Effects of transformational leadership training on attitudinal and financial outcomes: A field experiment.

Abstract

A pretest-posttest control-group design (N = 20) was used to assess the effects of transformational leadership training, with 9 and 11 managers assigned randomly to training and control groups, respectively. Training consisted of a 1-day group session and 4 individual booster sessions thereafter on a monthly basis. Multivariate analyses of covariance, with pretest scores as the covariate, showed that the training resulted in significant effects on subordinates' perceptions of leaders' transformational leadership, subordinates' own organizational commitment, and 2 aspects of branch-level financial performance.One significant development in understanding leadership in the past decade has been the emergence of theories of charismatic and transformational leadership (e.g., Bass, 1985;Conger & Kanungo, 1987;House, 1977;Locke et al., 1991). Although the terms charisma and transformational leadership are often used synonymously, Bass (1985Bass ( , 1990 separates them, with charisma forming a part of transformational leadership. Within Bass's approach, transformational leadership includes charisma (providing a vision and a sense of mission, and raising followers' self-expectations), intellectual stimulation (helping employees emphasize rational solutions and challenge old assumptions), and individualized consideration (developing employees and coaching); transformational leadership also goes beyond transactional leadership (or contingent reward, i.e., the exchange of rewards for efforts) in elevating leaders and helping followers achieve higher levels of organizational functioning. In addition, the relationship between transJulian Barling and Tom Weber, School of Business, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada; E. Kevin Kelloway, Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.This research was part of a management research project submitted by Tom Weber in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an executive master's of business administration degree. We express our appreciation to Bruce J. Avolio for constructive assistance in the earlier phases of this research.

Transformational and transactional leadership and innovative behavior: The moderating role of psychological empowerment

“…Through empowerment programs organizations may set the stage for the more effective use of transformational leadership in engendering innovative behavior. Furthermore, research has shown that transformational and transactional leadership can be learned and training programs have been developed (Barling, Weber, & Kelloway, 1996;Dvir, Eden, Avolio, & Shamir, 2002), suggesting that efforts to increase follower psychological empowerment can be complemented by leadership development efforts to increase transformational leadership.…”

The Effects of Transformational Leadership in Chinese Family Business How Should Family Business Lead Their Family Employees?

“…Transformational leaders can motivate followers to reach their fullest potential and exceed expected performance, as well as increasing their level of satisfaction and commitment to the organization [10,11]. Compared with transactional leadership, transformational leadership is believed to be advantageous in developing leaders and improving followers" loyalty, trust, self-esteem and self-efficacy [12,13].…”

“…Specifically, Bass [6] described transformational leadership as leader behaviors that stimulate and inspire followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes by raising the level of motivation and morality in both themselves and their followers. Transformational leaders are effective in promoting organizational commitment by aligning goals and values of the follower, the group, the leader, and the organization [10,12,21]. Its strong, positive effects on followers" attributes and commitment will then motivate followers to reach their fullest potential and exceed expected performance [11].…”

Improving organizational learning through leadership training

“…Dvir et al (2002) demonstrated a positive impact of transformational leadership training in the Israeli army on follower self-efficacy, extra effort, critical-independent approach, and objective performance. Barling et al (1996), in a sample of Canadian bank employees, found significant improvements in commitment and performance among followers whose leaders had attended a transformational leadership training program.…”

“…Most studies have focused on transformational leadership training, demonstrating that such training can increase not only employees perception of leaders' transformational leadership (Barling et al, 1996, Kelloway et al, 2000, Duygulu and Kublay, 2011, Brown and May, 2012, Fitzgerald and Schutte, 2010 but also their attitudes and behaviors. For example, Hardy et al (2010) found that transformational leadership training in the British army increased employees' selfconfidence and resilience.…”