Substitutes for Leadership Theory: Kerr and Jermier's Model Explained

By Tara Minh · Updated Oct 11, 2026

Substitutes for leadership theory, proposed by Steven Kerr and John Jermier in 1978, says that some characteristics of the people, the task, and the organization make a manager's direction unnecessary (substitutes), and others make it ineffective (neutralizers). It flips the usual question. Instead of asking which leadership style works, it asks when leader behavior matters at all.

Most leadership models assume a leader is always doing something useful, and the only debate is which style fits. Kerr and Jermier asked whether the situation might already be doing the leader's job. A team of experienced specialists with clear goals and satisfying work doesn't need much steering. And a manager with no control over pay, promotions, or tools can't steer even when they want to.

What Is Substitutes for Leadership Theory?

Key Facts

• Kerr and Jermier published the theory in 1978 as "Substitutes for leadership: Their meaning and measurement", in Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, volume 22, issue 3, pages 375-403.
• The authors argued that certain individual, task, and organizational variables can neutralize a superior's influence, "negating the hierarchical superior's ability to exert either positive or negative influence" on subordinates' attitudes and effectiveness.
• A later study describes the model as built on 13 variables that Kerr and Jermier proposed.
• Podsakoff and MacKenzie built revised scales to measure the substitutes, tested on two samples of 411 and 1,235 respondents, and found both revised versions outperformed the original scale.
• A large test of the moderating effects, covering 49 organizations and 940 subordinates rating 156 leaders, did not support them and concluded that leadership matters.

Kerr and Jermier started from a shared assumption in the leadership theories of their day. Those theories differ in important ways, but they all seek to explain the influence of the hierarchical superior on subordinates' satisfaction and performance. Contingency models such as the Fiedler contingency model and path-goal theory say the best style depends on the situation. Kerr and Jermier pushed that logic one step further: sometimes the situation makes the style beside the point.

Two terms carry the whole model.

• Substitute: a feature of the situation that makes leader behavior unnecessary because it already provides what the leader would have provided, such as direction, clarity, or motivation.
• Neutralizer: a feature of the situation that stops the leader from having an effect, even if the leader tries hard.

The difference is easy to blur, so hold on to this test. If the work goes fine without the leader's input, you're looking at a substitute. If the leader's input would help but can't land, you're looking at a neutralizer.

The Two Leader Behaviors the Model Covers

The theory is built around the two broad kinds of leader behavior that dominated research in the 1970s: relationship-oriented behavior (support, consideration, concern for people) and task-oriented behavior (direction, structure, clarifying what to do and how). The same two dimensions run through the behavioral leadership theories that came before.

That pairing is the core of how you use the model. For any situation, you ask two separate questions:

1. Does something in this situation already supply support, so the leader's warmth adds little?
2. Does something in this situation already supply direction, so the leader's instructions add little?

A highly skilled team might not need task direction, yet still benefit from support during a crunch. A rigid rulebook might supply plenty of structure while leaving people wanting recognition. The model works best when you check both behaviors rather than declaring a leader "unnecessary" across the board.

Substitutes: When the Situation Does the Leading

Kerr and Jermier grouped their variables by where they come from: the subordinate, the task, and the organization. A widely used OpenStax textbook chapter gives examples of the three groups:

These examples come from the OpenStax Organizational Behavior chapter on substitutes and neutralizers, which also cites a leaderless orchestra as an example of organizational design doing the work.

The pattern is easy to see in everyday work. A senior accountant closing the books doesn't need a manager reminding her which steps come next. A line of code reviewers with a written checklist don't need someone to define "done." A hospital team that has trained together for years coordinates through habit.

Two things are worth taking from this.

First, a substitute doesn't mean the manager has no job. It means that particular leader behavior is redundant in that setting. Energy spent supplying it is wasted, and sometimes irritating, since experienced people often read excess direction as distrust.

Second, you can build substitutes on purpose. Training raises ability. Clear procedures supply structure. Well-designed work supplies motivation. That last point connects directly to the job characteristics model, which explains how to design work that motivates people from the inside.

Neutralizers: When the Leader Can't Land the Punch

Neutralizers are the other half. The same OpenStax chapter says neutralizers prevent leaders from acting as they wish, and gives two examples:

• A computer-paced assembly line stops a leader from using initiating-structure behavior to set the pace.
• A union contract tying pay to seniority stops a leader from giving merit-based pay.

The same source adds a useful caveat: neutralizers aren't always bad. Union contracts, for instance, can clarify disciplinary procedures and the responsibilities of management and labor.

Think about how many modern workplaces create neutralizers by accident:

• A sales manager is told to improve rep performance but can't change comp plans, territories, or quotas.
• An operations lead is asked to coach a team, yet an automated scheduling tool sets every shift.
• A project manager has responsibility for delivery but no say over who joins the team.
• A manager sits in a different time zone from the team and sees only a weekly report.

In each case the leader may be capable and willing. The structure around them blocks the lever. The fix is rarely "lead harder." It's to remove the block, which the OpenStax chapter frames as recognizing neutralizers, removing the harmful ones (for example, by building a better communication system), and making use of the helpful ones.

Substitutes vs Neutralizers at a Glance

A note on a third idea that appears in some textbooks. Some writers add "enhancers" for situations that amplify a leader's effect. That's a later extension, not part of the original 1978 framing, so don't treat it as settled doctrine.

How the Theory Compares With Other Leadership Models

Substitutes for leadership belongs to the contingency family but behaves differently from its relatives. Most contingency models tell the leader what to do. This one tells the organization when leader behavior is the wrong investment.

