Ethics,character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior

The morality of transformational leadership has been sharply questioned, particularly by libertarians, “grass roots” theorists, and organizational development consultants. This paper argues that to be truly transformational, leadership must be grounded in moral foundations. The four components of authentic transformational leadership (idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration) are contrasted with their counterfeits in dissembling pseudo-transformational leadership on the basis of (1) the moral character of the leaders and their concerns for self and others; (2) the ethical values embedded in the leaders' vision, articulation, and program, which followers can embrace or reject; and (3) the morality of the processes of social ethical choices and action in which the leaders and followers engage and collectively pursue.The literature on transformational leadership is linked to the long-standing literature on virtue and moral character, as exemplified by Socratic and Confucian typologies. It is related as well to the major themes of the modern Western ethical agenda: liberty, utility, and distributive justice Deception, sophistry, and pretense are examined alongside issues of transcendence, agency, trust, striving for congruence in values, cooperative action, power, persuasion, and corporate governance to establish the strategic and moral foundations of authentic transformational leadership.     

The relative impact of complementary leader behaviors: Which matter most?

Despite conceptual overlap between the transformational–transactional model of leadership and the Ohio State two-factor model (i.e., Consideration and Initiating Structure), no systematic research examines correspondence among these behaviors or estimates their relative validities across a common set of outcomes. The current studies a) examine the factor structure of five key dimensions of these two models (transformational, contingent reward, laissez faire, Initiating Structure, and Consideration) and b) estimate relative validities with respect to two organizational outcomes: employee job satisfaction and perceptions of leadership effectiveness. Although results of a meta-analysis show that transformational leadership is significantly related to both Consideration (ρ = .74) and Initiating Structure (ρ = .50), results of two primary studies provide support for the independence of these leadership dimensions. Moreover, dominance analyses (Budescu, 1993) reveal that Consideration and transformational leadership are the most important predictors of employee job satisfaction and ratings of leadership effectiveness, and each had incremental validity when controlling for the effects of the other. Overall, results suggest that dimensions from both models are important predictors of employee outcomes.     

Transactive Goal Dynamics Theory: A relational goals perspective on work teams and leadership

Transactive Goal Dynamics (TGD) Theory is a multi-level, relational theory of goal pursuit that can be used to understand behavior within organizational teams. The theory describes the nature of goal-related interdependence (called transactive density) within dyads and groups, and predicts when transactive density will have positive versus negative consequences for goal-related outcomes. TGD Theory states that within many close dyads and teams, individuals’ goals, pursuits, and outcomes come to affect each other in a dense network of goal-related interdependence, with the individuals possessing and pursuing goals oriented toward themselves, other members of the system, and the system as a whole. This article discusses novel implications of the theory for the understanding of organizational teams and team leadership, and constraints on relational dynamics within organizational contexts.     

Inconsistent style of leadership as a predictor of safety behaviour

Abstract

Research on the effects of passive rather than transformational styles of leadership is limited, especially regarding safety-related outcomes in the workplace. Both styles of leadership can be exhibited at different times in the same individual; here we refer to this as inconsistent leadership. In this study, we examine the effect of inconsistent safety-specific leadership style on the safety participation and safety compliance of employees. Operationalized as the interaction of safety-specific transformational leadership and passive leadership, inconsistent safety leadership emerged as a significant predictor of both outcomes in two samples in Canada: a sample of 241 young workers and again in a sample of 491 older workers, who were long-term health care employees. We found that a transformational safety-specific leadership style was associated with greater safety compliance and safety participation in employees. Furthermore, in all cases, the predictive effect of transformational style of leadership on safety participation and safety compliance was attenuated when leaders also displayed passive leadership with respect to safety outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications for safety management are discussed.     

CEO transformational leadership and organizational outcomes: The mediating role of human–capital-enhancing human resource management

Using a field survey and company data of 170 firms in Singapore, we tested an integrated theoretical model relating CEO transformational leadership (TL), human–capital-enhancing human resource management (HRM), and organizational outcomes, including subjective assessment of organizational performance, absenteeism, and average sales. We found that human–capital-enhancing HRM fully mediates the relationship between CEO transformational leadership and subjective assessment of organizational outcomes and partially mediates the relationship between CEO transformational leadership and absenteeism. We discuss practical and theoretical implications.     

