitudinal design demonstrating that servant leadership involved improvements in stress management, as well as responsiveness, creativity and interpersonal adaptation, thanks to work engagement. In addition, seems that servant leadership influenced salespeople’s adaptivity, whether directly or indirectly, via the increase of self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation [ 8 ]. Similarly, Kaya and Keratepe [ 89 ] found that, on hotel personnel, servant leadership had a positive direct and indirect effect, through work engagement, on AP and Fu and colleagues [ 98 ] studying the same sector, found that a shared leadership influenced adaptivity trough proactive behavior.

Also the humble leadership had a positive relationship with AP on employee that work from remote [ 96 ] and the relationship among two constructs was mediated by self-determination [ 97 ].

Regarding self-leadership, Hauschildt and Konradt’s study [ 24 ] show a positive relationship both on team and individual AP and by Maden-Eyiusta and Alparslan [ 101 ] in their cross sectional and longitudinal studies in which they find a positive indirect effect of self-leadership on work from home employee task adaptivity trough psychological empowerment. Additionally, Marques-Quinteiro and colleagues [ 100 ], conducting a quasi-experimental research design in a bank during a crisis period, observed a positive relationship between self-leadership and individual AP, thanks to self-regulation strategies that had contributed to performance improvement. In particular, the results of a study that Marques-Quinteiro and Curral [ 63 ] carried out in a technology company, revealed that behavior-centered self-leadership strategies did not necessary promote AP. The explanation provided was that goal-focused strategies could be more functional to qualified and specialized human resources working in technological sectors, where high standards of performance are required, along with innovativeness and ability to anticipate changes. The coaching actions implemented by supervisors could increase the auto-regulation mechanisms, discovering that “facilitation-based coaching” had a positive effect on AP because it encouraged active exploration and self-learning strategies that could be used in new situations [ 83 ].

On the assumption that one of the elements that characterizes the organizational context is the increase in ambivalent job demands, Sparr, Knippenberg and Kearney [ 102 ] defined the construct of “ paradoxical leadership ” as the leader’s ability to balance directive and participative approaches and to make sense of opposite job demands. The authors demonstrated that paradoxical leadership helped people be predisposed to change, adaptivity and proactivity, through the mediation of change readiness .

Finally, only the study of Bajaba and colleagues [ 104 ] investigated the manager’s AP during the Covid-19 pandemic, arguing that leaders that had an adaptive personality adopted an adaptive attitude and were able to anticipate and make the necessary changes to help teams and collaborators deal with emergencies.

Qualitative discussion

All previously mentioned studies investigated in depth the strength of the relationship between leadership and AP, and our systematic review confirmed the positive influence that different styles of leadership have on adaptivity and proactive behaviors towards change.

A first consideration is that the influence of a leadership style could be related to the work sector. The servant style predominated in studies conducted in hotel management and in sales [ 8 , 90 ], where the achievement of organizational goals passed through the relationship with customers.

On the contrary, in emergency work situations requiring team rapidity and coordination, a directive approach not only allows employees to maintain high standards of performance, but also supports adaptivity [ 84 , 86 ]. Additionally, task-focused behaviors and contingent reward mechanisms are effective during crisis and in situations where there is a need for creative, yet quick, problem solving [ 10 ].

Our second consideration has to do with the role of individual and organizational mediators. At the individual level, the Self-leadership style and Self-regulation mechanisms, in fact, helped reduce negative perceptions and related resistances; furthermore, it directed attention on positive aspects that allowed for the development of constructive mental patterns, where planning and monitoring personal behaviors helped people adapt to changes [ 144 ].

Some individual factors, like work engagement, job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, vigor at work, absorptive capacity and self-efficacy, emotional intelligence, suggested that adaptivity was promoted by leadership as a motivational key. The transformational leader, for example, stimulates and encourages the use of new skills by creating an attractive vision of the future, inspiring their followers to take responsibilities and engage in extra role behaviors.

Another aspect was related to the shared assumption of leadership which seems to create the right conditions to facilitate adaptivity to new job demands. Relationship-oriented shared leadership, for example, had a direct and positive effect on job performance [ 99 ]. The opportunity for members to share leadership behaviors created a supportive climate that promoted proactivity and, in turn, stimulated adaptivity. Furthermore, by encouraging mutual trust, members developed a psychological safety net that was ideal for individual initiative and it encouraged group discussion on goals, strategies, processes and how to cope with new, unpredictable or paradoxical situations [ 85 , 98 ].

