What Does Leaders' Character Add to Transformational Leadership?

The influence of leaders' character (e.g., integrity, humility/forgiveness) has rarely been examined in leadership research. The current investigation focused on the impact of integrity and humility/forgiveness on both followers' perceptions of leaders' worthiness of being followed (WBF) and stress. Results from a scenario experiment (n = 347) and a field study (n = 110) indicated that these aspects incrementally predict WBF above and beyond the impact of transformational leadership. Similar results were found concerning followers' stress with the exception of leader integrity in the field study. According to relative importance analyses, integrity and transformational leadership predict WBF equally well. The results have conceivable implications for human resources (personnel selection and development). Future research should examine additional outcome variables that are affected by certain leader characteristics as well as potential negative effects of the examined character aspects.     

Transformational and Transactional Leadership and Followers’ Achievement Goals

Purpose

Achievement goals, or the standards of competence employees pursue in their work, have far-reaching consequences for employee and organizational functioning. In the current research, we investigated whether employees’ achievement goals can be predicted from their supervisor’s leadership style.

Design/Methodology/Approach

A multilevel study was conducted in which followers of 120 organizational leaders completed measures of their leader’s transformational leadership (focusing on individual needs and abilities, on intellectual development, and on a common team mission), transactional leadership (focusing on monitoring and achievement-related rewards), and their own mastery goals (aimed at learning, developing, and mastering job-relevant skills), and performance goals (aimed at doing better than others).

Findings

Group-level transformational leadership predicted followers’ mastery goals, whereas group-level transactional leadership predicted followers’ performance goals. Within-group differences in transformational leadership also predicted mastery goals.

Implications

These findings suggest that leadership style plays an important role in the achievement goals followers adopt. Organizations may promote transactional leadership in contexts requiring that employees outperform others. In contrast, in contexts requiring learning and development, organizations may promote transformational leadership.

Originality/Value

This research is the first to examine the relationships between leadership styles and specific follower goals, and the first to highlight the role of leadership as a social variable involved in employees’ adoption of achievement goals.     

Transformational Change—Based on the Model of Virginia Satir

Transformational change using the basic constructs of the Satir Process Model provides a road map for assisting individuals, couples, and families through a transformational shift in their basic belief or understanding of themselves. The process of change is a way to assist people in making choices that increase self-esteem, provide self-accountability, and move a person toward a more congruent sense of self. The transformation that is experienced is an internal process where the universal yearnings to be loved, acknowledged, and accepted can be met by the individual self.     

Transformational Leadership and Followers’ Objective Performance Over Time: Insights From German Basketball

The purpose of this present study is to gauge the usefulness of head coaches’ transformational leadership in predicting followers’ individual, objectively measured performance development over time. The sample encompassed data on 22 coaches and 200 players from German professional basketball. Each player's performance was captured for approximately 20 subsequent games resulting in a sample of 3,905 measurement points. Our analyses revealed significant effects from transformational leadership facets of Articulating a Vision, Fostering the Acceptance of Group Goals, and Providing Individualized Consideration on the development of players’ performance over time.     

When Does Soldier Patriotism or Nationalism Matter? The Role of Transformational Small‐Unit Leaders

Patriotism and nationalism, 2 sets of attitudes often associated with the military, are examined in relation to perceived combat readiness and intention to remain in military service. Transformational leadership served as an intervening variable in these relationships. Survey data obtained from a sample of Army National Guard soldiers (N = 415) were used to examine relationships. Among junior‐ranking enlisted soldiers, both patriotism and nationalism showed significant, positive associations with perceived combat readiness and intention to remain in military service. The structural equation model fit soldiers' nationalistic attitudes best, having a considerable indirect effect through transformational leadership on perceived combat readiness. Implications of nationalistic and patriotic attitudes combined with charismatic leaders to benefit soldier readiness and retention are discussed.     

When is educational specialization heterogeneity related to creativity in research and development teams? Transformational leadership as a moderator

The authors examined conditions under which teams' educational specialization heterogeneity was positively related to team creativity. Using a sample of 75 research and development teams, the authors theorized and found that transformational leadership and educational specialization heterogeneity interacted to affect team creativity in such a way that when transformational leadership was high, teams with greater educational specialization heterogeneity exhibited greater team creativity. In addition, teams' creative efficacy mediated this moderated relationship among educational specialization heterogeneity, transformational leadership, and team creativity. The authors discuss the implications of these results for research and practice.     

How Do Happy Leaders Enhance Team Success? The Mediating Roles of Transformational Leadership,Group Affective Tone,and Team Processes1

Extending previous research regarding the relationship between leader positive moods and team performance, the present study examined 2 mediating mechanisms that explain the leader positive moods–team performance linkage: transformational leadership, and positive group affective tone. Data were collected from 85 sales teams (85 team leaders, 365 team members). Structural equation modeling analyses were performed to test the hypotheses. The results showed that leader positive moods not only directly enhanced team performance, but also indirectly led to improved team performance through the explicit mediating process (i.e., transformational leadership) and the implicit mediating process (i.e., positive group affective tone). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Relationships among Coach Leadership,Peer Leadership,and Adolescent Athletes’ Psychosocial and Team Outcomes: A Test of Transformational Leadership Theory

Transformational leadership theory provided a framework to examine the relationships of coach and peer leadership with individual and team outcomes among team sport athletes. Adolescent female soccer players (N = 412) completed measures assessing coach and teammate transformational leadership behaviors, perceived competence, intrinsic motivation, enjoyment, team cohesion, and collective efficacy. Structural equation modeling revealed that coach leadership was more influential than peer leadership for predicting individual outcomes and collective efficacy, peer leadership was more strongly related to social cohesion than coach leadership, and both peer and coach leadership were equally important for task cohesion. Results are discussed relative to the viability of using transformational leadership theory to understand coach and athlete leadership in the sport domain.     

The Moderating Roles of Perceived Task Interdependence and Team Size in Transformational Leadership’s Relation to Team Identification: A Dimensional Analysis

This study is aimed at investigating perceived task interdependence and team size as contingencies for team leaders’ transformational leadership influence on team identification. Data were obtained from a two-phase survey among 234 employees from ten multinational pharmaceutical subsidiaries in South Korea. Each dimension of transformational leadership by team leaders relates positively to team identification. However, the impact of leadership dimensions on team identification is attenuated by distinct moderator(s): charisma by higher perceived task interdependence, individualized consideration by larger team size, and intellectual stimulation by higher perceived task interdependence or larger team size. This study’s findings help us develop a more nuanced understanding of how transformational leadership operates. This study illustrates that team leaders’ transformational influence on team identification fluctuates, depending on the team structure. Such knowledge may help inform team leader development and team-structuring strategies used by practitioners and may contribute to improving organizational team effectiveness. This is one of the first studies showing evidence that the influence of the dimensions of transformational leadership is contingent upon distinct moderators, thereby contributing to advancing the theory of transformational leadership. Further, this study, by investigating team structure as a contingency of the transformational leadership-team identification relationship, complements previous research that focused on follower characteristics. Additionally, our explicit attention to the team as both the context of leaders’ action and the target of employee identification helps us gain a more concrete understanding of team leadership and team development issues, which are particularly salient in the highly competitive pharmaceutical industry.