sample research paper on transformational leadership

Please log in to Mountain Scholar

• Open access
• Published: 09 December 2020

Impact of transformational leadership on work performance, burnout and social loafing: a mediation model

• Hira Khan 1 ,
• Maryam Rehmat   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3377-0082 2 , 3 ,
• Tahira Hassan Butt 3 ,
• Saira Farooqi 2 , 3 &
• Javaria Asim 2 , 3  

Future Business Journal volume  6 , Article number:  40 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

202k Accesses

53 Citations

13 Altmetric

Metrics details

The aim of this research was to study the effect of transformational leadership on employees’ work outcomes which include their work performances and working burnout, and their working behavior such as social loafing at workplace. Also, it studies the impact of intrinsic motivation as a mediator between transformational leadership and other stated variables. A cross-sectional survey was conducted to collect data from 308 employees working in the telecommunication sector. To test the hypotheses, Model 4 of Process Hayes was used to test direct and mediating effects among transformational leadership and employees’ work outcomes and working behavior. The results showed that transformational leadership has a significant positive relationship with mediator intrinsic motivation. The results also concluded that work performance has positive significant relationship with transformational leadership. However, there is indirect and insignificant relationship of transformational leadership with working burnout and social loafing. Therefore, it can be stated that organizational leaders must have transformational attributes by getting informed of their employees well because transformational leader can inspire employees to achieve anticipated or significant outcomes. It gives employees self-confidence over specific jobs, as well as the power to make decisions once they have been trained.

Introduction

During the last two decades, transformational leadership has gained most conspicuous place in philosophy of leadership [ 81 ]. Therefore, it is not surprising that the current evolution in leadership theory and practice has attracted the interest of both practitioners and researchers and they exhibited great deal of interest toward exploring its ascendancy for organization and individuals as well [ 72 , 87 ]. Particularly, the studies conducted during the previous decades recommends that transformational leadership is considerably related to followers’ behaviors and performance [ 20 , 65 ]. In a review on progress in the domain of leadership printed in “Annual Review of Psychology,” Avolio et al. [ 8 ] stressed the need to establish mechanisms that connect leadership to vital organizational and individual outcomes. They further stressed the need to investigate the role of mediators, so as to clarify the noteworthiness of leadership for organizations. Chan and Mak [ 20 ] in their research contended that “a variety of different influence processes may be involved in transformational leadership yet there is still room for research to further examine the process of the relationship between transformational leadership and follower attitudes and behaviors.” Transformational leadership defined as leadership approach in which a leader transforms his followers, inspires them, builds trust, encourages them, admires their innovative ideas, and develops them [ 12 ], is presently the most extensively acknowledged definition in the leadership literature.

Transformational leadership can be implicated to managerial context. Transformational leadership which is the leader’s competency to get performance of employees beyond expectations, can be more helpful and beneficial in enhancing one’s ability to intrinsically motivate them. It can improve psychological empowerment as well [ 85 ]. Transformational leadership has four components which are: (i) idealized influence, (ii) inspirational motivation to enhance confidence, (iii) intellectual stimulation, and (iv) individualized consideration [ 13 ]. Idealized influence is shown when a leader efficiently makes provision of accurate sense of mission and appropriately visualizes it. Inspirational motivation can be defined as leadership attitude which deals with emotional traits of employees, builds confidence in employees about their performances, appropriately communicates and provides actual feedback [ 68 ]. Individual consideration refers to the support of leader for each follower. It may include training and coaching, allocating tasks according to the competence of each individual and supervision of performances [ 92 ]. Intellectual stimulation describes the effort of leader to motivate and encourage his employees to be more adaptive and follow new technical approaches according to the varied situation. It may be advantageous to overcome the cues and hindrances which occur at multi stages [ 14 ]. Transformational leaders can anticipate that employees will need transformational leadership when the work is more stressful and when the work is more meaningful [ 84 ].

Extant research on the transformational leadership tried to explore its “black box” and presented empirical confirmation of its direct fruitful consequences for followers’ outcomes including work performance [ 16 , 44 , 52 , 90 ], burnout [ 40 , 82 ], and social loafing [ 5 ]. Nevertheless, there exists some room for further research, explaining the specific mechanisms by which transformational leadership influence such individuals’ behavior and psychological state particularly at organizational level [ 16 ]. Hence, this study aims at providing new comprehension of how and why and under what circumstances transformational leadership influences work performance, burnout and social loafing of employees, in Pakistani context.

Transformational leadership tends to maximize the level of professional performance of work In addition to provided literature on association of transformational leadership and work performance; researchers indicate that organizations of diverse structures highly depend upon the performance of its workers. Past studies have empirically established the positive association between work performance and transformational leadership [ 9 ]. Transformational leaders inspire their followers to have shared vision of targeted goals and standards of performance defined by the organization and also facilitate them achieve it [ 4 ]. Another factor which is highly influenced by transformational leadership is employee’s burnout which may be decreased through this particular style of leadership. Prevalence of stress is highly probable in any organizational sector [ 73 ]. Transformational leadership is most influencing factor which enhances the employee’s ability to deal with all kind of circumstances as such leader provide supportive circumstances to employees so that they can maintain the optimum level of mental health through inspirational motivation and also enhances their confidence level [ 28 , 93 ].

“Social loafing is the inclination of putting less effort while working in a team than working alone” [ 5 ]. Transformational leader, while working in a group, follows a strategy in which he can allocate various assignments and tasks according to the competencies of employee and he must evaluate performances of each individual. Social loafing is a psychological aspect of an individual which may differ from situation to situation and individual to individual [ 55 ]. Leadership literature has established that individualized consideration by the leader may deflate the degree of social loafing [ 45 ].

Building on the previous literature, this research incorporated employee intrinsic motivation as a factor that explains the linkage of transformational leadership with employee work performance, burnout and social loafing. Intrinsic motivation which is “the implementation of an action for the inherent satisfaction rather than for external reasons” [ 63 ]. Undeniably, the motivation of current workforce is not much reliant on extrinsic rewards. Rather material rewards may decline job performance in complex jobs with diverse responsibilities [ 30 ]. Further, in order to perform their duties effectively in today’s dynamic work environment, the employees need to have an elastic and highly flexible work arrangement. For that reason and for instilling good motivation among workers, organizations not only offer extrinsic rewards to them but also plan to enhance their intrinsic motivation [ 63 ]. Transformational leadership is the leadership approach which contributes to present a clear and justified organizational vision and mission by motivating workers to work toward idea through developing association with employees, consider employees’ requirements and assisting them to exert their potential positively, participates to positive outcomes for an organization [ 31 ]. Employees whose work competencies are encouraged by the leader are more likely to have higher intrinsic motivation and resultantly perform better at work. They become more focused and try to accomplish organizational goals by taking their own interests. There also exists indirect association between employees’ burnout and transformational leadership through mediating effect of intrinsic motivation [ 28 ]. Transformational leaders focus more on individual requirements and they build strong association with their employees who are supposed to perform with higher objectives, which enhances employees’ intrinsic motivation. Such motivation keeps them away from burning out [ 6 ]. We further argued that intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and social loafing. Previous studies indicate that role of intrinsic motivation discourages social loafing as it does not happen circumstantially only, but it also happens whenever an employee is low in intrinsic motivation [ 5 ].

This research makes provision of significant contribution in the literature of organizational behavior by enriching our understanding of the conditions under which transformational leadership influences employee performance, burnout and social loafing. The findings of our research allow organizations and its management to comprehend how efficiently and effectively they can follow a policy or some kind of advanced strategy in order to intrinsically motivate their employees so that they can increase the level of work performance and deflate burnout and social loafing in employees.

Literature review

Transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation.

Envisioning visions and motivating are two core jobs of effective leadership [ 24 ]. According to traditional transformational leadership literature, transformational leaders guide and encourage employee mindfulness by enunciating a vision that escalates employees’ consciousness and consideration for the significance of organizational values, goals, and performances [ 42 ]. Thusly, fundamental to the theory on transformational leadership is a strong accentuation on the part of a combined vision; that is, an idealized arrangement of objectives that the organization seeks to accomplish one day [ 18 ]. Transformational leaders, through clear enunciation, have their utmost influence on the followers’ sentiments by cultivating a feeling of success and proficiency in them. Transformational leaders are much capable to improve organizational outcomes according to the market requirements by developing human resources and creating justified modifications [ 34 ]. The reason to acquire specific knowledge is associated with the degree that what is the level of intrinsic motivation of a person and how he is keen to get knowledge by developing particular competencies and meaningful learning [ 78 ]. Transformational leadership has power to enhance the ability of psychological empowerment which is referred as intrinsic motivation [ 85 ]. According to [ 74 ], the idea of motivation is known as “the set of reasons why people behave in the ways they do”, for example, intrinsic motivation is “the motivational state in which the employees are driven by their interests in the work rather than a contract-for-rewards approach to completing a task” [ 24 ]. A study by Koh et al. [ 51 ] identified that intrinsic motivation is highly influenced by the transformational leadership, as the transformational leader guides and supports effectively, self-motivation to be an effective and beneficial part of an organization increases as well.

Transformational leadership comprises four interconnected behavioral dimensions including “idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration” [ 11 ]. All behavioral dimensions can influence employees’ intrinsic motivation. First, transformational leaders utilize idealized influence and offer inspirational motivation through communicating an alluring collective vision [ 91 ]. This collective vision provides a meaningful idea of team’s tasks by a leader which increase the intrinsic motivation of employees [ 75 ]. Transformational leadership can develop positive outcomes such as optimism and high self-interests in all members of team which ultimately increase the pleasure and job satisfaction relevant to the task [ 26 ]. Second, the intellectual stimulation of transformational leaders boosts team members’ confidence to develop more effective emotional and situational stability and resolving their problems by their own selves [ 11 ]. They are also motivated to understand and encourage the basic knowledge and skills of other coworkers to share new ideologies. Third, transformational leaders differentiate individuals’ ideas and interests, promote their ideas to describe their uniqueness, and consider them through individualized consideration [ 11 ]. When employees observe the behaviors of their leaders, all of them feel motivated and try to construct one another’s ideas and competencies to create innovative solutions of problems. Therefore, in this article, we expect that all dimensions of transformational leadership encourage employees to invest higher willingness and energy in their work and tasks which exhibit their higher intrinsic motivation. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that:

Transformational leadership relates positively to intrinsic motivation.

Transformational leadership, intrinsic motivation and work performance

Intrinsic motivation is highly associated with the work performance. Intrinsic motivation may be defined as “the doing of an activity for its inherent satisfactions rather than for some separable consequence but it is rare for employees to experience intrinsic motivation in all of their tasks” [ 76 ]. Intrinsic motivation is generated for self-developing attributes that refers to make an individual ready to be the part of learning procedure without having interests of extrinsic rewards [ 83 ]. Intrinsic motivation is basically the degree of an individual’s interest in a task completion and how he engages himself in work [ 3 ]. It describes the psychological development process with an employee’s performance [ 85 ].

According to recent operational settings, enhancing the employees’ motivation has become one of most impactful human resources strategy. Most of the organizations are tending to build up, sustain and grow their HR strategies, just to motivate their employees so that short-term and long-term goals and objectives can be achieved. In recent researches, there are numerous variables which can be influenced by employees’ intrinsic motivation like performance, creativity, and relevant outcomes. For example, it has been stated that behavior of an individual influences the work outcomes which are performance and quality as well [ 10 ]. It is strongly evidenced that motivation has a most important role between cognitive abilities and work performance. Gist [ 37 ] suggested that short term goals can be achieved through self-interest of an individual. Also, a research indicates that there is a significant and direct relationship of intrinsic motivation and job performance [ 43 ]. Furthermore, an employee’s intrinsic motivation illustrates an important contribution in organizational progress and growth [ 39 ]. The work performance indices are constructed for the degree of performance, not only for the individual level always; it also includes group and organizational performances [ 2 ]. In most employment situations, where intrinsic motivation of an employee is supposed to be high, the employee usually tries to acquire continual employment,and he/she develops interpersonal associations with his subordinates, perform better at job as they take pleasure in the process of finishing their tasks effectively [ 38 ]. Conversely, if the worker feels de-motivated, it can be resulted in low performance of work. Thus intrinsic motivation may be concluded with better performance of work while meeting organizational targets and goals [ 7 ].

As we propose the direct relationship of intrinsic motivation and performance, it may be stated that the intrinsic motivation can actively influence the performance of work as a significant workplace outcome [ 19 ]. Therefore, we hypothesize that:

Intrinsic motivation relates positively to employee work performance.

In current research, we posit that intrinsic motivation is one of the main mechanisms by which transformational leaders influence employees’ job performance. Transformational leaders may help to ensure individual’s inner motivation to perform a task efficiently which in turn increases their work performance .These leadership approaches are advantageous for both individual and organizational growth [ 36 ]. In fact, it is justified to examine how leaders motivate their employees and this motivation enhances their performance [ 12 ]. In line with the previous literature [ 22 , 23 ], we expect that transformational leadership enhances individuals’ intrinsic motivation which in turn will significantly predict employee job performance. Intrinsic motivation is known as self-directed type of motivation and represents the highest commitment and stability with the self [ 25 ]. A variety of researches indicate that higher intrinsic motivation result in better performance [ 89 ] as intrinsic motivation inspires and encourages employees to work more efficiently. Therefore, it can be hypothesized:

Intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and work performance.

Transformational leadership, intrinsic motivation and employee’s working burnout

Intrinsically motivated employees persistently focus on their tasks and jobs because they find themselves more focused, attentive and exert their best efforts while being a part of an organization and in achieving the goals of their employing organization [ 76 ]. Burnout is a psychological and mental condition which happens in response to high stress level at job; it is a multi-dimensional concept which covers the following three aspects: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and decreased personal focus for accomplishment of goals [ 77 ]. Burnout affects the interpersonal relationship of employees too [ 58 ].

Prior research indicates that there is contrary effect of intrinsic motivation on employee’s working burnout [ 70 ]. Intrinsically motivated employees find their jobs more interesting, are more optimistic, put more effort in their work, and have higher perseverance level because they gain contentment and fulfillment from performing a task itself [ 15 ]. Vallerand [ 88 ] in his study exhibit that “employees with high intrinsic motivation have higher level of vitality, positive effect, self-esteem, absorption, concentration, effort, and persistence” and when such employees went through the felling of burnout, they have more personal resources to surmount this situation. Such employees feel less exhausted, less stressed and more focused toward contributing in organization’s progress [ 49 ]. Intrinsically motivated employees feel less pressure and low stress level rather than the employees who are low in motivation [ 69 , 71 ]. Intrinsic motivation of employees’ can be negatively associated with their burnout [ 70 ].Therefore; the employees who are high in intrinsic motivation can decrease their burnout at workplace [ 50 ]. Thus, it can be hypothesized that:

Intrinsic motivation is negatively associated to employee’s working burnout.

In current research, we propose that intrinsic motivation plays a mediating role between transformational leadership and burnout. Burnout is the major concern for organizations as it influences the relevant outcomes. It results in low productivity and commitment. Hence, it causes the high turnover and absenteeism in employees [ 82 ]. Studies indicate that leaders highly contribute to employees’ health and welfare as well [ 80 ]. But the relationship between leadership behaviors and employee burnout is less studied yet [ 41 ]. As mentioned earlier, there exists a positive relationship between transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation which in turn make them more competent, teach them how to handle and manage stressful conditions and reduce their burnout. Therefore, we hypothesize that:

Intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship of transformational leadership and employee’s working burnout.

Transformational leadership, intrinsic motivation and social loafing

Social loafing is defined as the tendency of individuals who exert less effort and their productivity decreases when working in groups than working individually [ 21 , 33 , 57 , 79 ]. It is a negative employee behavior and is particularly shown by individuals with lower motivation [ 1 ]. These kinds of behaviors can be resulted in low productivity and poor commitment toward a task [ 62 ] and organization as well.

Social loafing is common practice and can be observed in every organizational setting, across age and gender and in different professions and various cultures [ 46 ]. This is more alarming that it can be seen at every single workplace and considered as misconduct. The variety of factors is studied in influence of social loafing, but there is still an insufficiency of individual inherent factors such as intrinsic motivation which is part of this research framework.