Transformational leadership and follower creativity: The mediating role of follower relational identification and the moderating role of leader creativity expectations

We examined follower relational identification with the leader as a mediator and follower perceptions of leader creativity expectations as a moderator in the relationship between transformational leadership and follower creativity. Using a sample of 420 leader–follower dyads from an energy company in mainland China, we found that follower relational identification with the leader mediates the transformational leadership–follower creativity relationship, and this mediating relationship is conditional on the moderator variable of follower perceptions of leader creativity expectations for the path from follower relational identification to follower creativity. These results contribute to the literature by clarifying why (through relational identification) and when (high creativity expectations set by the leader) transformational leadership is positively related to follower creativity.     

Leadership behaviour and leader self-reported well-being: A review,integration and meta-analytic examination

ABSTRACT

While the link between leadership and follower well-being is well established, less is known about the relation between leaders’ leadership behaviour and their own well-being. Particularly, a systematic integration of existing studies is missing. Based on an integrated framework summarising major theories on the leader well-being–leadership link, we quantitatively synthesised findings on the relations between different leadership behaviours and leader well-being indicators. The meta-analytical results (95 effect sizes; N?=?12,617) confirmed significant relationships of constructive and destructive leadership with leader well-being in the expected directions. Relative weight analyses on the constructive leadership behaviours showed that change-oriented and relational-oriented leadership (e.g. transformational, participative) accounted for more variance in leader well-being than task-oriented leadership (e.g. transactional). Regarding destructive leadership, active destructive leadership (e.g. abusive supervision) showed stronger negative associations with leader well-being than passive leadership (e.g. laissez-faire). Based on our integrated framework, we proposed and found support for divergent patterns of associations for different forms of well-being (positive vs. negative, short-term vs. long-term, job-related vs. general). Our study demonstrates a considerable linkage between leader well-being and leadership, supporting the adoption of leadership development programmes and organisational health interventions for leaders given their impact on employees, teams and organisations.     

变革型领导与下属工作绩效及组织承诺:心理资本的中介作用

探讨变革型领导影响下属的深层心理作用机制,即变革型领导是否会通过下属心理资本的中介作用对下属工作绩效和组织承诺产生影响。以230位MBA学员为样本,采用结构方程模型的方法分析了变革型领导行为、下属工作绩效、组织承诺以及下属心理资本各维度间的关系。研究结果表明,下属心理资本中的自我效能、希望和恢复力对变革型领导行为与下属工作绩效的关系起到中介作用;下属心理资本中的自我效能和恢复力对变革型领导行为与下属组织承诺的关系起到中介作用。     

The diversity gap in leadership: What are we missing in current theorizing?

Relational models of organizational inequalities offer numerous insights around the role of micro, meso and macro processes that drive differential progress of diverse individuals into senior leadership roles. We propose that the Bourdieusian relational framework of capital, habitus and field, and Bourdieu's conception of symbolic violence, provide a powerful explanatory lens for understanding the continuing lack of diversity among our corporate leaders. In applying this framework, we highlight critical shortcomings in current conceptions of leadership development and significant implications for leadership theory. We highlight the ways in which gendered and racialized structures are created and reinforced preventing access to opportunities for corporate leadership to diverse individuals. Future leadership theorizing needs to place greater attention upon the context in which development occurs, how valuable capital comes to be prescribed, as well as the forces at work in generating structures that perpetuate differential access to the capital necessary to progress as leaders.     