For a broader view of how these theories relate, read the overview of contingency leadership theory and the piece on contingency vs situational leadership.

The practical difference: path-goal and Hersey-Blanchard ask the leader to adapt. Substitutes for leadership asks the leader to look around first, since the environment may have already adapted.

What Later Research Found

Here's the awkward part. The theory is intuitive and widely taught, but testing it has been harder than explaining it.

Better measurement. The original scales had weaknesses. Podsakoff and MacKenzie developed revised and reduced versions and tested them with confirmatory factor analysis on two samples of 411 and 1,235 respondents. Both versions were reasonably reliable and valid, and both outperformed Kerr and Jermier's original scale.

The moderator problem. The theory predicts that substitutes should change how strongly leader behavior affects outcomes (a moderating effect). Dionne, Yammarino, Atwater, and James tested this in 2002 with data from 49 organizations, with 940 subordinates rating 156 leaders. Their results generally did not support the moderator or mediator hypotheses, showed that leadership matters, and led the authors to suggest that earlier significant findings may have been a statistical artifact of common-source bias. In plain language: when the same people rate both the leader and the substitutes, their answers can correlate for reasons unrelated to the theory.

A methodological defense. Not everyone reads that as a failure of the idea. Wu (2010) argued that the interactions have rarely been supported, in part because of the restricted range of earlier samples. Using a broader sample, the study found support for the interactions and concluded the original model isn't necessarily wrong and that the methods used to test it were the problem.

Direct effects on work outcomes. Even when the interaction tests struggle, substitutes seem to matter on their own. In a study of 130 knowledge workers in China, 7 of the 13 variables in Kerr and Jermier's model had positive effects on job satisfaction and performance.

A meta-analysis by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, and Bommer also exists, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology in 1996 (volume 81, issue 4, pages 380-399), examining how the substitutes relate to job attitudes, role perceptions, and performance. It's the standard reference if you want the full evidence base, and it's worth reading in the original.

What to take from the evidence. Treat the theory as a diagnostic lens, not a precise prediction machine. The strict statistical claim (substitutes change the strength of leader effects) has a mixed record. The practical claim (situation features shape how much leaders need to do) sits comfortably next to evidence that things like skill, task design, and clear rules affect performance directly. And the Dionne study's blunt message that leadership matters is a good guard against concluding that you can simply remove managers.

How to Use the Model Step by Step

You can run a basic substitutes audit in an hour with a small group.

1. Pick one team and one leader behavior. Start with either support or direction, not both. Ask what you'd want a manager to provide.
2. List what the team has today. Go through the three sources: people, task, organization. Note skills, experience, how interesting and clear the work is, and what rules, tools, and structure exist.
3. Mark each item as a substitute, a neutralizer, or neither. A substitute supplies the behavior already. A neutralizer blocks the leader from supplying it.
4. Check for gaps. If no substitute covers a needed behavior and the leader is free to act, that's where leader time pays off most.
5. Check for blocks. If the leader should act but a neutralizer stops them, decide whether to remove it, work around it, or accept it.
6. Redirect leader time. Where substitutes cover the need, move management attention elsewhere. Resist the urge to add oversight just because the manager has spare time.
7. Revisit after a change. New hires, a new tool, or a reorganization can create substitutes or neutralizers overnight.

Substitutes and Neutralizers Audit Template

Copy this table and fill it in for one team. Use the right-hand columns to decide where leadership effort goes.

Keep the evidence column concrete: what do you see people doing without being told? A feature with no observable evidence is a guess, not a substitute.

Examples by Business Function

These are illustrative scenarios, not case studies.

Sales. A team of experienced account executives with a documented sales process and a clear quota needs little task direction. The manager's time is better spent on deal strategy and support during hard quarters. A neutralizer appears when the manager cannot touch compensation or territory design, so rewarding top performance isn't in their power.

Operations. On a warehouse floor, standard operating procedures and scanning systems supply structure, so supervisors don't need to direct each step. A computer-paced line can neutralize a supervisor's attempts to adjust speed for a struggling new hire.

HR. A seasoned recruiting team that shares a strong team norm about candidate response times needs little oversight on that behavior. A rigid approval chain that the HR lead cannot change can neutralize their ability to move quickly on offers.

Product and engineering. Senior engineers with automated tests, code review rules, and clear specs hold their own quality bar. But for a junior engineer, those same substitutes may not exist yet, so the lead still needs to supply direction and feedback. This is why the model works at the level of the situation, not the job title.

Customer success. Agents who find the work meaningful and use a clear escalation playbook need less direction. Remote managers who only see ticket dashboards may find their support behavior neutralized by distance, and need a deliberate check-in routine to make up for it. Pair that with psychological safety, so people actually raise problems when no one is watching over their shoulder.

Do's and Don'ts

Limitations to Keep in Mind

• The statistical evidence for moderation is mixed. As the research above shows, large tests of the interaction effects have not supported them, and common-source bias is a live concern.
• It focuses on two behaviors. Relationship-oriented and task-oriented behavior don't cover everything leaders do, such as vision, change, or ethics. Newer ideas like transformational leadership address a different layer.
• Substitutes can be fragile. A team that runs well on skill and habit can lose its substitutes fast when key people leave.
• Absence of a leader isn't the goal. The point is matching leader effort to need, not shrinking management.

Substitutes for leadership theory is a useful check before you add a layer of management or blame one. Look at what the people, the task, and the structure already supply, and look at what blocks your leaders from acting. Then spend leadership effort where the situation leaves a real gap.