Meta-analysis: Effect coding and meta-analytical procedure

In order to statistically measure the relationship between leadership and AP, the effect sizes from 31 of the 34 articles that comprised our systematic review were included in the meta-analysis, supplying 52 different effect sizes from 32 samples (see Table 3 ).

Samples ranged from 52 to 2,453 participants, including 11,640 people in total. The mean percentage of women across the studies was 47% (k = 29) and the mean age across studies was 39.65 years ( SD = 4.52, only 13 papers reported this information). The Pearson correlation coefficient was considered as effect size. When global score of meta-analyzed constructs were not reported, we considered correlations among subscales as effect size.

We also planned to test moderation effect on the relationship between leadership and AP. More precisely, we considered 9 potential moderators, based on the assessment of three independent judges (two authors and one researcher) who reviewed the articles.

Firstly, we considered a “leadership group” as a moderator; we divided leadership into three macro groups, according to the literature [ 145 ], so to test the effect on AP: neo-charismatic theories, emergent approaches and members’ leadership.

The other 3 moderators were related to the measurement of AP and leadership: levels of AP measured (at the individual level vs the team level); the evaluation of AP (auto vs hetero) to differentiate between job performance measured by leader and by collaborators themselves; and leadership evaluation (auto-evaluated by managers or hetero-assessed by their followers).

We also included organizational features as moderators. We considered whether the study was conducted in a private or public organization, and the job sectors of the companies involved in the studies, divided into 4 macro-sectors: healthcare and human services; market services; manufacturing industries; and, finally, the mixed sector, which encompassed studies involving more than one organization belonging to different job sectors.

We also included organizational changes as moderators, since AP was tied to one’s ability to adapt to work variations [ 16 , 17 ]. Finally, we considered the research design (cross sectional vs longitudinal) and the coefficients (ß vs r).

To conduct our meta-analysis, we considered Pearson’s r as effect size. In three studies (5 effect sizes), the Pearson correlation coefficient was not reported, and regression coefficients were used and transformed into r following the Peterson and Brown’s (2005) formula. Correlation coefficients were corrected for small sample bias and then transformed into Fisher’s Z r . We performed a 3-level random meta-analysis that would take into account dependency among effect size [ 146 , 147 ]. More precisely, level 1 and level 2 referred to people nested in effect sizes and represented levels of classical meta-analysis. We added a further nesting level, considering a sample in which effect sizes were nested. This approach enabled us to take into account dependency across effect sizes coming from the same sample.

For moderation analysis purposes, we used a meta-regression procedure using dummy coding in case of categorial moderator with more than two levels. All meta-analytical procedures were done in R (R Core Team, 2021) and with the metafor Package [ 148 ].

Publication bias

Given the structure of analysis, we used a generalization of Egger’s regression test, so to test for publication bias. More precisely, we meta-regressed our outcome on two measures of precision, namely standard error of effect size and reciprocal of sample size.

Meta analytical results

Pooled effect.

The overall effect was significant, Z r = .39, SE = .04, p < .001. 95%CI [.32, .47], r = .37, indicating that leadership and AP were significantly and moderately correlated to each other. Influence analysis revealed that the effect size changed little (range Zr = 0.38 to 0.40) after every single study was excluded from the analysis.

However, heterogeneity in effect sizes was high, Q(df = 51) = 1045.34, p < .001, I 2 = 94.78%, which was mostly due to variance between samples (71.22%) and between effect size (2.3.56%). This indicates that the strength of the relationships between leadership and AP was variable across studies and suggesting that moderation would have occurred (see forest plot in Fig 2 ).

Box sizes represent the weight of each study in meta-analysis.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304720.g002

Moderation analysis

Table 4 reports our moderation analysis along with significance of effect of each moderator. As indicated, the only significant moderation was due to the kind of effect size considered, for which Pearson’s r tended to supply higher values than beta. It is worth noting that, self-evaluated leadership was more correlated with AP than hetero-evaluated leadership was, albeit this difference did not reach statistical significance. No other significant moderation appeared.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304720.t004

Finally, our publication bias analysis did not yield any significant results for both reciprocal of sample size, b = -2.27, SE = 9.27, t(50) = -0.25, p = .81, and standard error of effect size, b = -0.17, SE = 1.40, t(50) = 0.12, p = 0.90, thus suggesting no evident publication bias.

