Existing conceptualizations and measures of transformational and transactional leadership have unclear theoretical bases, confound leadership and its effects, and are not necessarily suitable for public organizations. Overcoming these problems is necessary to test how leadership affects performance. Many public administration scholars apply the concepts, emphasizing the need to ensure that the concepts are applicable in both public and private organizations. The article reconceptualizes transformational and transactional leadership and develops and tests revised measures that can be employed on employees and leaders, are robust in terms of repeated use by the same respondents, and are applicable to public and private organizations alike.

Motivating public service employees to greater effort is a key issue for managers and scholars. Transformational leadership concerns behaviors to develop, share, and sustain a vision for the organization and has been suggested as an important lever in this respect. However, we know little about the processes by which transformational leadership may stimulate work motivation. Integrating transformational leadership, public service motivation (PSM), and self-determination theory, this article sheds light on the psychological mechanisms underlying the motivational effects of transformational leadership. According to structural equation modeling, the relationships between transformational leadership and two types of autonomous work motivation-intrinsic motivation and PSM-are mediated by the satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Our findings support the claim that the motivational effects of transformational leadership are mediated by need satisfaction, but also that satisfaction of individual needs is not equally important for intrinsic motivation and PSM, respectively.

This is the accepted manuscript (post-print version) of the article.Contentwise, the post-print version is identical to the final published version, but there may be differences in typography and layout.

Transformational leaders work to clarify a vision, share it with their employees and sustain it in the long run, and this is expected to result in increased employee public service motivation (PSM), that is, orientation towards doing good for others and society. Based on 48 in-depth interviews with 16 childcare leaders and 32 of their employees combined with 16 days of observation in these childcare centers, this article investigates the association between transformational leadership and PSM. When the leaders clarify, share and maintain an organizational vision, their employee are more motivated to do good for society and other, and this motivation tends to be less paternalistic and slightly more society oriented. This implies that it is relevant to ask not only whether transformational leadership increases PSM, but also how it affects the type of PSM.