Relational Leadership Theory: Exploring the social processes of leadership and organizing

Relational leadership is a relatively new term in the leadership literature, and because of this, its meaning is open to interpretation. In the present article I describe two perspectives of relational leadership: an entity perspective that focuses on identifying attributes of individuals as they engage in interpersonal relationships, and a relational perspective that views leadership as a process of social construction through which certain understandings of leadership come about and are given privileged ontology. These approaches can be complementary, but their implications for study and practice are quite different. After reviewing leadership research relative to these two perspectives I offer Relational Leadership Theory (RLT) as an overarching framework for the study of leadership as a social influence process through which emergent coordination (e.g., evolving social order) and change (e.g., new approaches, values, attitudes, behaviors, ideologies) are constructed and produced. This framework addresses relationships both as an outcome of investigation (e.g., How are leadership relationships produced?) and a context for action (e.g., How do relational dynamics contribute to structuring?). RLT draws from both entity and relational ontologies and methodologies to more fully explore the relational dynamics of leadership and organizing.     

The depleted leader: The influence of leaders' diminished psychological resources on leadership behaviors

While much is understood about the outcomes of different leadership styles, less is known about the antecedents of leadership, particularly with regards to how leaders' own psychological well-being impacts leadership behaviors. Using conservation of resources theory as a framework, we investigated the relationship between leaders' depleted resources and their leadership behaviors. Conceptualizing depressive symptoms, anxiety, and workplace alcohol consumption as resource depletion, we predicted that depletion would be associated with lower levels of transformational leadership, and higher levels of abusive supervision, and when taken together, would further exacerbate these effects on leadership behaviors. In a study of 172 leader–subordinate pairs, leaders' depressive symptoms, anxiety, and workplace alcohol consumption separately predicted lower transformational leadership, and higher abusive supervision. Furthermore, partial support was found for an exacerbating effect on transformational leadership and abusive supervision.     

The downside of transformational leadership when encouraging followers to network

Network scholars argue that one responsibility of leaders is to help their followers develop social capital. We suggest that one way leaders do this is by encouraging followers to engage in networking behavior. However, we argue that such encouragement is more effective when leaders are seen as less transformational, because followers are then less able to benefit from their leaders’ social capital. We support our arguments with a study of 142 followers and their leaders. Our findings show that followers engage in greater networking behaviors when encouraged by their leaders to do so, but this association is moderated by leaders’ transformational leadership style such that it is stronger as transformational leadership behaviors decrease. We thus introduce an unrecognized cost of leaders’ transformational leadership behaviors. Our findings contribute to research on networking behavior by investigating the role of transformational leadership style, and suggest avenues for research linking social capital and leadership.     

Customer incivility and employee well-being: testing the moderating effects of meaning,perspective taking and transformational leadership

This study investigated factors that influence the relationship between experiencing customer incivility and the psychological well-being of employees in the service industry (N?=?215). Using the cognitive appraisal theory of stress, we identified and tested three factors that may buffer employees from the negative effects of customer incivility: finding meaning in work, perspective taking, and transformational leadership of supervisors. Transformational leadership was found to moderate the relationship between customer incivility and employee well-being. Meaning and perspective taking did not moderate the relationship between customer incivility and employee well-being, but did have a positive association with employee well-being. These findings contribute to the literature on customer incivility and suggest that organization-based resources that influence both primary and secondary appraisal, such as transformational leadership, are useful in buffering the harmful employee outcomes related to customer incivility.     

Contextual leadership,transformational leadership and the performance of international innovation seeking alliances

In this paper, we examined aspects of contextual leadership [Osborn, R. N., Hunt, J. G., & Jauch, L. R. (2002). Toward a contextual theory of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 13, 797–837] and transformational leadership [Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press] by alliance heads and by executives in the sponsoring firms for a sample of innovation seeking U.S./Japanese alliances in research-intensive sectors. We identified three aspects of performance (a) alliance innovation, (b) the strategic contributions to the U.S. sponsor and (c) the strategic contributions to the Japanese sponsor. We found that (a) knowledge/ information based (contextual dimensions) leadership by the alliance head was associated with higher innovation and strategic contributions to the sponsors and (b) transformational leadership by sponsoring executives was dysfunctional for alliance innovation but contributed positively to the strategic contribution the alliance provided a sponsor and, (c) the linkage between leadership by the alliance head and performance was much more important for some types of alliance governance (administrative) structures than others. That is, we argue that appropriate leadership is embedded in its context.     

Transformational Leadership Education and Agency Perspectives in Business School Pedagogy: A Marriage of Inconvenience?

