{"id":640,"date":"2026-10-09T06:18:51","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T06:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.journals.utgjiu.ro\/JES\/?post_type=articol&#038;p=640"},"modified":"2026-10-09T06:18:51","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T06:18:51","slug":"the-heroic-diffuse-leadership-paradox-vertical-trust-and-horizontal-collaboration-in-a-romanian-retail-organization-2","status":"publish","type":"articol","link":"https:\/\/www.journals.utgjiu.ro\/JES\/articol\/the-heroic-diffuse-leadership-paradox-vertical-trust-and-horizontal-collaboration-in-a-romanian-retail-organization-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Heroic\u2013Diffuse Leadership Paradox: Vertical Trust and Horizontal Collaboration in a Romanian Retail Organization"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This paper investigates the tension between two contrasting organizational leadership paradigms: heroic leadership, centred on the vertical relationship with the hierarchical superior, and diffuse leadership, understood as a distributed process among team members. The analysis draws on an engagement survey administered to 99 employees of a multi-location retail organization in Romania between 9\u201329 March 2020, a window overlapping the WHO declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic (11 March). Two composite indices were constructed from 17 questionnaire items with excellent reliability (Cronbach&#8217;s \u03b1 = 0.92 for the heroic index; \u03b1 = 0.89 for the diffuse index). Results reveal a significant asymmetry between the two dimensions (M_heroic = 4.32; M_diffuse = 3.96; t(95) = 7.50; p &lt; 0.001; d = 0.77), with 75 of 96 respondents scoring higher on the heroic index, confirming a pattern of strong vertical trust alongside more cautiously evaluated horizontal collaboration. Multiple regression analyses show that when both predictors are entered simultaneously, only the diffuse leadership index retains a significant unique association with employee engagement (B = 0.61; \u03b2 = 0.64; p &lt; 0.001) and overall satisfaction (B = 0.84; \u03b2 = 0.39; p = 0.021). Subdimension decomposition identifies peer cohesion and voice, understood as meaningful participation in decision-making, as the predictors carrying the most specific explanatory weight. An exploratory pre-\/post-state of emergency comparison, subject to explicit methodological caveats given the small post sub-sample (n = 23) and the absence of statistical significance, suggests a descriptive trend compatible with a centralisation of perception toward senior management under conditions of acute uncertainty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"class_list":["post-640","articol","type-articol","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.journals.utgjiu.ro\/JES\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articol\/640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.journals.utgjiu.ro\/JES\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articol"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.journals.utgjiu.ro\/JES\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articol"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.journals.utgjiu.ro\/JES\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}