Exploring leadership behavior and its effectiveness is a topic of great concern in the field of organizational management. Recent research has begun to explore the effectiveness of leadership behavior from the perspective of follower attributions. However, they have examined different attribution contents, adopted different interpretation mechanisms and demonstrated different functional forms, which makes the research from this perspective into different schools and lacks dialogue with each other. This is not conducive to promoting the integration and development of attribution theory and leadership research, nor is it conducive for enterprises and managers to master and intervene in follower attributions.

This paper integrates the disparate research into a systematic framework through the analysis of 42 literatures. To be specific, we propose that followers make attributions about the positive, negative and neutral behaviors of leaders. Attribution-toward-person and attribution-toward-situation are the two basic forms of attribution. Further, attribution-toward-person is divided into six categories based on its nature and orientation. The effect of follower attributions is closely related to its nature. The general principle is that positive attributions from followers bring positive reactions, while negative attributions from followers bring negative reactions. Follower attributions work through five mechanisms: emotion, motivation, evaluation, reciprocity, and resource. Based on the framework, this paper puts forward future directions from four perspectives: deeply integrating the attribution theory, enriching the functional form of follower attributions, expanding the functional effect of follower attributions, and improving the functional mechanism of follower attribution, so as to inspire academic research and guide management practice.

The contributions of this paper are that: First, by integrating the research on follower attributions of leadership behavior, it helps scholars sort out the existing context of this research perspective. Second, it refines the multidimensional follower attribution framework and presents the application of attribution theory in the leadership research. Third, it points out the possible directions to promote the integration and development of leadership and attribution theory. Fourth, it provides enlightenment for the organization to improve the effectiveness of leadership and provides experience-based guidance for the management of follower attributions.