We critique transformational leadership education in university business schools based on a literature review, a study of the websites of 21 leading business schools, and an analysis of two presentations to business school students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University by the former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch. Our critique draws attention to the unresolved tension between two motivating ideas that underpin much teaching in business schools: collective interest ideas that permeate transformational leadership education; and self-interest ideas derived from agency theory. Transformational leadership tends to be depicted as a process by which leaders exert a 'top-down' influence over the activities of others, while simultaneously asserting that their organizations have a common purpose and pursue a collective interest. We highlight the risk that business schools are producing graduates who will attempt to appeal to common needs (guided by precepts of transformational leadership) but who will simultaneously enact contradictory performance management systems (guided by agency theory). We encourage business school educators in leadership to adopt approaches which are more critical, relational and reflexive. We suggest some general directions for an alternative leadership prospectus, based on followership, the promotion of critical upward communication within organizations, and the recognition of leadership as a contested, discursive and co-constructed phenomenon.     

Evaluating leadership coaching: A review and integrated framework

Leadership coaching reflects an evolving dynamic between the client and coach that is qualitatively different from most approaches to leadership development and therefore holds particular challenges for evaluation. Based on reviews of academic and practitioner literatures, this paper presents an integrated framework of coaching evaluation that includes formative evaluations of the client, coach, client–coach relationship, and coaching process, as well as summative evaluations based on coaching outcomes. The paper also includes a quantitative synthesis examining evaluation methodologies in 49 leadership coaching studies. The results revealed that self-reported changes in clients' leadership behaviors are the most frequently assessed coaching outcome, followed by clients' perceptions of the effectiveness of coaching. Recommendations to advance coaching evaluation research include the creation of collaborative partnerships between the evaluation stakeholders (client, coach, client's organization, and coaching organization) to facilitate systematic formative evaluations, the collection of multi-source and multi-level data, and the inclusion of distal outcomes in evaluation plans.     

Effects of leader intelligence,personality and emotional intelligence on transformational leadership and managerial performance

This study investigates the effects of intelligence, personality traits and emotional intelligence on transformational leadership and the effective performance of leaders in the organizational context. Data were collected from 134 midlevel managers from a large Brazilian company that operates in the energy sector. Our findings suggest that leadership effectiveness, as measured by the achievement of organizational outcomes, is a direct function of a leader's transformational behaviors, and is an indirect function of individual differences (experience, intelligence and conscientiousness) that work through transformational behaviors. A negative effect of neuroticism on leadership effectiveness was also observed. In addition, while emotional intelligence seemed to be statistically related to transformational leadership if considered in isolation, when ability and personality were controlled for, the effect became non-significant. We discuss implications for theory, research and practice.     

Integrative leadership for collaborative governance: Civic engagement in Seattle

This article distills concepts and tools from the literatures on civic engagement, collaborative management, and conflict resolution into a parsimonious framework of tactics and constructs for integrative leadership. Using these tactics and constructs to compare cases of civic engagement drawn from the administration of Seattle Mayor Norman Rice (1990–98), the article demonstrates the framework's analytic potential for scholars and its strategic relevance for public leaders. The comparison of the cases suggests that the framework enables scholars and practitioners to distinguish meaningful changes in key dimensions of collaborative governance related to leadership tactics, stake holders' interpretations, and results. The conclusion proposes six hypotheses and explores theoretical implications for future research.     

Consideration for future consequences as an antecedent of transformational leadership behavior: The moderating effects of perceived dynamic work environment

Based on construal level theory and trait activation theory, we examined the effect of consideration of future consequences (CFC) on transformational leadership behavior and leadership effectiveness, as well as the potential moderating effects of perceived dynamic work environment in the relationship. The results showed that: (a) CFC is positively related to both transformational leadership and leadership effectiveness; (b) perceived dynamic work environment moderates the relationship between CFC and transformational leadership—specifically, the effect of CFC on transformational leadership is stronger under low perceived dynamic work environment; and (c) the effect of CFC on leader effectiveness is fully mediated by transformational leadership behavior under low versus high perceived dynamic work environment. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.