Presidential Scandal and Leadership: A Natural Laboratory Test of the Resiliency of President Clinton's Transformational Leadership During the Impeachment Crisis1

This study examined transformational and charismatic leadership assessments of President Clinton over 4 time periods beginning with his second term, continuing through the scandal of the Monica Lewinsky case and impeachment trial, and ending after he was acquitted. Our findings indicate that as the scandal unfolded, in general his leadership ratings declined among Democrats, Republicans, and “Others” (including Independents). However, his ratings did not decline at the same rate among all groups. They appeared to decline much more steeply with Republicans than with the other 2 groups. We discuss the differences in rates of decline among different factors of transformational leadership and the implications of the study for future research.