“Intrinsic motivation which describes an inherent tendency that individuals engage in activities due to their inner interests, pleasure and satisfaction” [ 70 ] is negatively linked to Social loafing. George [ 33 ] established in his study on 221 salespeople that intrinsic task involvement is negatively linked to social loafing. He further exerted that intrinsically motivated individuals may have self realization that their efforts are vital for the success of their team/group and for organization as well and therefore they are less likely to be engaged in social loafing. He/she would try his/her own best to exert extra effort to accomplish the goals and tasks assigned by the leader.

Therefore, we hypothesize that:

Intrinsic motivation is negatively linked to social loafing.

Intrinsic motivation may be described as the inherent process that initiates attributes, behaviors and what defines people to moves or act [ 27 ]. Self-determination theory indicates that there are different levels of motivation. Intrinsic motivation is at the most independent end of the scale because an individual opts to get engaged in any conduct according to his own choice [ 32 ]. A leader motivates his employees by incorporated strategies which results in better achievement of goals and objectives of a firm or organization. Gilbert et al. [ 35 ]. Social loafing is defined as a reduced amount of effort and motivation while being a part of group or working in a team as compared to working individually [ 46 ]. Social loafing is well-known phenomena and can be found in all of the organizations, across gender, and age and in various occupations and different cultures [ 46 ].

Social loafing is considered as a big hindrance in organizational growth as well. It causes low potential [ 61 ], low productivity [ 29 ], and low motivation of other team members too [ 67 ]. It decreases the overall efficiency, productivity and performance of the team [ 47 ]. Social loafing is widely spread term which is also known as social disease [ 54 ].

In line with this connection, social loafing is a big moral and social issue since it is an option that “involves modifying the life plan of another individual or group of individuals” [ 60 ]. On contrast, if a transformational leader motivates his employees and encourages their performance on individual basis, then through individualized considerations and inspirational motivation, social loafing can be decreased. Therefore, it can be hypothesized:

Intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship of transformational leadership and social loafing.

Mediating role of intrinsic motivation between transformational leadership and social loafing

(Fig.  1 ).

Theoretical framework

Sample and data collection

The data was collected through survey via emails, online surveys and printed questionnaires through convenience sampling from individuals working in the telecommunication sector. The participants were informed about the objective of this study and the assurance of confidentiality and anonymity of their responses. Respondents were assured that their information will not be assessed by any individuals except those who are authorized. After removing the duplicates, outliers and responses with missing data, we obtained 308 valid responses for further data analysis Table  1 depicts the demographic characteristics of the respondents.

• Transformational leadership

Transformational leadership was measured by McColl-Kennedy and Anderson [ 59 ] four-item scale. Six-point Likert scale (1—strongly disagree to 6 —strongly agree) was used to measure responses. This is the most widely used scale to measure transformational leadership. Cronbach’s alpha for transformational leadership scale is 0.84.

• Intrinsic motivation

In this study, Liu et al. [ 56 ] four-item scale was adopted to measure intrinsic motivation. To record the responses five-point Likert scale was used (1 —strongly disagree to 5—strongly agree). Cronbach’s alpha for intrinsic motivation scale is 0.89.

• Work performance

To measure work performance [ 19 ] four-item scale was adopted. Five-point Likert scale (1—much worse to 5—much better) was used to measure responses. Cronbach’s alpha of work performance scale is 0.80.

• Working burnout

Working burnout was measured by Kristensen et al. [ 53 ]. Seven items with five-point Likert scale (1 –never to 5—always) was used. Cronbach’s alpha of burnout scale is 0.88.

• Social loafing

Social loafing was measured by Akgunduz and Eryilmaz [ 1 ]. Four items with five-point Likert scale (1—strongly disagree to 5—strongly agree) was used. Cronbach’s alpha of social loafing scale is 0.80.

Data analysis

After data collection, the reliability, correlation was calculated by using SPSS software. Research model was tested using Hayes Process Model 4.

Descriptive statistics

Table  2 describes descriptive statistics of all the study variables including the mean, standard deviation, and correlation. Correlation coefficients are in the anticipated directions and provide preliminary support for our study hypotheses. Our results depicts that transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation ( r  = 0. 29, p  < 0.01) are positively and significantly correlated. Further intrinsic motivation is significantly associated with work performance ( r  = .30, p  < 0.01); working burnout ( r  = − 0.59, p  < 0.01); social loafing ( r  = − 0.15, p  < 0.01).

Reliability analysis

To examine the consistency of the variables, reliability analysis is calculated. The reliabilities of all the variables with number of items are summarized in Table  3 . The values between 0.84 and 0.8 indicate good reliability. The reliability of transformational leadership is 0.84 which is good, and intrinsic motivation shows another good reliability which is 0.89. Working burnout shows 0.88 reliability. The reliability of work performance is 0.8 and the reliability of social loafing is 0.8 which is also good. So this explains that the data used is reliable.

Hypothesis testing

Results of mediation for work performance.

Firstly, we investigated the impact of Transformational Leadership (X) on Work Performance (Y) through mediating factor of Intrinsic Motivation (M). Results justify that total effect of transformational leadership on work performance (path c, Fig.  2 ) is significant ( β  = 0.13, t  = 3.07, p  < 0.01) as shown in Table  4 . The relationship between transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation (path a, Fig.  4 ) is highly significant and positive which support Hypothesis 1 also ( β  = 0.31, t  = 5.20, p  < 0.01). Furthermore, the findings showed that the relationship between Intrinsic Motivation and Work Performance (path b, Fig.  2 ) is positive and significant relationship ( β  = 0.19, t  = 4.79, p  < 0.01).

Mediation model—work performance

Our overall findings represent that there is positive and significant impact of transformational leadership on work performance (path c ′, Fig.  2 ) through the mediation of intrinsic motivation ( β  = 0.07, t  = 1.68, p  > 0.01) which accepts Hypothesis 3.

Results for mediation for working burnout

In this model we studied the relationship of Transformational Leadership(X) and Working Burnout (Y) through mediating role Intrinsic Motivation (M). Results indicated that total effect of transformational leadership on working burnout is significant ( β  = − 0.19, t  = − 3.51, p  < 0.01 We examined the relationship between the mediator, Intrinsic Motivation and the dependent variable, Working Burnout (path b , Fig.  3 ). The findings showed a significant and negative relationship ( β  = − 0.50, t  = − 11.98, p  < 0.01). This finding supports Hypothesis 4. As it is shown in Table  5 the final results determined a significant relationship between transformational leadership and working burnout with mediation of intrinsic motivation (path c ′, Fig.  3 ) ( β  = − 0.03, t  = − 0.66, p  > 0.01). Therefore Hypothesis 5 is accepted.

Mediation model—working burnout

Results for mediation for social loafing

Our third and last finding for studied relationship between transformational leadership and social loafing through mediator intrinsic motivation, are presented in Table  6 . According to the total effect model, the relationship between transformational leadership and social loafing (path c , Fig.  4 ) is significant and negative ( β  = − 0.32, t  = − 9.57, p  < 0.01) as shown in Table  6 .

Mediation model—social loafing

The outcomes showed that intrinsic motivation and social loafing (path b , Fig.  4 ) are insignificantly and related relationship ( β  = − 0.01, t  = − 0.31, p  > 0.01) which opposes Hypothesis 6.

Our last finding determined that transformational leadership does not have a significant negative impact on social loafing (path c ′, Fig.  3 ), while controlling intrinsic motivation ( β  = − 0.32, t  = − 9.07, p  < 0.01). Thus Hypothesis 7 is not accepted. Thus, it can be resulted that there is no mediation.

Theoretical contributions

Although, previous researches have vastly recognized the direct impact of transformational leadership on positive employee work outcomes [ 17 , 48 ], yet not all employees do not respond to transformational leadership optimistically [ 66 ]. This study overall, made an important contribution to the available literature mainly by including variables that are very essential for all work environments that are aiming toward high employee motivation and performance. The current study is a unique attempt to look at the relationship between of transformational leadership, employees’ work performance, working burnout, and social loafing and intrinsic motivation in Asian context. This study contributes to the existing literature on transformational leadership since it is among the first to investigate the indirect impact of transformational leadership on employees’ work performance, working burnout, and social loafing through intrinsic motivation. Providing empirical evidence for association between transformational leadership (independent variable), work performance, working burnout and social loafing (dependent variables) through the mediating effect of intrinsic motivation. Our empirical results provide support for our hypothesized model except for the indirect effect of transformational leadership on social loafing through intrinsic motivation. Transformational leadership consists of four elements which are idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and Individualized consideration [ 13 ]. All of these elements showed very good reliability and consistency with each other. These elements actively participate to affect the outcome of intrinsic motivation [ 85 ].

This study shows that transformational leadership has a significant and positive relationship with employees’ intrinsic motivation. Previous literature supports this finding that transformational leadership promotes motivation in employees and develops positive psychological states such as meaningfulness of work, experienced responsibility for the outcomes and knowledge of work results. It indicates that transformational leadership directly exerts its influence by helping employees or followers to think more positively about themselves and their tasks, by enhancing the quality of their relationships, and by creating environments that are fair, respectful, and supportive [ 86 ] and all of these factors contribute positively toward employee’s self motivation toward his/her work (i.e., intrinsic motivation).

The positive elements of transformational leadership bring out positive psychological states by escalating intrinsic motivation among employees. Employees with increased intrinsic motivation are more effective and efficient toward their work performances. They are supposed to be converted into responsive and perform efficiently in their work [ 64 ].

This study results showed significant positive relationship of transformational leadership on working burnout through intrinsic motivation. When a transformational leader indicates support for honest and fair matters associated with employees, the employee feels less exhausted and motivated. Intrinsically motivated employees who are driven by enjoyment and interest in their work are more likely to work hard at their jobs and feel less fatigue, less emotional exhaustion, and increased desire to participate in the organization [ 49 ].

Finally, it was examined that how transformational leadership impact social loafing through Intrinsic motivation. Findings depicts that although Social loafing has a significant and negative relationship with transformational leader, but their indirect relationship through intrinsic motivation is not significant The reason behind can be that the direct strong association between transformational leader and social loafing as “transactional leaders effectively inspire followers to identify with a mission while rallying them to work together to achieve organizational objectives.” Further, social loafing in employees is also effected significantly by other factors such as workload, organizational culture, tenure of job. etc.

Practical implications

Our study also provides several practical implications for organizations. Transformational leaders who realize the significance of intrinsic motivation for employees will adopt such behaviors that are conducive for development employees’ intrinsic motivation at the workplace. The results of current study confirmed that transformational leadership through fostering intrinsic motivation create such environment which is stress free and fruitful for employee effective performance. One way to exhibit these behaviors by managers is to aim at encouraging motivation among employees based on their inherent happiness and enjoyment. Another way to enhance employees’ intrinsic motivation and involvement toward organizational success is to value their contributions and sharing organizational goals and objectives with their workers. Further, it is very essential for organizational leaders to be transformed by being informed of their employees well because transformational leader can inspire people to achieve unexpected or remarkable results. It gives workers autonomy over specific jobs, as well as the authority to make decisions once they have been trained. In that the leader can inspire workers to find better ways of achieving a goal as leadership can mobilize people into groups that can get work done, and morale, in that transformational leaders raise the well-being and motivation level of a group through excellent connection. The findings of this study also stressed the need of designing leadership coaching and training programs in order to develop transformational leadership which may include “programs for communication, motivation, and brainstorming, to train employees with the necessary resources to be more articulate and inspirational as well as to think out of the box”.

Limitations and future directions

The first limitation of this research is that cross-sectional survey has been conducted. There may be ambiguity in establishing causal direction. Results may vary while collecting data at various times. It is suggested to conduct longitudinal study design in future research to see how impact of transformational leadership on employee outcomes varies over time. Next, it represented data from only the telecom sector of Lahore, Pakistan which may limit the study generalizability it would have been advantageous to conduct this research across the diverse sectors and n different context. Another limitation of this research is that there can be a probability of response bias as all the data was collected through same source i.e., employees. For example, a person can have deliberate falsification by quoting false responses of statements, just to attain social desirability. An employee in the organization may have high degrees of social loafing but he may not state it appropriately as well. Future researchers may collect data from different sources like work performance data can be collected from supervisors.

Existing literature and this research too is having high tendency toward constructive and significant outcomes to discover impact of transformational leadership so it is suggested that in future studies impact of transformational leadership should be examined in relation to more negative employee outcomes such as turnover intention and cyber loafing.

It is also recommended to see the impact of other mediators like emotional stability between transformational leadership and employees’ various outcomes.

Furthermore, future studies can also observe the effect of different moderators such as performance appraisal politics and contingent awards on the existing research model. It might prove valuable.

Future studies can also respond to the limitations of current research by collecting data across different business sectors (education, banking, etc.) of diverse locations.

This research contributes to the field of organizational behavior by enhancing our knowledge on how a transformational leader upgrades employees’ positive work outcomes by improving their intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, their increased intrinsic motivation will develop their positive work outcomes by increasing employees’ work performance and the same time reducing their burnout and work stress. We hope that our study will stimulate future endeavors to advance our understanding in this domain.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Akgunduz Y, Eryilmaz G (2018) Does turnover intention mediate the effects of job insecurity and co-worker support on social loafing? Int J Hosp Manag 68:41–49

Google Scholar  

Aleksynska M (2018) Temporary employment, work quality, and job satisfaction. J Comp Econ 46(3):722–735

Ambrose ML, Kulik CT (1999) Old friends, new faces: motivation research in the 1990s. J Manag 25(3):231–292

Anderson HJ, Baur JE, Griffith JA, Buckley MR (2017) What works for you may not work for (Gen) Me: limitations of present leadership theories for the new generation. Leadersh Q 28(1):245–260

Arda ÖA, Yıldız B (2019) The moderating role of transformational leadership on the relationship between careerism and social loafing behaviors: a propositional review. In: Handbook of research on contemporary approaches in management and organizational strategy. IGI Global, pp 226–247

Arnold KA, Connelly CE, Gellatly IR, Walsh MM, Withey MJ (2017) Using a pattern-oriented approach to study leaders: implications for burnout and perceived role demand. J Organ Behav 38(7):1038–1056

Arnulf JK, Dysvik A, Larsen KR (2018) Measuring semantic components in training and motivation: a methodological introduction to the semantic theory of survey response. Hum Resour Dev Q 30:17–38

Avolio BJ, Walumbwa FO, Weber TJ (2009) Leadership: current theories, research, and future directions. Annu Rev Psychol 60:421–449

Barling J, Weber T, Kelloway EK (1996) Effects of transformational leadership training on attitudinal and financial outcomes: a field experiment. J Appl Psychol 81(6):827

Barrick MR, Parks L, Mount MK (2005) Self-monitoring as a moderator of the relationships between personality traits and performance. Pers Psychol 58(3):745–767

Bass BM, Riggio RE (2006) Transformational leadership, 2nd edn. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah

Bass BM (1985) Leadership and performance beyond expectations. Collier Macmillan, London

Bass BM (1990) From transactional to transformational leadership: learning to share the vision. Org Dyn 18(3):19–31

Bednall TC, Rafferty AE, Shipton H, Sanders K, Jackson JC (2018) Innovative behaviour: how much transformational leadership do you need? Br J Manag 29(4):796–816

ten Brummelhuis LL, Ter Hoeven CL, Bakker AB, Peper B (2011) Breaking through the loss cycle of burnout: the role of motivation. J Occup Organ Psychol 84(2):268–287

Buil I, Martínez E, Matute J (2019) Transformational leadership and employee performance: the role of identification, engagement and proactive personality. Int J Hosp Manag 77:64–75

Burke CS, Sims DE, Lazzara EH, Salas E (2007) Trust in leadership: a multi-level review and integration. Leadersh Q 18(6):606–632

Carton AM, Murphy C, Clark JR (2014) A (blurry) vision of the future: how leader rhetoric about ultimate goals influences performance. Acad Manag J 57:1544–1570

Çetin F, Aşkun D (2018) The effect of occupational self-efficacy on work performance through intrinsic work motivation. Manag Res Rev 41(2):186–201

Chan SCH, Mak WM (2014) Transformational leadership, pride in being a follower of the leader and organizational commitment. Leadersh Organ Dev J 35(8):674–690

Chang Y, Hou RJ, Wang K, Cui AP, Zhang CB (2020) Effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on social loafing in online travel communities. Comput Hum Behav 109:106360

Charbonneau D, Barling J, Kelloway EK (2001) Transformational leadership and sports performance: the mediating role of intrinsic motivation 1. J Appl Soc Psychol 31(7):1521–1534

