Conceptualizing and Measuring Transformational and Transactional Leadership

Abstract

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.

Communicating the Vision: How Face‐to‐Face Dialogue Facilitates Transformational Leadership

“…Items were measured on a five‐point Likert scale. Items reflect the three behavioral components of transformational leadership outlined in the theoretical section (i.e., develop, share and sustain a vision), and the measurement model has proven consistent across the industries represented in this study (Jensen et al ). Cronbach's alpha indicates internal consistency of items (0.89), and we therefore generated a summative index for transformational leadership, giving equal weight to each item.…”

“…To the extent possible, we employ previously validated measures. To measure transformational leadership, we draw on a four‐item scale developed by Jensen et al (; see item wording in table A4 in the Supporting Information online). Items were inspired by existing studies on transformational leadership in the management and public administration literatures (MacKenzie, Podsakoff, and Rich ; Moynihan, Pandey, and Wright ; Podsakoff et al ) but carefully rephrased to avoid confounding the operational concept of transformational leadership with its proposed effects (for more details, see Jensen et al , 8–9).…”

Are transformational and transactional types of leadership compatible? A two‐wave study of employee motivation

“…Transformational leadership refers to behavioural efforts to inspire individual work by activating employees’ higher order needs, thereby seeking to transform employees to transcend their own self‐interest in the pursuit of organizational goals (Bass ). Particularly central here is to foster a shared understanding of what the organizational goals are, and how they contribute to desirable outcomes (Jensen et al ). We therefore define transformational leadership as ‘a set of behaviors that seek to develop, share, and sustain a vision intended to encourage employees to transcend their own self‐interest and achieve organizational goals’ (Jacobsen and Andersen , p. 832; see also Wright et al ).…”

“…Earlier and much broader conceptualizations of transformational leadership have focused on multiple and separate elements, and have proposed various processes through which work motivational states could be affected (van Knippenberg and Sitkin 2013). In light of recent critiques, we rely on a narrower conceptualization that focuses particularly on the visionary element as the most important influencing process of transformational leadership (Jensen et al ). Through the communication of an appealing vision for the organization, it is argued that transformational leaders provide a sense of purpose and significance to work that promotes dedication and enthusiasm in their employees (Wright et al ; Bellé ).…”

Does transformational leadership stimulate user orientation? Evidence from a field experiment

“…Such studies emphasize its potential to ‘activate the higher‐order needs of their employees and encourage them to transcend their own self‐interest for the sake of the organization and its clientele’ (Wright et al , p. 207). Transformational leadership encompasses three behaviours: (1) to develop, (2) to share and (3) to sustain a vision for the organization (Jung and Avolio , p. 949; Jensen et al ). A vision is an ‘idealized “verbal portrait” of what the organization aspires to one day achieve’ (Carton et al , p. 1544).…”