Meta-analysis discussion

Results indicated that, in line with our first hypothesis (H1), leadership had a positive effect on the promotion of adaptivity at work; it suggested that leadership supported the implementation of adaptive behaviors regardless of style chosen. Indeed, the direction of change in the organizational environment could be top-down, whenever it started from the management that provided guidelines on aims and methods of implementation; or it could be bottom-up whenever the change proposal came from the employees’ proactive process. Based on our meta-analysis results, it was possible to assume that leadership was functional to the achievement of adaptivity, whether it was exercised by top management or by the employees themselves (like shared and self-leadership styles).

Accordingly, Schmitt and colleagues [ 149 ] already stressed that motivation and personal initiative and activation are very important in adaptive performance and are aspects in which leadership can play an important role. Leadership helps employees not only to perform better in their tasks but also helps collaborators to get involved, to go beyond the prescribed tasks, to be responsible for the outcomes of the activity, as well as it encourages team members to express ideas and suggestions when adapting to changing organizational circumstances.

However, contrary to expectations, there was no evidence supporting the existence of a stronger relationship between one or more leadership styles and AP (H2) and there was no difference between more or less top-down styles (H3). This could be due to the different contexts in which studies had been conducted and the nature of work. Furthermore, the typology of organizational changes, in terms of structural, technological, emergent and cultural change, that employees faced can vary greatly, imposing very different styles and adaptivity behaviors.

Even though no differences had emerged from the leadership groups included in our research (neo-charismatic, emergent and members’ leadership) and the company sectors, as was expected from the systematic review, leadership self-evaluation tended to be more correlated with AP compared to hetero-evaluation. This could be due to the influence of social desirability and self-serving bias in self-assessing, which can induce someone to present a more favourable leadership style, as opposed to when it is assessed by others [ 150 – 152 ] or the style assessed through self-evaluation. Particularly, especially in shared and self-leadership, employees assess their own behavior monitoring and control, which personally involves them and their group. It is possible that these processes are the precursors to the activation of a proactive behavior which lead to achieve organizational goals.

Conclusions and future directions

In conclusion, while work adaptivity in the past primarily referred to prescribed role behaviors specified in job descriptions, today AP encompasses aspects of creativity, versatility, and stress management. The interdependence of organizational roles and the emphasis on teamwork have transformed the concept of adaptation, evolving it from solely an individual process to a collective form of performance [ 153 ]. The ability to manage emotions that arise during unpredictable situations and the ability to maintain an open channel of communication prove that leadership can support change [ 154 ].

It would seem more central, regardless of style, to the real involvement of the leader in a process of exchange, communication, and interdependency with collaborators [ 154 , 155 ].

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 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.

Future research should integrate a comprehensive longitudinal study design to explore the interplay between leadership styles, AP, and organizational culture. This study would quantify how leadership styles are influenced by organizational norms, rules, assumptions, beliefs, and values and how these factors promote or inhibit AP, compared with task and contextual performance [ 155 ]. Validated scales for leadership styles, a developed AP measurement, and organizational culture assessment tools should be employed. Furthermore, the attention paid to ethicability , as related to sustainable job performance, is growing and HR management practices are more attentive to employees’ wellbeing and development, being centered on human capital as one of the factors that contribute to a company’s growth. Future studies could investigate a type of AP that is sustainable over time and understand human limits, especially those connected with how to use and maintain psychological, personal and organizational resources that can ensure long-term sustainable AP [ 156 ]. Sustainability could be a new coordinate through which we can read the role of leadership in adaptive performance.

Study limitations

In order to generalize the findings, it will be necessary to expand with gray literature so to have additional leadership styles to include in the research and to compare. Furthermore, the heterogeneity of the studies compared and the intrinsic limitations of the measurement instruments used in the literature that was reviewed should be considered, in particular the differences between scales used in the studies on self or hetero- assessment. The review was not registered and a protocol review was not prepared.

Practical implications

The practical implications derived from the meta-analysis emphasize the critical role of leadership in enhancing AP within organizations. Given the absence of a one-size-fits-all leadership style for improving AP, organizations might benefit from adopting flexible leadership approaches. This adaptability allows leadership behaviors to be tailored to the team’s needs and the specific context of organizational changes.

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. 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.

Supporting information

S1 appendix. prisma checklist..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304720.s001

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