Conchie SM (2013) Transformational leadership, intrinsic motivation, and trust: a moderated-mediated model of workplace safety. J Occup Health Psychol 18(2):198

Chen CHV, Li HH, Tang YY (2009) Transformational leadership and creativity: exploring the mediating effects of creative thinking and intrinsic motivation. Int J Manag Enterp Dev 6(2):198–211

Cox AE, Ullrich-French S, Tylka TL, McMahon AK (2019) The roles of self-compassion, body surveillance, and body appreciation in predicting intrinsic motivation for physical activity: cross-sectional associations, and prospective changes within a yoga context. Body Image 29:110–117

Deci EL, Ryan RM (1985) The general causality orientations scale: self-determination in personality. J Res Pers 19(2):109–134

Deci EL, Ryan RM (2008) Self-determination theory: a macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health. Can Psychol 49(3):182

Diebig M, Bormann KC, Rowold J (2017) Day-level transformational leadership and followers’ daily level of stress: a moderated mediation model of team cooperation, role conflict, and type of communication. Eur J Work Organ Psychol 26(2):234–249

Duffy MK, Shaw JD (2000) The Salieri syndrome: consequences of envy in groups. Small Group Res 31(1):3–23

Erez M, Gopher D, Arzi N (1990) Effects of goal difficulty, self-set goals, and monetary rewards on dual task performance. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 47(2):247–269

Fitzgerald S, Schutte NS (2010) Increasing transformational leadership through enhancing self-efficacy. J Manag Dev 29(5):495–505

Gagné M, Deci EL (2005) Self-determination theory and work motivation. J Organ Behav 26(4):331–362

George JM (1992) Extrinsic and intrinsic origins of perceived social loafing in organizations. Acad Manag J 35(1):191–202

Ghasabeh MS, Soosay C, Reaiche C (2015) The emerging role of transformational leadership. J Dev Areas 49(6):459–467

Gilbert S, Horsman P, Kelloway EK (2016) The motivation for transformational leadership scale. Leadersh Organ Dev J 49(6):459–467

Gillet N, Fouquereau E, Bonnaud-Antignac A, Mokounkolo R, Colombat P (2013) The mediating role of organizational justice in the relationship between transformational leadership and nurses’ quality of work life: a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. Int J Nurs Stud 50(10):1359–1367

Gist ME (1987) Self-efficacy: implications for organizational behavior and human resource management. Acad Manag Rev 12(3):472–485

Grant AM (2008) Does intrinsic motivation fuel the prosocial fire? motivational synergy in predicting persistence, performance, and productivity. J Appl Psychol 93(1):48

Gumusluoglu L, Ilsev A (2009) Transformational leadership, creativity, and organizational innovation. J Bus Res 62(4):461–473. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2007.07.032

Article   Google Scholar  

Hildenbrand K, Sacramento CA, Binnewies C (2018) Transformational leadership and burnout: the role of thriving and followers’ openness to experience. J Occup Health Psychol 23(1):31

De Hoogh AH, Den Hartog DN (2009) Neuroticism and locus of control as moderators of the relationships of charismatic and autocratic leadership with burnout. J Appl Psychol 94(4):1058

Jensen UT, Bro LL (2018) How transformational leadership supports intrinsic motivation and public service motivation: the mediating role of basic need satisfaction. Am Rev Pub Admin 48(6):535–549

Joo BKB, Park S (2010) Career satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention. Leadersh Organ Dev J 31(6):482–500

Judge TA, Piccolo RF (2004) Transformational and transactional leadership: a metaanalytic test of their relative validity. J Appl Psychol 89(5):755–768

Kahai SS, Sosik JJ, Avolio BJ (2003) Effects of leadership style, anonymity, and rewards on creativity-relevant processes and outcomes in an electronic meeting system context. Leadersh Q 14(4–5):499–524

Karau SJ, Williams KD (1993) Social loafing: a meta-analytic review and theoretical integration. J Pers Soc Psychol 65(4):681

Karau SJ, Williams KD (1995) Social loafing: research findings, implications, and future directions. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 4(5):134–140

Khattak MN, Zolin R, Muhammad N (2020) Linking transformational leadership and continuous improvement. Manag Res Rev 43(8):931–950

Kim S (2017) National culture and public service motivation: investigating the relationship using Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions. Int Rev Admin Sci 83(1):23–40

Kim J (2018) The contrary effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on burnout and turnover intention in the public sector. Int J Manpow 39(3):486–500

Koh D, Lee K, Joshi K (2019) Transformational leadership and creativity: a meta-analytic review and identification of an integrated model. J Organ Behav 40(6):625–650

Kovjanic S, Schuh SC, Jonas K (2013) Transformational leadership and performance: an experimental investigation of the mediating effects of basic needs satisfaction and work engagement. J Occup Organ Psychol 86(4):543–555

Kristensen TS, Borritz M, Villadsen E, Christensen KB (2005) The copenhagen burnout inventory: a new tool for the assessment of burnout. Work & Stress 19(3):192–207

Latane B, Williams K, Harkins S (1979) Social loafing. Psychol Today 110:104–106

Liden RC, Wayne SJ, Jaworski RA, Bennett N (2004) Social loafing: a field investigation. J Manag 30(2):285–304

Liu Y, Raker JR, Lewis JE (2018) Evaluating student motivation in organic chemistry courses: moving from a lecture-based to a flipped approach with peer-led team learning. Chem Educ Res Pract 19(1):251–264

Luo Z, Qu H, Marnburg E (2013) Justice perceptions and drives of hotel employee social loafing behavior. Int J Hosp Manag 33:456–464

Maslach C (2003) Job burnout: new directions in research and intervention. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 12(5):189–192

McColl-Kennedy JR, Anderson RD (2002) Impact of leadership style and emotions on subordinate performance. Leadersh Q 13(5):545–559

Mihelič KK, Culiberg B (2019) Reaping the fruits of another’s labor: the role of moral meaningfulness, mindfulness, and motivation in social loafing. J Bus Ethics 160(3):713–727

Monzani L, Ripoll P, Peiró JM, Van Dick R (2014) Loafing in the digital age: the role of computer mediated communication in the relation between perceived loafing and group affective outcomes. Comput Hum Behav 33:279–285

Mulvey PW, Klein HJ (1998) The impact of perceived loafing and collective efficacy on group goal processes and group performance. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 74(1):62–87

Nguyen HM, Mai LT, Huynh TL (2019) The role of transformational leadership toward work performance through intrinsic motivation: a study in the Pharmaceutical field in Vietnam. J Asian Finance Econ Bus 6(4):201–212

Panatik SAB, Badri SKZ, Rajab A, Rahman HA, Shah IM (2011) The impact of work family conflict on psychological well-being among school teachers in Malaysia. Proc Soc Behav Sci 29:1500–1507

Piccolo RF, Colquitt JA (2006) Transformational leadership and job behaviors: the mediating role of core job characteristics. Acad Manag J 49(2):327–340

Porter LW, Bigley GA (2003) Motivation and transformational leadership: Some organizational context issues. In: Allen RW, Porter LW, Angle HL (eds) Organizational influence processes. Routledge, New York, pp 263–274

Price KH, Harrison DA, Gavin JH (2006) Withholding inputs in team contexts: member composition, interaction processes, evaluation structure, and social loafing. J Appl Psychol 91(6):1375–1384

Rafferty AE, Griffin MA (2004) Dimensions of transformational leadership: conceptual and empirical extensions. Leadersh Q 15(3):329–354

Robbins S, Judge T (2014) Comportements organisationnels. Pearson Education

Ryan RM, Deci EL (2000) Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: classic definitions and new directions. Contemp Educ Psychol 25(1):54–67

Schaufeli WB, Leiter MP, Maslach C (2009) Burnout: 35 years of research and practice. Career Dev Int 14(3):204–220

Sahu S, Pathardikar A, Kumar A (2018) Transformational leadership and turnover: mediating effects of employee engagement, employer branding, and psychological attachment. Leadersh Organ Dev J 39(31):82–99. https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-12-2014-0243

Saleem S, Ali A, Akhtar I (2016) Impact of transformational leadership on job stress and burnout: the mediating role of self-efficacy. Int J Univ Teknol Malaysia 1–16

Santrock JW (2002) Life-span development, 8th edn. McGraw-Hill

Shamir B, House RJ, Arthur MB (1993) The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: a self-concept based theory. Organ Sci 4(4):577–594

Shin J, Grant AM (2019) Bored by interest: how intrinsic motivation in one task can reduce performance on other tasks. Acad Manag J 62(2):415–436

Shoshan HN, Venz L, & Sonnentag S (2019, July) Being recovered as an antecedent of emotional labor: a diary study. In: Academy of management proceedings, vol. 2019, no. 1. Academy of Management, Briarcliff Manor, p 14363

Silva WF, Redondo RP, Cárdenas MJ (2018) Intrinsic motivation and its association with cognitive, actitudinal and previous knowledge processes in engineering students. Contemp Engin Sci. https://doi.org/10.12988/CES.2018.79114

Simms A, Nichols T (2014) Social loafing: a review of the literature. J Manag Policy Pract 15(1):58

Skakon J, Nielsen K, Borg V, Guzman J (2010) Are leaders’ well-being, behaviours and style associated with the affective well-being of their employees? A systematic review of three decades of research. Work Stress 24(2):107–139

Sosik JJ, Jung D (2018) Intellectual stimulation: the rational side of transformational leadership. In: Full range leadership development. Routledge, pp 132–158

Tafvelin S, Nielsen K, von Thiele Schwarz U, Stenling A (2019) Leading well is a matter of resources: leader vigour and peer support augments the relationship between transformational leadership and burnout. Work Stress 33(2):156–172

Tanneberg D, Peters J, Rueckert E (2019) Intrinsic motivation and mental replay enable efficient online adaptation in stochastic recurrent networks. Neural Netw 109:67–80

Tepper BJ, Dimotakis N, Lambert LS, Koopman J, Matta FK, Man Park H, Goo W (2018) Examining follower responses to transformational leadership from a dynamic, person-environment fit perspective. Acad Manag J 61(4):1343–1368

Thomas KW, Velthouse BA (1990) Cognitive elements of empowerment: an “interpretive” model of intrinsic task motivation. Acad Manag Rev 15(4):666–681

Turnnidge J, Côté J (2017) Transformational coaching workshop: applying a person-centred approach to coach development programs. Int Sport Coach J 4(3):314–325

Udin U (2020) Transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behavior: an empirical investigation. Revista ESPACIOS 41(01)

Vallerand IA (2017) Burnout among MD/PhD trainees: the forgotten subgroup. Acad Med 92(7):906

Vanstraelen A (2019) Discussion of “how does intrinsic motivation improve auditor judgment in complex audit tasks?”. Contemp Account Res 36(1):132–138

Walumbwa FO, Hartnell CA (2011) Understanding transformational leadership–employee performance links: the role of relational identification and self-efficacy. J Occup Organ Psychol 84(1):153–172

Wang XHF, Kim TY, Lee DR (2016) Cognitive diversity and team creativity: effects of team intrinsic motivation and transformational leadership. J Bus Res 69(9):3231–3239

Yukl G (1999) An evaluation of conceptual weaknesses in transformational and charismatic leadership theories. Leadersh Q 10(2):285–305

Zwingmann I, Wegge J, Wolf S, Rudolf M, Schmidt M, Richter P (2014) Is transformational leadership healthy for employees? A multilevel analysis in 16 nations. German J Hum Resour Manag 28(1–2):24–51

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank family friends and teachers for their constant help and support to conduct this research.

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, Pakistan

Department of Business Administration, Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, Pakistan

Maryam Rehmat, Saira Farooqi & Javaria Asim

School of Business Administration, National College of Business Administration and Economics, Lahore, Pakistan

Maryam Rehmat, Tahira Hassan Butt, Saira Farooqi & Javaria Asim

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

Every author made contribution in each of the sections.HK completed her thesis on this topic for her M.Phil degree, MR supervised her in her thesis, THB has helped in proof reading the document and incorporating the reviewer’s comments, SF helped in putting it into paper format and JA helped in the analysis. All the authors have read and approved the document.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Maryam Rehmat .

Ethics declarations

Competing interest.

We do hereby solemnly affirm that we do not have any conflict of interest to declare, and that the study was conducted for purely academic/research purposes. “The authors have no competing interest.”

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Khan, H., Rehmat, M., Butt, T.H. et al. Impact of transformational leadership on work performance, burnout and social loafing: a mediation model. Futur Bus J 6 , 40 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43093-020-00043-8

Download citation

Received : 30 April 2020

Accepted : 02 November 2020

Published : 09 December 2020

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s43093-020-00043-8

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Transformational leadership style: a boost or hindrance to team performance in IT sector

Vilakshan - XIMB Journal of Management

ISSN : 0973-1954

Article publication date: 20 August 2021

Issue publication date: 1 February 2022

A leader plays an important role in the growth of an organization. The leader is a person who influences the standards, structure, culture and behaviour of the individuals employed in the organization. A leader also has effects on the result and productivity of teams. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of transformational leadership style on team performance. This paper will also analyze the existence of a relationship between transformational leadership style and team performance.

Design/methodology/approach

For this study, the researcher collected the data from 354 individuals employed in IT organizations in Pune. The team members answered questions asked about the transformational leadership style, and the team leaders answered questions related to team performance. The data has been analyzed using the latest available version of Statistical Product and Service Solutions.

The results of this examination suggest that there is strong and positive relationship between the transformational leadership style and team performance. Further, it was also found that transformational leader helps in a great way in improving team performance which in turn increases the organization’s productivity.

Research limitations/implications

Few limitations of this research work are that the data collected for this research work is non-cognitive in nature and simultaneously respondents may incline to evaluate the positive facets of opinion poll more propitiously than negative facets. Secondly, the data have been collected only from companies located in Pune.

Practical implications

This research study provides empirical data that will be helpful for human resources department of an organization, as it can help them in the development of policies and practices. It will also provide help leaders to support employees who are seeking effective ways to support struggling employees in context to their team performance.

Originality/value

The present study can be differentiated from past studies, as it thinks over an ensemble of transformational leadership style as an essential antecedent of team performance and also enhances the knowledge of the researchers and practitioners about the leadership style that upshot to the team performance. This will also help the managers, researchers, organizational development specialist and employees who are seeking effective ways to support struggling employees in context to their team performance.

• Team performance
• Transformational
• Leadership style

Jaroliya, D. and Gyanchandani, R. (2022), "Transformational leadership style: a boost or hindrance to team performance in IT sector", Vilakshan - XIMB Journal of Management , Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 87-105. https://doi.org/10.1108/XJM-10-2020-0167

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Deepak Jaroliya and Rajni Gyanchandani.

Published in Vilakshan – XIMB Journal of Management . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence maybe seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

Leader is a person who fascinates the people who are required to accomplish organizational goals. Countries, corporates and people unequivocally or certainly strive to become leaders in their space. Different organizations have different perspectives on leadership; it varies as per the overall structure of understanding expected by individual leaders with respect to their individual expectations ( Khan, 2017 ). As rightly pointed by Stogdill (1974) , there are approximately equivalent number of definitions of leadership as there are individuals who have made an effort to describe the idea. The result of this is that in the previous 50 years, there have been as many as 60 distinctive classification frameworks created to describe the components of leadership ( Fleishman, 1991 ). Over the last few decades one such theory of leadership, which pulled in much consideration of scientists and academicians in ongoing past, is transformational leadership ( Castelli, 2016 ).

Recent and past meta-examinations bolster the theorizing that transformational leaders motivates their team members to rise above their own objectives and focus on overall objectives of the organization, advance their responsibilities, freedom, exertion and execution ( DeGroot, 2000 ); ( Judge, 2004 ). The building block of any organization is team performance that is an imperious for the organization. It is essential for the organizations to understand the aspects which make the teams to work towards accomplishment of goal. Successively, the progress of any organization is dependent on the team’s effort and not on efforts of a few individual’s. The multifaceted worldwide view is performance intended to accomplish the anticipated outcomes and has a substantial association in achieving the significant objectives of any organization ( Mwita, 2000 ) and for accomplishment of these objectives, the most important variable to be considered is leadership style of team leaders. Additionally, it has been commonly recognized that the performance of any group is to a great extent reliant on authority style of its leader ( Jones and Rudd, 2008 ). The leader has an impending influence on team performance. The choices that the pioneer makes can lead to progress or setbacks of the organization. The need of effective leader increases with the growth of the organization. As per Burns (1978) , transformational leadership speaks to an authority style that is epitomized by attraction and mutual acumen among pioneers and adherents. The transformational leader’s vitality can be observed from their ability to invigorate and persuade everyone to make important work. As per Bass (1999) , transformational leadership takes place at the point when leaders expand as well as intrigues their representatives, as soon as they create mindfulness and acceptance of the reasons and objectives of the team, and at the time they stimulate their team members to fore glimpse their own specific interest for the interest of the team. So it can be assumed that there is a sturdy relationship between leadership style and team performance in any organization.

