Transformational leadership

About: Transformational leadership is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 18939 publications have been published within this topic receiving 600379 citations.

Occupational stress in nursing: a review of the literature.

Abstract: The management and reduction of occupational stress are recognized as key factors in promoting employee well-being. Nursing is one of the many disciplines contributing to a huge body of research into the causes and effect of the ill-defined phenomenon of occupational stress. This literature review considers the ontological contribution of a number of disciplines to a growing body of knowledge on the subject of stress. The paper examines the complex issue of stress management, highlighting the impact of organizational culture and transformational leadership style on staff satisfaction levels.

Burnout in the information technology sector: Does leadership matter?

Abstract: The aim of the study was to examine subordinates' level of burnout in relation to how they perceive the leadership style of their direct superior. Subordinates (n = 289) in an Information Technology firm completed Maslach Burnout Inventory – General Survey, and rated their superior on the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. High subordinate burnout was defined as high exhaustion, high cynicism, and low professional efficacy. A structural equation model revealed that transformational leadership was significantly related to cynicism and professional efficacy, while passive-avoidance was significantly related to exhaustion and cynicism. Transactional leadership was not linked to burnout. Neuroticism in subordinates was directly related to all burnout components. The link between passive-avoidant leadership and burnout's key component exhaustion indicates perception of negative leadership behaviours is more important for burnout than perception of positive leadership styles.

The role of transformational leadership in enhancing team reflexivity

Abstract: Team reflexivity, or the extent to which teams reflect upon and modify their functioning, has been identified as a key factor in the effectiveness of work teams. As yet, however, little is known about the factors that play a role in enhancing team reflexivity, and it is thus important to develop theorizing around the determinants of reflexivity. From an applied perspective, leadership is a very relevant factor. The current study is a first step in the development of such a model, and addresses this important gap in our understanding of team reflexivity by focusing on the role of leader behavior. We examined the extent to which transformational leadership influences team reflexivity, and in turn, team performance, in a field study conducted among 32 intact work teams from nine organizations. Team members rated reflexivity and leadership, while external managers rated team performance. We hypothesized and tested a mediational model proposing that transformational leadership is related to the adoption of a s...

Setting the stage for effective leadership: Antecedents of transformational leadership behavior

Abstract: Although transformational leadership behavior (TLB) has been linked to a number of positive organizational outcomes, research regarding the antecedents of such behavior is limited. Guided by Ajzen and Fishbein's theory of reasoned action [ Psychological Bulletin 84 (1977) 888], we investigated two potentially relevant antecedents to performing TLB: cynicism about organizational change (CAOC) and the leader's social context—specifically peer leadership behavior. We hypothesized that CAOC would negatively predict TLB, while peer leadership behavior would positively predict TLB. Further, we expected that peer leadership behavior would have a positive moderating effect on leader CAOC. Data were gathered from 227 managers from multiple organizations and their 2247 subordinates. Findings supported the proposed hypotheses. Cynicism and peer leadership behavior explained nearly one quarter (24%) of the variance in TLB. Further, it appears that both CAOC and TLB may be malleable in organizational contexts. Implications for leadership research and practice are discussed.

Distributing Leadership in Health and Social Care: Concertive, Conjoint or Collective?

Abstract: This paper examines leadership in practice, specifically the interaction of leaders and followers, taking account of context (Spillane, J.P. (2006). Distributed Leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass). Employing Gronn's dimensions of concertive action and conjoint agency (Gronn, P. (2002). Distributed leadership as a unit of analysis. Leadership Quarterly, 13, pp. 423-451), different conceptualizations of distributed leadership (DL) are examined, and the influence of a health and social care context on attempts to enact DL is analysed. In so doing, boundary conditions or the limits to distributing leadership in health and social care are identified. The analysis suggests that the collective leadership DL model presented by Denis et al. (Denis, J.-L., Lamothe, L. and Langley, A. (2001). The dynamics of collective leadership and strategic change in pluralistic organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 44, pp. 809-837) is most likely to be enacted in the face of policy and professional pressures towards more concentrated leadership. However, where DL does not encompass conjoint agency, it will tend towards more towards 'nobody in charge' (Buchanan, D. A., Addicott, R., Fitzgerald, L., Ferlie, E. and Baeza, J.I. (2007). Nobody in charge: distributed change agency in healthcare. Human Relations, 60, pp. 1065-1090) or collaborative leadership (Huxham, C. and Vangen, S. (2000). Leadership in the shaping and implementation of collaboration agendas: how things happen in a (not quite) joined-up world. Academy of Management Journal, 43, pp. 1159-1175). Following the analysis, the authors argue that researchers need to move beyond a reified concept of DL, and ask a more straightforward question of how power is distributed. As Gosling et al. suggest (Gosling, J., Bolden, R. and Petrov, G. (2009). Distributed leadership in higher education: what does it accomplish? Leadership, 5, pp. 299-310), DL evokes an aspiration for the way leadership is configured, and draws attention to iterative relations between leadership, followership and context, but it is a conception of leadership that requires unpacking. This conceptual analysis, applied to health and social care, is offered in pursuit of this aim.