2. Literature review

Leadership is an ability to motivate, boost confidence and to support teams that works towards the achievement of organizational goals ( Kim, 1992 ). Leadership is a process of exercising pressure intentionally on people, to direct the organization and expedite the actions and associations in either a team or an organization ( Yukl, 2013 ). According to Khan (2017) , leader plays an important role in the organization by ensuring that projected leadership style should influence its team members. Fiedler (1996) is one of the most esteemed leadership researchers, who talks about the association between leadership and team performance and found that progress or setback of a team, organization or whole society is dependent on leader’s effectiveness to lead them. It is only leadership style that can make or break an organization. Leaders hold the key position in an organization and leader’ s efficiency to lead a team is a very important factor, which defines the progress or setbacks of a team. One of the most significant aspects in increasing or impeding the interest of the people or teams in any organization is leadership (Obiwuru et al. , 2011; Gillet, 2014 ). Success of a team means attainment of goals and objectives effectively and efficiently, and it is totally dependent upon the leadership style of team leaders ( Mokgolo, 2012 ).

idealized influence;

attributive charisma;

individual consideration;

inspirational motivation; and

intellectual stimulation.

Many researchers suggested that idealized influence refers that leader compelling activities that emphasis on morals, opinions and vision ( Carasco-Saul, 2015 ; Tajasom, 2015 ; Van Knippenberg, 2013 ). The leader stimulates esteem, appreciation and devotion among team members and lines them to assent as well as accomplish team’s goal collectively. Leader’s attributive charisma states that leader’s societal attractiveness and specifies opinion for the leader as being assertive and influential ( Bass, 1990 ). By individual consideration means a pioneer focuses on people bond, i.e. he/she focuses on maintaining the association with each and every team members. The leader recognizes and watches out subordinates various needs, sentiments, expertise and ambitions ( Winkler, 2010 ; Dionne, 2010 ; John, 2014). By inspirational motivation means the leader enunciates the dream among the team members and also persuades them to accept this dream, displaying various means to accomplish team objectives and develop confidence in them that they can accomplish it ( Yukl, 2013 ; Ndunge, 2014 ). Through intellectual stimulation, the leader magnifies and expands the intellectual ability of team members, prepares them intellectually for resolving the professional issues with novel approaches and improvements (Judge and Piccolo, 2004; Hancott, 2005 ; Northouse, 2015 ).

Transformational leadership is exceptionally compelling as far as follower’s development and performance is concerned. Regardless of the fact that investigate on transformational leadership has constantly observed that there is a fundamental procedure by which transformational leaders shows their effect on their subordinate’s growth and in due course raise their spirits team to perform its best. ( Dvir, 2002 ); ( Walumbwa, 2004 ); ( Wang, 2012 ), astoundingly comparatively slight investigation has been done on this topic particularly in IT sector in team settings.

According to Moura (2018), Haque (2017) modifications in the commercial center and in the personnel prompted a necessity to embrace a transformational leadership style. These pioneers cultivate adherents to go beyond their own expedience, lifting their development just as indicating worry for accomplishment, self-completion and prosperity of subordinates. By this way the leaders influence the adherent’s qualities, feelings, perspectives and rouse them to carry out their task past their desires ( Yukl, 2013 ). By steering team members towards more noteworthy degrees of accomplishment, transformational leadership has become critical to encourage performance of team. A study conducted by Tepper (2018) found that transformational leader makes team members respond better particularly at the time they face more challenges in their work. The researches on transformational leadership theory and performance endorses the relationship within these two develops ( Avolio, 2010 ). Different investigations show that transformational leadership is recognized to bring constructive group results in different occupational settings, both governmental and non-governmental ( Bass, 2009 ; Trottier, 2008 ).

Transformational leaders have the art of convincing, inspiring and stimulating team members to think creatively ( Fernet, 2015 ). Transformational leaders have the ability to rouse followers to function more earnestly and go beyond as is estimated for the benefit of the team ( Polychroniou, 2009 ). Therefore, transformational leaders make followers more dedicated towards the task of the team and thus bound them to cooperate after a while, execute better approaches for functioning and have a superior functional understanding. Altogether, team performance would be improved ( Strauss, 2009 ). They additionally reframe administrative environment to permit team members to be to be completely engaged with various aspects of their task ( Thomas, 2017 ). All things considered, workers have more opportunities to associate themselves to new circumstances in the work environment, which can make team members flexible ( Wang, 2017 ). In the current investigation, we will analyze the relationship between transformational leadership and team performance, using organizational teams of IT sector.

2.1 Team performance

As per Salas,(2008) ; Sudhakar (2011) , Weimar (2013) , team performance is one of the multi-dimensional and common phenomenon for any organization. Although the concept of team performance has been studied a lot by different academicians and researchers, there is unanimous agreement on its definition and measurement criteria. In many research performance behaviors and outcomes has been discriminated, various examinations have utilized unified or a multiple measurement of team results. Lester and colleagues (2002), indicated performance as meeting fundamental needs, accomplishing goals, as well as identifying important endurance aspects. Similarly, Hiller (2006) used a scale of efficiency consist of planning, cognitive ability, support and consideration, coaching and improvement, as well as overall effectiveness. Likewise, Van der Vegt (2005) had focused on supervisors rating on efficiency, quality, overall achievement, productivity and mission fulfillment of team. Barrick (1998) incorporated wisdom; excellence; magnitude; initiative; social skills; planning and overall commitment in their measure of performance.

According to Pawirosumarto (2017) , Edmonson (2017) performance of a team is typically centered on the team member’s knowledge, expertise, knowhow and behavior; required to accomplish a task. Almost all the organizations highlight on individuals team performance, as it is an imperative component in attaining sustainable competitive edge.

It has been found in the research conducted by Marieke van der Hoek (2016) , Moura (2018) that mutual trust is the most important factor that affects the team performance. It means that if mutual trust is present among members of team then team environment will be good which will make employees feel relaxed and comfortable to work with each other and will feel accountable and as result enhances team performance. Cohen (1997) categorized team outcomes into three groups: performance; attitudes and behaviours. Though, the conditions to measure the performance of team have transformed in the last few years and incorporated wide variety of methods and amalgamations. Along these lines, what establishes “viability” had become increasingly multifaceted past several years ( Mathieu, 2008 ).

Regardless of the accessibility of numerous points of view and representations of team performance ( Lourenço, 2004 ), team performance is a concept that is arduous and difficult to describe, as it has no relation to a goal reality. Or maybe, it had been recommended that adequacy ought to be broke down as well as estimated by the qualities, benefits, as well as inclinations of the on-screen characters also of frameworks to which it alludes to Dimas (2016) .

the level to which product or service of a team fulfills, or transcends, the criteria of both quantity and quality of the individuals who would be given or evaluate and/or utilizes it;

how much social processes inside the team keep up, or improve, the ability of the gathering to cooperate as well as turn into a progressively capable and most successful unit after some time; and

how much the fulfills individuals' needs and expands individuals' fulfillment, prosperity and advancement.

In accordance with this grasping point of view, in the current paper we considered following criteria to evaluate team performance: service and product satisfaction to clients, top quality services, successfully target accomplishment, high performance team, quickly fulfillment of work demand, meet required work deadlines, highly productive, met the set standard and renowned by other service teams for its high performance.

This research work is an endeavor to riposte as to how much effect does transformational leadership have on the team performance of any organization as well as to what degree does the transformational leadership style applied in any association assist team members in executing their tasks or aids in performing the tasks allotted to them. The main goal of the current research examination is to analyze the effect of transformational leadership style on team performance. The ramification of present investigation is to assist leaders of organization belongs to IT sector to recognize the style of leadership favored by their team members to upgrade their team performance and as almost all IT organizations have moved away from traditional hierarchical model towards dynamic team based organizational structure so it has been decided to by researchers considered IT Sector for the present study.

In accordance with this grasping point of view, in the present study, authors have considered following criteria to evaluate team performance: service and product satisfaction to clients; top quality services; successfully target accomplishment; high performance team; quickly fulfillment of work demand; meet required work deadlines; highly productive; met the set standard and renowned by other service teams for its high performance.

This has motivated researchers to come up with idea to conduct a research to understand the effect of leadership styles on team performance. It has been decided to conduct the present study specifically in the IT sector because of its dynamic and team based working culture.

Research gap

The substantial number of research studies has been conducted on leadership styles (Basham, 2012; Bolden, Gosling, O’Brien, Peters, Ryan and Haslam, 2012; Herbst and Conradie, 2011; López- Domínguez, Enache, Sallan and Simo, 2014; Sani and Maharani, 2012 ; Vinger, 2009 ) in the higher education and other sectors in numerous countries. Precisely, sufficient proofs of empirical studies are available on leadership styles and team performance in schools, universities, military, insurance sector, banking sector and so on. Although, these studies are different broadly with respect to circumstance, objectives and methodology.

There is testimony to this, as limited studies have been conducted in the subject of transformational leadership in India in few sectors; strangely, studies on the effect of transformational leadership styles on various outcomes such as knowledge creation in Indian software industry ( Athukorala, Perera and Meedeniya, 2016 ), employee’ performance in banking industry ( Chamika and Gunasekara, 2016 ), union and organizational commitment in public sector organizations in India ( Dhammika, Ahmad and Sam, 2013 ), etc.

But, still there is requirement for studies in the area of leadership styles in IT sector in India, where the cultural traits like beliefs, attitudes and behaviours vary remarkably. Besides this, earlier researches has distinctly applied varied types of leadership styles like autocratic and democratic leadership, servant leadership and authentic leadership and task and people oriented leadership styles to study the elements of interest. Hence, gap exists in the present literature exploring the effects of transformational leadership style on team performance in Indian context.

Furthermore, methodological problems are there with maximum prevailing studies. The most of field studies have been cross-sectional in design, and the common-method bias usually has been an issue when performance has been measured ( Barling et al. , 2002 ; Jermier and Kerr, 1997 ). The quality of performance measurement is important in finding the outcomes about the degree to which leadership matters and not all researches have been well devised ( Dionne et al. , 2002 ). Inside the Indian corporate area, it is extremely uncommon to run over investigations which have been directed on the effect of transformational leadership style on team performance in IT Sector. Accordingly the goal of the researcher was to discover how far the transformational leadership style progress toward becoming parameters affecting team performance in IT Sector which is a booming sector in India.

2.3 Research objectives

To analyze the existence of a relationship between transformational leadership style and team performance in IT sector.

To analyze the effect of transformational leadership style on team performance in IT sector.

3. Research method

The objective of this research can be achieved by examining the proposed model and for this; the quantitative survey design was used by researchers to accomplish research objectives.

3.1 Research instrument

Standard Scale – The MLQ (Multifactor Leadership Rater Questionnaire 36 items) developed by Bass (2000) , Mind Garden, was used to measure the transformational leadership style. From the MLQ “long form” 20 items of transformational leadership have been taken. The scale consists of 20 items, with four items for each factor. Transformational leadership style consisted of 20 items and the facets of which are idealized influence (attributed – 4 items), idealized influence (behavior – 4 items), inspirational motivation (4 items), intellectual stimulation (4 items) and individualized consideration (4 items). The items of transformational leadership style were rated on a five-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree and 5 = Strongly Agree).

Self-designed Questionnaire – A self-designed nine-item leadership outcome questionnaire was used to measure the team performance. The questionnaire consists of nine variable to measure team performance, i.e. service and product satisfaction to clients, top quality services, successfully target accomplishment, high performance team, quickly fulfillment of work demand, meet required work deadlines, highly productive, met the set standard and renowned by other service teams for its high performance. The items of team performance were rated on a five-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree and 5 = Strongly Agree).

3.2 Research participants and procedure

The respondents for this survey were employees working in IT organizations in Pune. It has been decided to conduct the present study specifically in the IT sector because of its dynamic and team based working culture. Two different tools were used to collect data from team members ( Standard Leadership Scale- Avolio and Bass, 2004 ) and team leaders ( Team Performance Questionnaire- Developed by Authors ). These components of team performance were evaluated by team leaders on the basis of the work of their team members. According to Rousseau (2010) team leaders are the best knowledgeable people about the outcomes of their individual teams and can accurately evaluate their performance. Transformational leadership style questionnaire was answered by team members; as they are the one who work closely with the team leader and observe their leader so they will be able to accurately answer the questions related to their leader’s leadership style.

The group must be officially perceived in the organization as a team.

At least five members should be there in a team (excluding the leader).

The leader (supervisor) must be officially acknowledged, too.

The respondent should have at least 1 year of experience in IT Sector.

The respondent should be a member of a team either subordinate or a team leader.

The participants completed 400 questionnaires out of which 354 found to be valid and thus the response rate was 88.5% that is satisfactory in social science. Out of the total respondents 69% were male and 31% were female employed in the IT sector in Pune.

4. Statistical analysis and results

The researcher used correlation analysis to measure the relationship between dependent (Team performance) and independent variable ( Transformational Leadership Style ). To identify the effect of transformational leadership on team performance linear regression analysis was performed. The researchers used descriptive and inferential statistics to analyze the data.

With the aim of this study, correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between dependent variable ( Team Performance ) and independent variable ( Transformational Leadership Style ). The findings of the study discovered a high correlation between transformational leadership and team performance. Transformational leadership is significantly related with team performance ( r = 0 .778, p < 0.01). Further, the researcher measured the correlation between transformational leadership subscales, i.e. idealized influence (A), idealized influence (B), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration with team performance. The result of these relationships is presented in Table 1 .

Table 1 indicates that there is a positive and significant relationship exists between transformational leadership style and team performance. It indicates that leadership conducts that encompass stimulating a shared dream, encouraging innovation, growth, strengthen confidence, acknowledging team endeavors encourages the individuals to carry out the tasks in a team and the presence all these factors inspire the team outperform for accomplishment of organizational goal.

Idealized influence (attributed) positively correlated with team performance, r = 1.00, p < 0.01. There was also a positive correlation between Idealized Influence (behavior) r = 0.649, p < 0.01 Inspirational motivation and team performance also positively related, r = 0.520 p < 0.01. Intellectual stimulation positively correlated with team performance, r = 0.539, p < 0.01. There was also a strong and positive correlation between Individualized consideration, r = 0.598, p < 0.01. It can be summarized that the results of correlation analysis indicated transformational leadership scale and team performance strongly related with each other r = 0.778, p < 0.01.

The correlation coefficient was used to test the relationship between transformational leadership style (single independent variable) and team performance (single dependent variable); the results showed that there is significant relationship between the both the variables considered for the present study. This implies that, irrespective of the leadership style used, the association is apparent. Additionally, it can be innocuous to conclude that leadership style as a single variable has effect on team performance in consort with some other variables that may not be considered in the present study. However, these results may not discount the fact that, traits of a leader and his efficacious leadership style has an important role to play to accomplish individual and organizational objectives ( Lussier, 2013 ). Luthans (2011) had highlighted that leadership style does not only offer positive results but also negative consequences. For this reason, the effect of the leadership style utilized should be taken into consideration in evaluating team performance. To assess the relationship between leadership style and team performance; the correlation coefficient was used. Linear regression analysis was used to envisage how well the independent factor, i.e. transformational leadership style predicts team performance among IT sector respondents.

4.1 Linear regression analysis

To identify the effect of independent variable ( Transformational Leadership Style ) on dependent variable ( Team Performance ), linear regression analysis was carried out. The results of linear regression analysis are presented in Tables 2 – 4 . Table 2 provides the R and R 2 values. The R value represents the simple correlation and is 0.792, which specifies a high degree of correlation. The R 2 value shows the level of variation in the dependent variable, i.e. team performance can be explained by the independent variable, i.e. transformational leadership style. In this case, 64.2% can be explicated, which is large.

The next table is the ANOVA table, which reports how well the regression equation fits the data (i.e. predicts the dependent variable) and is shown below.

Result of analysis of variance (ANOVA) is presented in Table 3 . It is also called as results of model fit. The above Table 3 indicates that the regression model predicts the team performance (i.e. dependent variable) significantly well. This indicates the statistical significance of the regression model. Here, the sig value is less than 0.05, and specifies that, overall, the regression model statistically significantly predicts the outcome variable (i.e. it is a good fit for the data).

Table 4 indicates the result of coefficients of the regression model. The outcomes of coefficients shows that transformational leadership style positively envisage team performance, standardized B = 0.781, ( p < 0.01). This result suggests that the team leaders who exhibit transformational leadership style; the performance of their team will increase significantly by 78.1%. This means that transformational leader helps in significantly increasing the performance of its team members.

5. Discussion of the results

Transformational leadership style plays an important role and contributes to the overall effectiveness of team. DuBrin (2012) found that a transformational leader is the one who helps organizations and people make positive changes in the way they do things our results suggested the same. Conducing to the writings on transformational leadership and in compliance with the pre-invasion outcomes stated in Kehinde and Banjo (2014), Tsigu and Rao (2015) and Gimuguni et al. (2014) , our results suggested that leaders who embrace transformational leadership style are competent to produce successful outcome and also improves team performance. This implies that transformational leaders may improve the performance of their teams by inspiring team members and also by providing them proper direction as well as by motivating them to continue to stay and work together. The researchers and practitioners consider the environment of IT industry as one of the most complex and dynamic industry environment. There are various important results that have been identified by this present research work that can provide suggestion both to researchers and practitioners. The data findings of this study is first illustrated among the transformational leadership behavior in terms of encouraging employees by idealized influence (attributed), idealized influence (behavior), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration the purpose to create positive results in organization.

On one side, the research shows that the individuals who are considered as successful team leaders help their team members to work efficiently and also provide fundamental support to them for accomplishment of team goals. Additionally, it is shown in the literature that the dynamic and complex nature of industry require a dynamic leader and its leadership to manage the changing organizational culture. Therefore, it seems that team leaders will have the ability to boost the degree of teamwork activities by executing an appropriate leadership style. This research has found that transformational leadership style is a most powerful tool used to improve team effectiveness in any organization. The current research is in line with the results found in the study by Zach and Baldegger (2017), who recommended that transformational leader has a significant positive effect on performance.

As it is suggested by the situational theory that an only one leadership style cannot be suitable in the entire situation, different team conditions require different leadership behavior from team leaders; therefore the condition or circumstances in which a team operates has a powerful influence on the use of leadership style. As people respond well to a properly used leadership style and behavior. The preeminent leadership style which should be expounds contingent on the situation in which a leader administer the team and also would lead them towards being effective. This study is inimitable as this provides comprehension on the role of leadership style in improving team performance of the IT Sector. This study is consistent with the previous research studies conducted by Jiang et al. (2016) , Andreani and Petrik (2016) and records a positive and significant association between transformational leadership style and team performance.

Though, contrary to our findings, Abdulkadir (2012) and Ojokuku et al. (2012) both witnessed that transformational leadership style has an insignificant negative relationship with team performance. This may be because of lack of experience of leaders at the time of dealing with the problems associated to the management of human resource ( Ojokuku et al. , 2012 ).

Transformational leaders emphasize on the importance of tasks that team members participate in at work. Thus, we can put it forward as that transformational leader shows trust in their team member’s abilities which encourages them to work and that lead to high performance results. The outcomes obtained from this study are in line with Shafie et al. (2013) who contended that individuals who use transformational leadership style divulge a higher level of performance. But is contrary to the findings of Lather et al. (2009) they observed that transformational leadership style of the leaders do not contribute to the conflict resolution style, extra effort, satisfaction and performance as well as effectiveness of the employees.

6. Conclusion

This research work presents the results of research work on transformational leadership style a boost or hindrance to team performance in the context of IT sector. In many ways transformational leadership style boosts the team performance of an organization. The research findings also confirmed the same. The findings revealed that transformational leadership has direct and positive significant effect on team performance which is supported by some previous research studies.

To ensure organization’s success, motivated workforce is required to go beyond their self-interest by alluring to their higher order needs and morality and it needs transformational leaders in any organization. It is believed that transformational leaders have the expertise to bring in, people and the systems on track so there is morality throughout the organization. As shown by the present research that leadership behaviour has direct effect on performance of the team, the present study can be moreover strengthened to explore elements that compose the right balance in leadership behaviours vital to derive projected yield delivery from team members.

It can be concluded from this research study that the team leaders who exhibit transformational leadership style accomplish desired results and better team performance from their team members. In the end, the upcoming researchers should take into account the limitations that manifested in the present study and they should comply with the recommendations in future investigation to avert the same limitations.

7. Implications

It has been revealed by many researchers that transformational leadership style could be considered as significant variable that could improve the team performance in an organization. The present study was an endeavor to enhance value of the current literature in the corporate management situation, particularly for the IT sector. Furthermore, the outcomes from the present study may help team leaders in identifying the role of transformational leaders to boost team member’s moral and as a result improved team performance which is very much required for organizational success.

This research examination may have a lot of implications for industry experts, researchers, academicians and practitioners relating to IT sector. Researchers can consider the present study as a base as it focuses only on one of the significant type of leadership style, i.e. transformational leadership style and its effect on team performance especially in IT sector. However, the scope of study could be further expanded by including different types of leadership styles as well as different emerging industry sectors. One of the key implications from researcher point of view could be to broaden the scope of study by comparing the effect of various leadership styles in different sectors as well as to identify the most promising styles of leadership in varied sectors.

The result of the present study shows that that all the constituents of transformational leadership (i.e. idealized influence [attributed], idealized influence [behavior], inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration) are applicable in the Indian IT sector which provides a guideline for the managers and decision-makers to make utmost use of these constituents to improve their team performance. Among all the constituents of transformational leadership idealized influence (attributed) and idealized influence (behavior) play major role in improving team performance, this highlights that team leaders must be well acquainted with the same.

The important theoretical implication of the present study is an empirical study of IT companies emphasizing the importance of leadership when evaluating team performance. Even though this concept is based on previous concepts of leadership and performance, particularly the transformational style (Wang et al. , 2011), this research adds to the leadership literature the effects of transformational leadership in the context of IT sector (Zach and Baldegger, 2017).

8. Limitations and further research

There are certain limitations of the present study. Few limitations of this research work are that the data collected for this research work is non-cognitive in nature and simultaneously respondents may incline to evaluate the positive facets of opinion poll more propitiously than negative facets. Secondly, the data has been collected only from companies located in Pune. Other limitation is that the only very few demographic information has been collected for present research examination and that too was not taken into consideration while measuring team performance. The research could have been more substantive if this examination would have considered wide-range of variances among these teams for example gender differences on the effects of leadership styles on team performance. There are certain other factors which play an important role in improving team performance such as organizational culture, employee contentment, enthusiasm and commitment. Hence, future studies can be carried out to discover thoroughly the effect of these variables on team performance. Additionally, only IT sector has been considered for this examination; other researchers can consider other sectors with diverse mode of operations so as to achieve a strong base for conclusions and decision concerning leadership styles and team performance. The significant results related the relationship between transformational leadership and the team performance can be swayed by the statistic that all data was collected from the similar source also no mediation effect was witnessed at the time of assessing the team performance by team leaders. Though psychometric attributes of the measures utilized in this examination are admissible, other studies might use different scale to conquer these issues.

Proposed conceptual model

Correlations among transformational leadership subscales and team performance

a Dependent Variable: Team Performance

Abdulkadir , D.S. ( 2012 ), “ Strategic human resource management and organizational performance in the Nigerian insurance industry: the impact of organizational climate ”, Business Intelligence Journal , Vol. 5 No. 1 , pp. 8 - 20 .

Antonakis , J. ( 2014 ), “ Instrumental leadership: Measurement and extension of transformational–transactional leadership theory ”, The Leadership Quarterly , Vol. 25 No. 4 , pp. 746 - 771 .

Athukorala , C. , Perera , I. and Meedeniya , D. ( 2016 ), “ The impact of transformational and transactional leadership styles on knowledge creation in Sri Lankan software industry ," 2016 Moratuwa Engineering Research Conference , pp. 309 - 314 .

Andreani , F. and Petrik , A. ( 2016 ), “ Employee performance as the impact of transformational leadership and job satisfaction in Pt Anugerah Baru Denpasar ”, Journal of Management and JMK , Vol. 18 No. 1 , pp. 25 - 32 .

Avolio , B.J. ( 2010 ), Full Range Leadership Development , Sage , Thousand Oaks, CA .

Avolio , B.J. and Bass , B.M. ( 2004 ), “ Transformational leadership and organizational commitment: Mediating role of psychological empowerment and moderating role of structural distance ”, Journal of Organizational Behavior , Vol. 25 No. 8 , pp. 951 - 968 .

Bacha , E. ( 2014 ), “ The relationship between transformational leadership, task performance and job characteristics ”, Journal of Management Development , Vol. 33 No. 4 , pp. 410 - 420 .

Barling , J. , Loughlin , C. , Kevin Kelloway , E. and Turner , N. ( 2012 ), “ Transformational leadership and employee psychological well-being: The mediating role of employee trust in leadership ”, Work & Stress: An International Journal of Work, Health & Organizations , Vol. 26 No. 1 , pp. 39 - 55 .

Barrick , M.R. ( 1998 ), “ Relating member ability and personality to work team processes and team effectiveness ”, Journal of Applied Psychology , Vol. 83 No. 3 , pp. 377 - 391 .

Bass , B.M. ( 1987 ), “ Biography and the assessment of transformational leadership at the world-class level ”, Journal of Management , Vol. 13 No. 1 , pp. 7 - 19 .

Bass , B.M. ( 1997 ), Full- Range of Leadership Development: Manual for the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire , Mind Garden , Palo Alto, CA .

Bass , B.M. and Avolio , B.J. ( 1997 ), Full- Range of Leadership Development: Manual For The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire , Mind Garden , Palo Alto, CA .

Bass , B.M. ( 1999 ), “ Two decades of research and development in transformational leadership ”, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology , Vol. 8 No. 1 , pp. 9 - 32 .

Bass , B.M. ( 2000 ), MLQ Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire , Mind Garden , Redwood City .

Bass , B.M. ( 2009 ), The Bass Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications , Free Press , New York, NY .

Bass , B.M. ( 1990 ), “ From transactional to transformational leadership: learning to share the vision ”, Organizational Dynamics , Vol. 18 No. 3 , pp. 19 - 32 .

Bass , B.M. ( 1995 ), Improving Organizational Effectiveness through Transformational Leadership , Sage Publications , Thousand Oaks, CA .

Bhatnagar , D.A. ( 2012 ), “ Leader values for constructive controversy and team effectiveness in India ”, The International Journal of Human Resource Management , Vol. 23 No. 1 , pp. 109 - 125 .

Burns , J.M. ( 1978 ), Leadership , Harper and Row , MI .

Carasco-Saul , M.K. ( 2015 ), “ Leadership and employee engagement proposing research agendas through a review of literature ”, Human Resource Development Review , Vol. 14 No. 1 , pp. 38 - 63 .

Castelli , P.A. ( 2016 ), “ Reflective leadership review: a framework for improving organisational performance ”, Journal of Management Development , Vol. 35 No. 2 , pp. 217 - 236 .

Chun , J.C. ( 2016 ), “ A multilevel study of group-focused and individual-focused transformational leadership, social exchange relationships, and performance in teams ”, Journal of Organizational Behavior , Vol. 37 No. 3 , pp. 374 - 396 .

Cohen , S.G. ( 1997 ), “ What makes teams work: group effectiveness research from the shop floor to the executive suite ”, Journal of Management , Vol. 23 No. 3 , pp. 239 - 290 .

Chamika , M.W. and Gunasekara ( 2016 ), “ The Impact of Leadership Styles on Employee Performance ”, Proceedings of the Undergraduates Research Conference - 2016, 11th January 2017 , Department of Accountancy, Faculty of Commerce and Management Studies, University of Kelaniya .

Collins , J. ( 2014 ), “ Transformational leadership: the most effective leadership style? Wattsnext insourced ”, HR Directors , available at: www.wattsnext.com.au/Transformational-Leadership-The-most-effective-leadership-style

Crane , B.A. ( 2018 ), “ Developing employees’ mental complexity: transformational leadership as a catalyst in employee development ”, Human Resource Development Review , Vol. 17 No. 3 , pp. 234 - 257 .

Dionne , S.D. ( 2010 ), “ The role of leadership in shared mental model convergence and team performance improvement: an agent-based computational model ”, The Leadership Quarterly , Vol. 21 No. 6 , pp. 1035 - 1049 .

Dubrin , A. ( 2012 ), Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills , 7th ed. , Houghton Mifflin , Boston, MA .

DeGroot , T.K. ( 2000 ), “ A meta-analysis to review organizational outcomes related to charismatic leadership ”, Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences/Revue Canadienne Des Sciences de L'Administration , Vol. 17 No. 4 , pp. 356 - 371 .

Dimas , I.D. ( 2016 ), Work Teams - Assessment Instruments .

Dhammika , K.A.S , Ahmad , F.B. and Sam , T.L. ( 2013 ), “ Transactional, transformational, union and organizational commitment: An examination of the effect flaws , International Journal of Business and Social Science , Vol. 4 No. 6 .

Dvir , T.E. ( 2002 ), “ Impact of transformational leadership on follower development and performance: a field experiment ”, Academy of Management Journal , Vol. 45 , pp. 735 - 744 .

Edmonson , C.S. ( 2017 ), “ The leader role in crisis management ”, JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration , Vol. 46 No. 9 , pp. 417 - 419 .

Fernet , C.T.S. ( 2015 ), “ Transformational leadership and optimal functioning at work: on the mediating role of employees’ perceived job characteristics and motivation ”, Work and Stress , Vol. 29 No. 1 , pp. 11 - 31 .

Fiedler , F. ( 1996 ), “ Research on leadership selection and training: one view of the future ”, Administrative Science Quarterly , Vol. 41 No. 2 , pp. 241 - 250 .

Fleishman , E.A. ( 1991 ), “ Taxonomic efforts in the description of leader behavior: a synthesis and functional interpretation ”, The Leadership Quarterly , Vol. 2 No. 4 , pp. 245 - 287 .

Gillet , N.A. ( 2014 ), “ Transformational leadership and organizational commitment: the mediating role of job characteristics ”, Human Resource Development Quarterly , Vol. 25 No. 3 , pp. 321 - 347 .

Gimuguni , L. , Nandutu , J. and Magolo , A. ( 2014 ), Effect of Leadership Styles on Performance of Local Governments in Uganda , A case of Mbale District .

Gumusluoglu , L. and Isev , A. ( 2007 ), “ Transformational leadership, creativity and organizational innovation ”, Journal of Business Research , Vol. 62 No. 4 , pp. 461 - 473 .

Hackman , J.R. ( 2012 ), “ From causes to conditions in group research ”, Journal of Organizational Behavior , Vol. 33 No. 3 , pp. 428 - 444 .

Hancott , D. ( 2005 ), “ The relationship between transformational leadership and organisational performance in the largest public companies in Canada ”, Minneapolis: Doctoral Dissertation , Capella University .

Haque , A.F. ( 2017 ), “ The relationship between female representation at strategic level and firm’s competitiveness: evidences from cargo logistic firms of Pakistan and Canada ”, Polish Journal of Management Studies , Vol. 15 No. 2 , pp. 69 - 81 .

Hiller , N.J. ( 2006 ), “ Collective enactment of leadership roles and team effectiveness: a field study ”, The Leadership Quarterly , Vol. 17 No. 4 , pp. 387 - 397 .

Jiang , W. , Lu , Y. and Le , Y. ( 2016 ), “ Trust and project success: a twofold perspective between owners and contractors ”, Journal of Management in Engineering , Vol. 32 No. 6 , pp. 04016022 .

Jones , D. and Rudd , R. ( 2008 ), “ Transactional, transformational, or laissez- faire leadership: An assessment of college of agriculture academic program leaders’ (Deans) leadership styles ”, Journal of Agricultural Education , Vol. 49 No. 2 , pp. 88 - 97 .

Judge , T.A. ( 2004 ), “ Transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analytic test of their relative validity ”, Journal of Applied Psychology , Vol. 89 No. 5 , pp. 755 - 768 .

Kerr , S. and Jermier , J.M. ( 1977 ), “ Substitutes for leadership: Their meaning and measurement ”, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance , Vol. 22 , pp. 375 - 403 .

Khan , S.A. ( 2017 ), “ To evaluate the impact of transformational leadership on organizational learning ”, International Journal of Research in Commerce and Management , Vol. 8 No. 9 , pp. 1 - 6 .

Kehinde Obasan , A. and Hassan Banjo , A. ( 2014 ), “ A Test of the Impact of Leadership Styles on Employee Performance: A Study of Department of Petroleum Resources ," International Journal of Management Sciences, Research Academy of Social Sciences , Vol. 2 No. 3 , pp. 149 - 160 .

Kim , W.K. ( 1992 ), “ Parables of leadership ”, Harvard Business Review , Vol. 123 .

Lopez-Dominguez , M. , Enache , M. , Sallan , J. and Simo , P. ( 2014 ), “ Transformational leadership as an antecedent of change oriented organizational citizenship behavior ”, Journal of Business Research , Vol. 66 No. 10 , pp. 2147 - 2152 .

Lussier , RN. ( 2013 ), Management Fundamentals , 4th ed. , South Western: Cengage Learning , Mason, OH .

Luthans , F. ( 2012 ), Organizational behavior : An Evidence-Based Approach , McGraw-Hill , New York , pp. 428 - 430 .

Lather , A. , Singh , Jain , V.K. , Jain , Silpha . and Vikas , S. ( 2009 ), “ Leadership styles in relation to conflict resolution modes: a study of Delhi Jal board (DJB) ”, Vilakshan: The XIMB Journal of Management. Mar2009 , Vol. 6 No. 1 , pp. 19 - 38 .

Lourenço , P.R. ( 2004 ), “ Group effectiveness: analysis and discussion of a multidimensional model ”, Psychological, Extra-Series , pp. 611 - 621 .

Marieke van der Hoek , S.G. ( 2016 ), “ Goal setting in teams: goal clarity and team, performance in the public sector ”, Review of Public Personnel Administration , pp. 1 - 22 .

Mathieu , J.M. ( 2008 ), “ Team effectiveness 1997-2007: a review of recent advancements and a glimpse into the future ”, Journal of Management , Vol. 34 No. 3 , pp. 410 - 476 .

Mokgolo , M.M. ( 2012 ), “ Transformational leadership in the South African public service after the April 2009 national elections ”, South African Journal of Human Management , Vol. 1 No. 1 , pp. 2 - 9 .

Mwita , J.I. ( 2000 ), “ Performance management model: a systems‐based approach to public service quality ”, International Journal of Public Sector Management , Vol. 13 No. 1 , pp. 19 - 37 .

Ndunge , W.E. ( 2014 ), “ Strategic leadership and change management practices at the Kenya wildlife service ”, Doctoral dissertation, University of Nairobi .

Northouse , P.G. ( 2015 ), Leadership: Theory and Practice , Sage publications , Thousand Oaks .

Palestini , R.H. ( 2009 ), From leadership theory to practice: A game plan for success as a leader , Rowman & Littlefield Education , pp. 25 - 26 .

Obiwuru , T. ( 2011 ), “ Effects of leadership style on organisational performance ”, Journal of Business and Management Research , Vol. 1 No. 7 , pp. 100 - 111 .

Ojokuku , R.M. , Odetayo , T.A. and Sajuyigbe , A.S. ( 2012 ), “ Impact of leadership style on organizational performance: a case study of Nigerian banks ”, American Journal of Business and Management , Vol. 2 No. 1 , pp. 202 - 207 .

Pawirosumarto , S.S. ( 2017 ), “ Factors affecting employee performance of PT.Kiyokuni Indonesia ”, International Journal of Law and Management , Vol. 59 No. 4 , pp. 602 - 614 .

Polychroniou , P.V. ( 2009 ), “ Relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership of supervisors: the impact on team effectiveness ”, Team Performance Management: An International Journal , Vol. 15 Nos 7/8 , pp. 343 - 356 .

Rotberg , R.I. ( 2014 ), “ The need for strengthened political leadership ”, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , Vol. 652 No. 1 , pp. 238 - 256 .

Rousseau , V. &. ( 2010 ), “ Team self-managing behaviors and team effectiveness: the moderating effect of task routineness ”, Group and Organization Management , Vol. 35 No. 6 , pp. 771 - 781 .

Salas , E.C. ( 2008 ), “ On teams, teamwork, and team performance: discoveries and developments ”, Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society , Vol. 50 No. 3 , pp. 540 - 547 .

Singh , N. and Krishnan , V.R. ( 2007 ), “ Transformational leadership in India: Developing and validating a new scale using grounded theory approach ”, International Journal of Cross - Cultural Management , Vol. 7 No. 2 , pp. 219 - 236 .

Sani and Maharani ( 2012 ), “ The impacts of transformational leadership and organizational commitment on job performance with the among lecturers of faculty in the Islamic Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang University: the mediating effects of organizational citizenship behavior ”, International Journal of Academic Research Part B , Vol. 4 No. 4 , pp. 99 - 103 .

Shafie , B. , Baghersalimi , S. and Barghi , V. ( 2013 ), “ The relationship between leadership style and employee performance (case study of real estate registration organization of Tehran province) ”, Singaporean Journal of Business, Economics and Management Studies , Vol. 2 No. 5 , pp. 21 - 29 , doi: 10.12816/0003885 .

Somboonpakom , A. &. ( 2014 ), “ Shared leadership and shared vision as predictors for team learning process, synergy and effectiveness in healthcare industry ”, International Journal of Innovation and Learning , Vol. 16 No. 4 , pp. 78 - 91 .

Stogdill , R.M. ( 1974 ), Handbook of Leadership, a Survey of Theory and Research , Free Press .

Strauss , K.G. ( 2009 ), “ Proactivity directed toward the team and organization: the role of leadership, commitment and role-breadth self-efficacy ”, British Journal of Management , Vol. 20 No. 3 , pp. 279 - 291 .

Sudhakar , G.F. ( 2011 ), “ Soft factors affecting the performance of software development teams ”, Team Performance Management: An International Journal , Vol. 17 Nos 3/4 , pp. 187 - 205 .

Susan , K. ( 2014 ), “ Mission-Driven followership and civic engagement: a different sustainable energy ”, Journal of Leadership Education , Vol. 13 No. 14 , pp. 76 - 87 .

Tajasom , A. ( 2015 ), “ The role of transformational leadership in innovation performance of Malaysian SMEs ”, Asian Journal of Technology Innovation , Vol. 23 No. 2 , pp. 172 - 188 .

Tepper , B.D. ( 2018 ), “ Examining follower responses to transformational leadership from a dynamic, person-environment fit perspective ”, Academy of Management Journal , Vol. 61 No. 4 , pp. 1343 - 1368 .

Thomas , W.H.N. ( 2017 ), “ Transformational leadership and performance outcomes: analyses of multiple mediation pathways ”, Leadership Quaterly , Vol. 28 No. 3 , pp. 385 - 417 .

Trottier , T.V. ( 2008 ), “ Examining the nature and significance of leadership in government organizations ”, Public Administration Review , Vol. 68 No. 2 , pp. 319 - 333 .

Tsigu , G.T. and Rao , D.P. ( 2015 ), “ Leadership styles: their impact on job outcomes in Ethiopian banking industry ”, ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics and Management Research , Vol. 5 No. 2 , pp. 41 - 52 .

Van der Vegt , G.S. ( 2005 ), “ Learning and performance in multidisciplinary teams: the importance of collective team identification ”, Academy of Management Journal , Vol. 48 No. 3 , pp. 532 - 547 .

Vinger , G. ( 2009 ), “ The restructuring of a university: a call for the exhibition of transformational leadership behaviours ”, The International Journal of Learning: Annual Review , Vol. 16 No. 10 , pp. 267 - 286 .

Van Knippenberg , D.&. ( 2013 ), “ A critical assessment of charismatic – transformational leadership research: back to the drawing board? ”, Academy of Management Annals , Vol. 7 No. 1 , pp. 983 - 1007 .

Walumbwa , F.O. ( 2004 ), “ The role of collective efficacy in the relations between transformational leadership and work outcomes ”, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology , Vol. 77 No. 4 , pp. 515 - 530 .

Wang , D.D. ( 2014 ), “ A meta–analysis of shared leadership and team effectiveness ”, Journal of Applied Psychology , Vol. 99 No. 2 , pp. 191 - 198 .

Wang , D.D. ( 2014 ), “ A Meta–analysis of shared leadership and team effectiveness ”, Journal of Applied Psychology , Vol. 99 No. 2 , pp. 191 - 198 .

Wang , H.J. ( 2017 ), “ Transformational leadership, adaptability, and job crafting: the moderating role of organizational identification ”, Journal of Vocational Behavior , Vol. 100 , pp. 185 - 195 .

Wang , X.-H. ( 2012 ), “ A multilevel study of transformational leadership, identification, and follower outcomes ”, The Leadership Quarterly , Vol. 23 No. 5 , pp. 775 - 790 .

Weimar , E.N. ( 2013 ), “ Towards high performance software teamwork ”, Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering in Porto de Galinhas ,in EASE 2013 , pp. 212 - 215 , Brazil, 2013 , ACM , New York, NY .

Winkler , I. ( 2010 ), Contemporary Leadership Theories: Enhancing the Understanding of the Complexity, Subjectivity and Dynamic of Leadership , New York, NY , Springer Science + Business Media .

Yukl , G.A. ( 2013 ), Leadership in Organizations , 8th ed. , Pearson Education , UpperSaddle River, NJ .

Zach , L. ( 2018 ), “ Five different types of leadership styles ”, available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/5-different-types-leadership-styles-17584.html

Further reading

Alan , M. ( 2013 ), “ Leadership styles ”, Retrieved May Saturday, 2020 , available at: www.ofd.ncsu.edu/wp-content/leadership : www.ofd.ncsu.edu/wp-content/leadership

Amin , M.E. ( 2005 ), Social Science Research Conceptions, Methodology and Analysis , Makerere University , Kampala .

Asare , O.M. ( 2012 ), “ In, an empirical investigation between leadership style and organizational performance ”, Hawaii: Doctorate thesis, Atlantic International University Honolulu .

Asrar-Ul-Haq , M. and Kuchinke , K.P. ( 2016 ), “ Impact of leadership styles on employees’ attitude towards their leader and performance: empirical evidence from Pakistani banks ”, Future Business Journal , Vol. 2 No. 1 , pp. 54 - 64 .

Aziz , R.A. ( 2013 ), “ The effects of leadership styles on the business performance of SMES in Malaysia ”, International Journal of Business, Economics and Accounting , Vol. 2 , pp. 45 - 52 .

K , B. , B. ( 2003 ), “ Transformational leadership: an examination of cross-national differences and similarities ”, Leadership and Organization Development Journal , Vol. 24 Nos 1/2 , pp. 5 - 17 .

B.M , B. ( 1986 ), Leadership and Performance beyond Expectations , Free Press , New York, NY .

Bormann , K.C. and Rowold , J. ( 2018 ), “ Construct proliferation in leadership style research: reviewing pro and contra arguments ”, Organizational Psychology Review , Vol. 8 Nos 2/3 , pp. 149 - 173 .

Chandra , T. &. ( 2016 ), “ The influence of leadership styles, work environment and job satisfaction of employee performance ”, International Education Studies , Vol. 9 No. 1 , pp. 131 - 140 .

Isabel , M. and D , C. ( 2018 ), “ Information systems project teams: factors for high performance ”, Team Performance Management: An International Journal .

Jong , J. , Hartog , D. and John , M.C. ( 2014 ), “ Leadership style, school climate, and the institutional commitment of teachers ”, In International Forum Journal , Vol. 1 No. 2 , pp. 167 - 184 .

Niti Singh , V.R. ( 2007 ), “ Transformational leadership in India: developing and validating a new scale using grounded theory approach ”, International Journal of Cross Cultural Management , Vol. 7 No. 2 , pp. 219 - 236 .

Nunnally , J.A. ( 1994 ), “ The assessment of reliability ”, Psychometric Theory , Vol. 3 , pp. 248 - 292 .

Corresponding author

Related articles, we’re listening — tell us what you think, something didn’t work….

Report bugs here

All feedback is valuable

Please share your general feedback

Join us on our journey

Platform update page.

Visit emeraldpublishing.com/platformupdate to discover the latest news and updates

Questions & More Information

Answers to the most commonly asked questions here

Transformational Leadership Essay

Introduction.

In any organization, the focus is based on yielding high profits. The key to this lies in the leader, who in turn inspires the staff. Leadership in an organization is usually classified into different categories based on the style the leader uses.

Different leadership styles are used to attain desired goals, but Bass (2006) pointed out in his work that the secret to an organization that is effective in achieving its goals lies in the use of transformational leadership. A leader usually uses power and influence to exercise authority. In transformational leadership, however, the idea is to emphasize influence to manage the teams and bring them aboard to understand the leader’s vision.

What Is a Transformational Leader?

Transformational leadership can be defined as implementing new ideas through adopting a more flexible and universal method of influencing and continually ameliorating those around them. This type of leadership calls for the leader and the staff to improve one another’s motivation levels.

Motivational leaders bravely work towards making the staff realize the need for higher ideas and their vision for the organization’s future. Transformational leaders naturally role model their followers and pass their enthusiasm by clearly letting them visualize their ideas and what he is doing, and by outlining their genuine personal beliefs, he shows the followers that he has these values. Transformational leaders can achieve these results by possessing certain qualities and characteristics.

Transformational leaders understand their abilities and confidently stand firm on their beliefs. Confidence in their abilities keeps them motivated and helps them connect emotionally to the organization. They have high levels of self-determination, which helps them attain a sense of direction for the organization and, in turn, influence the followers, and together they propel the organization in the right course.

They possess self-drive, which helps them to visualize themselves as achievers who do not have to rely on luck to achieve good results. It is this understanding of self that helps them to transform those around them (Chammas, 2010).

Another characteristic of effective transformational leaders is seen in their ability to understand those around them and particularly those under them. Transformational leaders carefully understand and purposefully influence and motivate the staff to understand the goals. Together, they are working toward attaining that goal since he assists them in realizing its intended worth.

This requires the transformational leader to have the right communication skills to relay their vision to the point of winning the willingness of the followers such that they, too, are excited and have the drive to achieve the desired change. Transformational leader fully understands what they hope to achieve, and the process of carefully relaying the intent to the followers requires idealized influence, which ensures the followers are not resistant to the idea.

To do so, the leader must also be willing to actively involve them in chatting the way forward towards attaining the goal. After they agree on the right course of action, the transformational leader again provides inspirational motivation to keep them going and excite their minds to have the urge to achieve the task.

After the transformational leader purposefully develops the ideas and effectively influences the staff to yearn to attain the goal, it only marks the beginning of the process. The work of the transformational leader is to keep the staff focused on the vision continually, help them stick to the agreed course of action to attain the vision, and continually be actively involved in influencing more and more colleagues to support the vision.

The importance here is to make sure that the staff clearly understands the vision the leader has for the organization’s future and make sure that they will support the course and keep abreast with the importance of the task even in years to come. The staff should not just be involved in doing their assigned job but engage in the job because they realize the importance of the outcome of the job.

The last characteristic of transformation leadership is a combination of three qualities requiring the transformational leader to think outside the box. According to Chammas (2010), a transformational leader is not afraid to evaluate the organization’s traditions and make changes without interfering with its core business.

This requires that they come up with innovative and creative ways that align with their vision for the organization. In their pursuit of change, they are seen as ignoring the present and yearning for a better future. A factor that works with this is their willingness to embrace innovations and ideas.

The transformational leader encourages others to develop new methodologies and innovations that align with attaining the vision. They do so as to keep abreast with the changing times and to demonstrate that they understand that new challenges in the future need new solutions.

Therefore, they encourage suggestions and offer appraisals for the best ideas. The third point on the same is that the transformational leader takes up their role as the advisor and the guide of the team. Their role here is to assist the whole team through the operations. This requires that they understand that each individual has their own personal strengths and weaknesses in given areas.

The leader also considers the individual’s level and will to adjust to new ideas. By understanding the readiness levels, the leader can establish the right timing for implementing the new ideas so that the resistance is minimal. The ability to forge ahead and achieve a new, transformed organization depends on the transformational leader’s influence levels on the staff and developing them in the areas needed to achieve a new organization.

Transformational leadership has proven effective by far compared to other leadership styles. This is due to its influential nature that seeks to have both the leader and the follower develop each other, and together they work towards attaining a vision and, in turn, a new organization.

The benefits of adopting transformation leadership are clearly felt in the outcomes. Transformation leadership increases the influence at the topmost leadership level. This, according to Cox (2010), is because transformational leaders act as role models to other employees in the organization and hence are obeyed, and their method of dealing with people is respected. The result is an organization where there is solid unity between the leader and the employees, giving rise to an atmosphere of mutual trust and effective communication.

This means that the executive is given a hearing by other staff. Therefore the implementation of ideas is fast, and the environment at the workplace is not tense or hierarchical. This is because more emphasis is placed on developing each other instead of arguing about bureaucracy. The leader concentrates on guiding the staff through the vision instead of spending most of the time trying to unite opposing groups in an organization. Results are achieved quickly once all the staff are on board and working passionately.

Another benefit of transformational leadership is seen in how the leader oozes the charisma and excitement they have to perform their duty. The rest of the staff can read clearly the leader’s aspirations, and consequently, they follow in trying to achieve the vision too. The energy possessed by transformational leaders is said to be a major contributor to the other staff’s willingness to join in because they are inspired by their leader’s genuine vision of taking the organization to a whole new level.

A successful and effective organization is able to be realized through two important aspects; a leader who has a clearly defined vision for the organization and staff who have the will to assist and work together towards the realization of that goal. Transformational leaders are enthusiastic about their vision and through their ability to bring other staff on board, realizing the vision becomes very easy and hence a successful and effective organization (Cox, 2010).

A major benefit of transformational leadership is how it can guide the employees bit by bit in achieving a change in the organization. They do this by gradually explaining and influencing the employees and taking them through the step-by-step process of attaining the desired change.

They can visualize the changes the organization should hope to achieve, e.g., introducing a new product, new operating methods, new technology adjustments, etc. They then embark on a mission to carefully engage the employees to understand their feelings toward the desired change. According to Xenitelis (2010), they do this by employing tactical approaches to reveal their thoughts on the same and involve them directly in defining the desired change.

They then attempt to make that necessary adjustment to make the employees clearly understand why the change is important and what it hopes to achieve. After the necessary change is made to propel the vision, the transformational leader then guides the process and ensures that everyone is on board. The leader keeps a constant check by evaluating the process as it continues and hence makes the necessary changes.

This step-by-step engagement of the process proves very successful and is the most effective way for the organization to realize changes. It is also an effective way of avoiding resistance to change which is usually a major hindrance to organizational progress. Its effectiveness is seen especially when the organization wishes to launch a new product or desires to make a complete change in its operating processes (Xenitelis, 2010).

Employees in an organization led by a transformational leader always feel the challenge to keep their energies going because they are inspired by the leader. This fosters a feeling of taking one’s duties and responsibilities personally and yearning to perform one’s tasks to the best of their abilities. This sort of inspiration by the transformational leader encourages the employees to come up with new ways of doing things.

Creativity and innovativeness amongst the employees are encouraged, which, in turn, brings out the individual’s full potential while still addressing the issue of self-development. The benefits of such a working environment trickle down to the organization, which has employees with self-fulfillment and give their best, and their creative input is enjoyed; hence the organization’s effectiveness is realized (Stewart, 2006).

Bass, one of the pioneers of transformational leadership, pointed out that the application of this style of leadership helps the employees push their abilities to levels they never thought they could reach. In addition to transformational leadership uniting and ensuring people agree Bass pointed out that it fosters a working culture where moral force flourishes, and therefore the level of employee turnover is kept at a minimum.

Employees who understand that the organization they are working for encourages them to give their creativity and allows them to develop to levels they never thought they could achieve are likely to stick with the organization for long. The benefits of such a working culture are realized in the organization’s success in achieving its vision since the costs associated with employee turnover and retention are cut, as well as the benefits of developed and satisfied employees (Bass, 2006).

Transformational leadership brings forth culture and climate in an organization whereby success is bound to prosper. When a transformational leader takes into consideration the abilities and needs of each employee individually and shares their genuine vision clearly and elaborately, it brings forth a culture of honesty and receptiveness.

The employees feel that their input is respected and credit awarded for their ideas. This, in turn, gives rise to a working environment where there is job satisfaction, and consequently, due to the absence of commotion, the environment is stress-free.

The employees are always in high spirits, and their motivation to work hard is on top; hence they freely express their abilities to improve in certain areas, and the areas where they are strong are emphasized. An organization’s success is bound to be realized in such a stress-free working culture with high motivation levels. Job satisfaction is high and personal abilities are given consideration.

Transformational leadership is beneficial in that it can help an organization cut costs. Through the transformational leader’s ability to connect with the employees and give them a chance to understand the task at hand, including allowing their ideas and creativity, job satisfaction is achieved, which means employees do not feel the need to leave the organization hence the reduced employee turnover. This, in a major way, saves the organization high costs associated with losing employees and having to employ new ones.

In a transformational leadership organization, the employees are given a chance to concentrate on areas they are strong in; hence, the unnecessary costs of training the employees in unfamiliar areas are reduced. This also goes for the fact that the employees are given a chance to develop, and as they work harmoniously, they teach each other by sharing ideas. Hence, in-training employees is unnecessary in most cases (Stewart, 2006).

Transformational Leadership: Conclusion

In conclusion, effectiveness in an organization highly depends on the leader’s ability to have a vision, build consensus with the employees, and adjust his leadership style to fit the vision and guide the whole team toward the desired direction.

Transformational leadership considers all this by having the leader clearly understand the direction he wants to propel the organization, influencing the employees, and making them understand how important the change is. Then together, they engage in the process.

Transformational leadership combines the right employees and the right motives. It inspires creativity and motivation in achieving a smooth flow of processes which, in the long run, ensures an effective organization that delivers its results and is consistent in achieving the desired changes.

Reference List

Bass, M. and Riggio, E. (2006) Transformational Leadership. New York, Routledge.

Chammas, A. (2010) Leadership Characteristics for Organizational Transformation Success, Transformational Leadership , vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 16-27.

Cox, R. (2010) The Benefits of Transformational Leadership . Web.

Stewart, J. (2006) Transformational Leadership: An Evolving Concept Examined through the Works of Burns, Bass, Avolio, and Leithwood , Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy. vol. 27, no. 56, pp. 1-19.

Xenitelis, M. (2010) Transformational Leadership , Management. vol. 43, no. 12, pp. 11 -17.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, October 28). Transformational Leadership Essay. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transformational-leadership/

"Transformational Leadership Essay." IvyPanda , 28 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/transformational-leadership/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Transformational Leadership Essay'. 28 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Transformational Leadership Essay." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transformational-leadership/.

1. IvyPanda . "Transformational Leadership Essay." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transformational-leadership/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Transformational Leadership Essay." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transformational-leadership/.

• Transformational Leadership and Business Change
• Transformational and Transactional Leadership
• The Benefits of Transformational Leadership
• Charismatic and Transformational Approaches
• Transformational Leadership Style: Benefits for Women
• Transformational Leaders Influence on Performance
• The Application of Transformational Leadership in the UAE
• Transformational Leadership Theory and Personality
• Transformational Leadership and Management Skills
• "The Influence of the Transformational Leader" by Tucker and Russell
• Asia Pacific Breweries as an International Business
• Alain Limited' Management and Strategy
• Strategic Planning Essay
• The Field of Organizational Learning and Its Theories
• The Training Techniques of the Hudson Hotel in New York City

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

•  We're Hiring!
•  Help Center

Transformational Leadership

• Most Cited Papers
• Most Downloaded Papers
• Newest Papers
• Save to Library
• Last »
• Leadership Follow Following
• Leadership Development Follow Following
• Organizational Leadership Follow Following
• Change Leadership Follow Following
• Educational Leadership Follow Following
• Servant Leadership Follow Following
• Global Leadership Follow Following
• Leadership and Mentoring Follow Following
• Leadership Education Follow Following
• Transactional Leadership Follow Following

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• Academia.edu Publishing
•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• PMC10537672

The Impact of Transformational Leadership in the Nursing Work Environment and Patients’ Outcomes: A Systematic Review

Line miray kazin ystaas.

1 Department of Health Sciences, School of Life and Health Sciences, University of Nicosia, Nicosia 1700, Cyprus

Monica Nikitara

Savoula ghobrial, evangelos latzourakis, giannis polychronis, costas s. constantinou.

2 Department of Basic and Clinical Sciences, Medical School, University of Nicosia, Nicosia 1700, Cyprus

Associated Data

The articles’ data supporting this systematic review are from previously reported studies and datasets, which have been cited. The processed data are available in Table 2 and in the reference list. Further information can be requested from the corresponding author.

Background: With the increasingly demanding healthcare environment, patient safety issues are only becoming more complex. This urges nursing leaders to adapt and master effective leadership; particularly, transformational leadership (TFL) is shown to scientifically be the most successfully recognized leadership style in healthcare, focusing on relationship building while putting followers in power and emphasizing values and vision. Aim: To examine how transformational leadership affects nurses’ job environment and nursing care provided to the patients and patients’ outcomes. Design: A systematic literature review was conducted. From 71 reviewed, 23 studies were included (studies included questionnaire surveys and one interview, extracting barriers and facilitators, and analyzing using qualitative synthesis). Result: TFL indirectly and directly positively affects nurses’ work environment through mediators, including structural empowerment, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. Nurses perceived that managers’ TFL behavior did not attain excellence in any of the included organizations, highlighting the necessity for additional leadership training to enhance the patient safety culture related to the non-reporting of errors and to mitigate the blame culture within the nursing environment. Conclusion: Bringing more focus to leadership education in nursing can make future nursing leaders more effective, which will cultivate efficient teamwork, a quality nursing work environment, and, ultimately, safe and efficient patient outcomes. This study was not registered.

1. Introduction

Patient harm caused by errors in healthcare is the leading origin of morbidity and mortality internationally [ 1 ]. Researchers are linking adverse patient safety outcomes to a lack of effective leadership, while relational leadership styles, like transformational leadership, continue to be associated with reduced adverse patient outcomes [ 2 , 3 ]. Nursing is dynamic and requires inspiring and engaging leaders and role models. However, the development of nurse leaders is challenging for the nursing profession.

Currently, nurses face a burnout epidemic rooted mainly in the work environment influenced by excessive workloads and a lack of organizational support and leadership [ 4 ]. Maben et al. (2022) reported that nurses globally face a heightened vulnerability to mental health issues and suicide, surpassing other occupational groups, while the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the existing challenges in their work environment, further intensifying the already demanding conditions [ 5 ]. The engagement in emotional labor within the nursing profession exposes practitioners to a notable susceptibility to experiencing burnout, moral distress, and compassion fatigue. Prior to the onset of the pandemic, the international cadre of nurses was already confronting considerable hurdles, encompassing prolonged duty durations, rotation schedules, inadequate staffing, and periodically arduous situations [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Throughout the pandemic, nurses encountered a range of stress-inducing factors, including managing heightened public expectations and pressure, adapting to new work responsibilities, facing elevated mortality rates, dealing with the infectious nature of COVID-19, experiencing psychosocial stress, confronting the scarcity of personal protective equipment, handling demanding job requirements, and contending with inadequate psychological support [ 8 ]. At the same time, scholars have found poor working conditions for nurses and inadequate staffing to predict adverse patient outcomes based on the low-quality nursing job atmosphere and the absence of appropriate leadership styles [ 9 , 10 ].

Safety issues in care, such as adverse events, medication errors, falls, and surgery mistakes, have plagued healthcare systems internationally for decades. Several investigations have acknowledged healthcare environments as high-risk with a lack of safety culture, causing long-delayed discharge, disability, or even death [ 2 , 11 ]. Inherently, the nursing profession and current healthcare climate are chaotic, and a positive safety culture has been proven to come from a creditable and visible leader who supports patient safety behaviors [ 12 ]. It is important to recognize that nurses have the highest patient interaction, making nurse leaders central catalysts to positively influencing patient safety culture to reach safer patient outcomes [ 13 , 14 ].

The quality of the nursing work environment is an indicator of nurse satisfaction. A leader who involves staff fosters teamwork, rewards good performance, and encourages motivation can impact the quality of work life [ 15 , 16 ]. The leadership style describes how the leader interacts with others and can be categorized into two main styles: task-oriented and relational [ 17 ]. Historically, leadership theories started with the Great Man Theory during the Industrial Revolution with strong hierarchical leader-centric decision making, focusing on command-and-control, productivity, and seeing the organization as linear, operating like a machine [ 18 ]. This leadership style model in healthcare is no longer sustainable, as proven by a lack of change and persisting patient safety issues. Researchers have found that healthcare innovation requires nonlinear and emergent social processes that result in improved organizational outcomes [ 19 ]. In recent years, the two relational styles, transformational and transactional leadership, have been explored through nursing literature and have become high profile in general healthcare research.

Transformational leadership is composed of four key components. Firstly, “idealized influence” involves the leader behaving as a robust role model toward followers, demonstrating a work ethic and strong values while preaching the organization’s vision, thereby winning the staff’s trust and confidence [ 20 ]. The second type of behavior is referred to as “inspirational motivation”. It includes creating a compelling and inspiring vision for the future and communicating it to followers through emotionally charged speeches, vivid imagery, and captivating symbols. This encourages followers to strive to reach this shared vision, thus creating a deeper level of commitment and higher performance [ 17 ]. The third type of behavior is called “intellectual stimulation”. Intellectual stimulation encourages followers to think outside the box and consider different approaches to everyday issues, enabling them to devise innovative solutions to these problems [ 21 ]. The final category of behaviors is “individualized consideration”, including coaching, helping followers achieve goals, and providing a supportive climate. By carefully listening, leaders can help fulfill those needs [ 22 ]. For instance, some followers might require explicit guidance regarding how to get a job done, while others require the provision of needed resources so they can figure out the solution on their own. Nonetheless, TFL’s four behaviors construct a transformational leader if performed consistently and are found to bring respect and admiration by followers [ 23 ].

1.1. Rational

Healthcare systems are globally facing a crisis, with nurse shortage being a perennial issue. Nurses have the highest patient interaction, making nurse leaders central catalysts in positively influencing patient safety culture to reach safer patient outcomes [ 13 ]. At the same time, negative nursing work environments cultivate dissatisfied nurses who are likely to suffer from emotional exhaustion or burnout because of ineffective leadership [ 14 ]. Amidst these challenges, there is growing recognition of the potential impact of transformational leadership in healthcare settings.

Transformational leadership is characterized by its focus on relationship-building, empowering followers, and emphasizing shared values and vision. This leadership style has been found to positively affect various industries and sectors, including healthcare. However, there remains a gap in knowledge regarding its specific effectiveness in healthcare settings. A comprehensive analysis of the potential benefits of transformational leadership in the healthcare context is warranted. This systematic review aims to address this gap by investigating the effectiveness of transformational leadership and its potential to create better working environments, ultimately leading to improved patient outcomes. We have identified a crucial area of inquiry that has not been thoroughly examined in the existing literature—a systematic review that delves into the relationship between transformational leadership and its effects on both the working environment and patient outcomes. We have identified a single literature review from the preceding decade (2002–2012) that focused on the efficacy of transformational leadership in relation to both work environments and patient outcomes [ 24 ]. Considering this, our current investigation is oriented towards delving into scholarly works spanning the subsequent decade (2012–2022), with the intention of comprehensively examining the evolving discourse on this subject matter. By exploring and synthesizing the current body of knowledge on this topic, our study will contribute valuable insights to the field, allowing healthcare organizations to better understand the impact of transformational leadership and make informed decisions regarding their leadership practices.

The significance of this research lies in its potential to shed light on a promising approach to address the pressing challenges faced by healthcare systems—nurse shortage and dissatisfaction—through effective leadership strategies. By providing evidence-based insights, this review seeks to guide healthcare leaders in adopting transformational leadership practices to create a positive work environment for nurses, reducing emotional exhaustion and burnout, and ultimately enhancing patient care and safety.

In conclusion, the dearth of research on the relationship between transformational leadership, work environment, and patient outcomes in healthcare settings highlights the necessity of this review. By examining the effectiveness of transformational leadership and its potential impact on nurses’ well-being and patient outcomes, our study aims to fill this critical gap in knowledge and contribute to the advancement of healthcare leadership practices.

1.2. Objective and Research Question

Having delineated the rationale and imperative for conducting this systematic review, our primary aim was to search, retrieve, and critically evaluate all pertinent studies centered around the concept of transformational leadership, with a particular focus on its efficacy in fostering an improved working environment for nurses and influencing patient outcomes comprehensively and systematically.

Our aim was to synthesize and analyze studies, and therefore, we used the PICo framework for studies to determine a research question. PICo is the simplest of the frameworks to use for qualitative questions; it stands for Population, Interest, and Context and can be used to find a range of primary literature. The Population in our study is nurses; the Interest is transformational leadership, working environments, and patient outcomes; and the Context is hospitals. Based on the PICo framework, we formulated our research question as follows: “What is the impact of transformational leadership on staff nurse work environments and patient outcomes?”

2. Methodology

To effectively accomplish our aim and investigate our research question, we utilized a systematic review approach following the guidelines outlined in the PRISMA 2020 statement [ 25 ]. The PRISMA 2020 checklist is available in Appendix A . In the subsequent subsections, we provide a comprehensive overview of our methodology.

2.1. Eligibility Criteria

Each of the chosen studies incorporated in this systematic review had to fulfill specific inclusion criteria, as outlined in Table 1 provided below.

Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria.

2.2. Information Sources and Search Strategy

We used the following databases to choose the articles: MEDLINE, CINAHL, and SCIENCE DIRECT. The search approach employed the Boolean operator OR between the keywords nurse, working environments, patients’ outcomes, and transformational leadership and comparable MeSH phrases. To refine the search, phrases with diverse meanings were joined using the Boolean operator AND. The search approach used on the EBSCO platform for the aforementioned databases is described in Table 2 We limited the search to journal articles in English with the full text available. However, numerous studies were rejected as they referred to other leadership styles than transformational leadership in addition to other healthcare settings than a nursing work environment.

Search approach.

* The asterisk in Ebsco platform wildcard in search finds words with a common root.

2.3. Selection of Studies Process

Two researchers (the first two authors) conducted independent searches, retrievals, and selections of studies, initially based on three primary criteria: (a) the presence of primary research, (b) the inclusion of transformational leadership as a topic, and (c) relevance to nursing care. Subsequently, additional criteria, such as peer-reviewed articles published in journals or conference proceedings, as well as the publication date, were employed for further refinement. Upon completing the initial selection process, the two researchers engaged in discussions and compiled a list of prospective articles. This list was shared with four other researchers, who collectively determined the final articles to be included in the review, making any necessary additions or removals as deemed appropriate.

2.4. Data Collection Process

The data from the selected studies were independently collected by two researchers. They extracted the components, items, statements, or competencies that had achieved consensus among experts during the final round of each study. Specifically, the following data from each study were extracted: title of the study, authors’ names, publication year, study design, tools, sample characteristics, and summary of main findings and results. Subsequently, the researchers thoroughly reviewed the extracted data multiple times and proceeded to code and identify overarching themes.

2.5. Synthesis Methods

The data were synthesized by content analysis, and the findings were categorized into themes. After carefully examining the results and findings section of a chosen article, an initial set of codes was created. These codes underwent further improvement as more articles were analyzed. Each line of text was assigned a code, and a code tree was utilized to identify emerging themes. From the interpreted meanings, sub-themes were derived and combined. These sub-themes underwent further analysis and were eventually condensed into a single overarching theme. Content analysis can aid in the identification and summarization of submerging key elements within a large body of data during the review process [ 26 ]. The themes of the effectiveness of TFL in the nursing environment were organized according to the content analysis suggested by Zhang and Wildemuth (2009) [ 27 ].

To ensure the validity of the results, a two-level quality assurance process was implemented. The authors of this paper independently followed the review procedure, including coding, categorization, revisiting the studies, and refining the codes and categories. Subsequently, they convened, engaged in discussions, refined the analysis, and finalized the results.

This review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA statement ( Figure 1 ) [ 25 ], which provides a set of guidelines for conducting reviews and meta-analyses in a comprehensive and systematic manner.

PRISMA flowchart with the search strategy of the systematic review.

3.1. Studies Selection

The initial search process resulted in 71 articles related to transformational leadership. There were no duplications ( Figure 1 ), and therefore, 71 articles were included for advance screening. Fourteen (14) articles did not relate to nurses’ work environment and were omitted. Two researchers thoroughly reviewed the remaining 57 articles independently. From this process, 34 articles were excluded as they did not satisfy the criteria for inclusion. The final number of articles that met the criteria for inclusion was twenty-three (23).

3.2. Studies Characteristics

These 23 articles were conducted in various countries and assessed the effect of transformational leadership in a nursing clinical work environment. Most of the studies included a multifactor leadership questionnaire to evaluate nurses’ perceived effectiveness of transformational leadership (1–10, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23). Further information about the articles, such as author, year, tool, methodology, sample, and main results, is described in Table 3 below.

Articles Description.

3.3. Study Assessment

The quality of the articles included in this review was checked by the Joanna Briggs Institute Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument Critical Appraisal Checklist. The Joanna Briggs checklist evaluates the methodological quality of a study while determining the possibility of an indication of bias in its conduct, design, and analysis. As can be seen from Table 3 , there were 21 cross-sectional studies (1–11, 13–19, 21–23), 1 descriptive–correlational study (12), and 1 qualitative study (20).

All the included studies largely adhered to the Joanna Briggs criteria, providing comprehensive and detailed descriptions of their respective methodologies and procedures Table 4 , Table 5 and Table 6 . However, it was observed that two of the cross-sectional studies did not explicitly outline any specific strategies to address the stated confounding factors. Nevertheless, as Dekkers et al. (2019) argue, confounding is not dichotomous but rather a continuum where varying degrees of confounding influence can exist [ 28 ]. Furthermore, in accordance with the Joanna Briggs guidelines, the qualitative study failed to disclose the researcher’s cultural or theoretical standpoint, as well as the potential influence of the researcher on the research process. It is worth noting that such omissions are common in qualitative studies, where the focus is on understanding the subjectivity of the participants and allowing their perspectives to emerge naturally.

JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for Analytical Cross-Sectional Studies.

Risk of Bias Assessed by the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Checklist for Qualitative Study Results.

JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for Studies Reporting Prevalence Data Results.

3.4. Results of Synthesis

Two major themes emerged, effectively addressing the research questions. Within each theme, several categories were identified, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of the topic under investigation. The themes and their corresponding categories were as follows.

Theme 1: Staff nurses’ work environment:

• Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment;
• Reduce Nurse Retention;
• Nurses’ Empowerment and Autonomy;
• Nurses’ Compliance with Safety Measures.

Theme 2: Patients’ outcomes:

• Patient Safety Culture;
• Reporting Adverse Events.

3.4.1. Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment

Various studies that investigated the mechanism of TFL detected its strong influence on employee attitudes and behaviors in nursing. Nurses’ work attitudes are reflected in their levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment [ 29 , 30 ]. It was clear from the literature that TFL frequently positively influenced nurses’ work environment by indirectly increasing job satisfaction [ 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. Employees’ positive perception of jobs and organization is revealed through job satisfaction [ 30 ]. Researchers link TFL and empowerment to the establishment of self-determination and competency, which is proven to impact job satisfaction, suggesting the direct relationship between nurse empowerment and nurse job satisfaction, enhancing the quality of the nurses’ work environment [ 9 , 32 ].

There is also evidence to construct a strong link between organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Interestingly, the statistics showed that nursing staff committed to their organization with a strong sense of loyalty and dependence also had higher levels of job satisfaction [ 29 , 33 ]. Further, higher levels of organizational commitment and job satisfaction were also associated with increased health status in the nurses [ 33 ]. More specifically, TFL was related to more excellent supervisor support, increasing job satisfaction among the nurses, and resulting in more significant organizational commitment [ 29 ]. In a study examining the effectiveness of TFL in the environment of elderly care, TFL was found to effectively strengthen the nursing staff’s sense of belonging to the organization, reducing their burnout. The clan culture established through TFL effectively influenced organizational commitment and job satisfaction, where the atmosphere of a home culture created within their work environment promoted the intrinsic values of nursing staff while improving cohesion between the nurses and the quality of care [ 33 ]. However, TFL was found to have a direct positive effect on organizational commitment [ 33 , 35 ].

3.4.2. Reducing Intention to Leave the Job/Organization

Studies also found that TFL can reduce the nurses’ intent to leave the job, which is closely related to the previous category, as job dissatisfaction can be the primary precursor of nurses’ intent to leave [ 29 ]. The literature generally highlights that the TFL style shapes employees’ perceptions and feelings around their nursing managers and affects their desire and obligation to maintain the intent to stay in their organization [ 36 ]. A recent cross-sectional study examining 645 nurses working during the COVID-19 pandemic found that a supportive workplace culture can construct an adaptive mechanism through which transformational leaders can improve retention [ 37 ]. Additionally, the literature found TFL to decrease emotional exhaustion amongst nurses by encouraging a spiritual climate, indicating that a positive spiritual climate facilitated through TFL can reduce burnout and decrease nursing staff’s intent to leave [ 31 ]. However, there was insufficient evidence proving a direct correlation between TFL and staff nurses’ decision to stay or leave their job [ 33 , 35 ], but it was suggested that TFL has the potential (but not the primary factor) to slow down attrition and retain nurses by improving job satisfaction and organizational commitment, creating a positive work environment and increasing nurses’ probability of staying [ 35 ]. TFL seems to not act directly on job satisfaction or intent to stay but rather create a multifaceted positive work environment leading to a quality nursing environment. Consequently, it was reported that TFL indirectly influenced willingness to stay by positively influencing staff organizational commitment and job satisfaction [ 29 , 33 , 35 ].

3.4.3. Nurses’ Empowerment and Autonomy

Literature highlights that the TFL style within nursing can give staff nurses increased autonomy through empowerment strategies and meaningful participation in decision-making [ 30 , 31 , 36 ]. In turn, TFL-facilitated empowerment has been proven to increase employee commitment within their units by delegating power to nurses, leading to increased authority within their work environment [ 30 , 36 ]. Empowerment through decision-making involvement via removing formal organizational barriers has been found to reduce powerlessness in the nurse work environment, reducing job burnout and increasing job satisfaction [ 30 ]. RN-MD collaboration and teamwork within and across units were thought to be necessary for the nurse’s autonomy [ 38 ]. Further, the literature relates to the concept that a well-functioning patient safety climate requires nurses with autonomy to deal with problems regarding patient safety while proposing specific solutions and getting support and encouragement from organizations to facilitate patient safety-based innovations [ 39 ].

TFL and transactional leadership behaviors were found to affect empowerment amongst the nursing staff positively. However, TFL behaviors allowed nursing managers to reach even higher levels of success without congruence and reward, embedding empowerment into the clinical environment [ 40 ]. Some studies also identified the empowerment subscale, autonomy, as the statistically significant predictor of commitment, indicating that managers can engage nurses in appropriate decision making about patient care and safety in their work environment [ 30 , 36 ]. Management that does not accept decision-making participation dissembles empowerment, which frustrates and makes staff dependent on an authoritarian structure [ 36 ].

3.4.4. Nurses’ Compliance with Safety Measures

Lievens and Vlerick (2014) found a strong association between TFL and nurse safety compliance [ 41 ]. The more transformational the leader was perceived, the more the nursing staff participated and complied with patient safety practices. Further, staff nurses’ structural empowerment also experienced a significant correlation with the degree to which they perceived nursing managers’ (NMs) TFL behaviors [ 36 , 40 ]. Research also suggested that when nurses perceived their TFL to facilitate an innovative work climate, they automatically contributed to developing innovation behaviors [ 39 ]. Previously mentioned research suggested that nurses need to feel a part of their work environment. However, countries where staff are hesitant to challenge authority create a reluctance to change, and compliance can breed a lack of stimulation [ 31 ]. It was reported that nurse managers should be trained to challenge nurses to resolve problems and specialize their competence to foster innovation and grow talents and creativity [ 36 ].

Lievens and Vlerick (2014), in their cross-sectional study which included 145 nurses, also found intellectual stimulation to strongly impact knowledge-related characteristics, suggesting an indirect link between safety performance and TFL through skills and ability demands, where the more knowledge-related job characteristics were perceived, the more nurses complied with safety rules [ 41 ]. Skill utilization or intellectual stimulation was further found to be the strongest single predictor of work engagement, compared to TFL, where nurses appreciated opportunities for personal development, learning new things, and achieving something meaningful, encouraging work engagement [ 2 , 42 ].

Patients’ outcomes:

The literature shows a positive relationship between TFL and the improvement of patient safety climate and culture, emphasizing that nursing managers are key to developing a safety climate and maintaining a culture of patient safety, preventing adverse events.

3.4.5. Increase Patient Safety Culture

There was a significant prevalence of findings reporting TFL to facilitate patient safety either directly [ 2 , 9 , 38 , 42 ] or indirectly [ 32 , 39 , 41 ]. Seljemo et al. (2020), in their cross-sectional study, questioned 156 nurses; Ree and Wiig (2019), also in a cross-sectional design study, questioned 139 nurses and found TFL to be the strongest predictor of patient safety culture and overall perception of patient safety compared to job demands and resources [ 2 , 42 ]. This was suggested to result from TFL having a positive direct effect on the psychosocial work environment. Further evidence also links TFL directly to quality patient outcomes, reducing the possibility of adverse patient outcomes and increasing the quality of care [ 9 ].

Patient safety culture includes themes such as teamwork within units, managers’ support, organizational learning, overall perceptions of safety, feedback and communication openness about the error, frequency of events reported, staffing, handoffs and transitions, and non-punitive response to errors. “Teamwork within units” generally had a common positive perception amongst the nurses, indicating collaboration within their units as effective within TFL [ 38 , 43 , 44 ]. Anselmann and Mulder (2020) asked 183 geriatric nurses in their cross-sectional study, and they support the above, finding that TFL has a positive impact on team performance when a safe climate is fostered [ 45 ]. Even though nurses found cohesion within their units, literature revealed a common theme of insufficient “teamwork between units”, indicating that each unit had an independent culture [ 38 , 43 , 44 ]. Further, a generally weak perception of the effectiveness of RN-MD collaboration was also observed [ 38 , 43 ].

Researchers stressed the necessity of having efficient teamwork between units and on a multi-professional level to create an effective patient safety culture [ 9 ]. Another reoccurring subdimension, “feedback and rewarding”, was also identified as a weak component of TFL in relation to patient safety culture, illustrating a lack of adaptation and implementation of TLF behavior [ 9 , 43 , 46 ]. The TFL nursing manager generally seemed to conduct insufficient work around feedback and rewards, resulting in staff nurses not being encouraged and ensuring that medical errors were prevented and learned from [ 43 , 46 ].

3.4.6. Reporting Adverse Events

Adverse events can result in patient disability or death, prolong the time necessary to provide care, and increase healthcare costs and patient dissatisfaction [ 47 ]. However, a part of the literature showed that when TFL and transactional leadership were compared, reporting errors without blame and discussing errors openly were the two initiatives that transactional leadership implemented better than TFL [ 40 , 48 ]. A significant finding in the literature was the reoccurring theme of weak patient safety culture in relation to “non-punctual reporting of adverse events” in hospitals with TFL, where staff nurses rarely reported occurring medical errors to their NMs [ 34 , 44 , 46 , 48 , 49 ]. In a Finnish study, one in four nurses showed to not have reported one or more medication errors using their units’ adverse event registration system [ 46 ]. Tekingündüz et al. (2021), in a cross-sectional study with 150 participating nurses, also found a significant weakness in their organization’s patient safety culture, where 52.7% of the nurses did not report any adverse events in the last 12 months, 31.3% reported 1–2 adverse events while 10% reported 3–5 adverse events [ 49 ]. Further, in a qualitative study, the eleven nurse manager participants expressed the importance of nursing staff reporting the occurrence of adverse events to detect why each event happened and identify patient safety risks and solutions [ 50 ]. There was evidence to suggest that nurses reported that the occurrence of errors only sometimes led to a positive change, whereas at other times, it did not lead to any change, and errors were repeated [ 38 ]. The literature explained blame culture and fear in the nurse’s work environment as a factor distancing them from punctuative reporting of medical errors [ 46 , 49 , 50 ]. It was suggested by researchers that nursing staff were not encouraged to report and discuss adverse events openly and blame-free [ 48 , 49 , 50 ]. This involves handling adverse reports by nursing managers without making nursing staff feel guilty.

Managers reported that a culture where it is recognized that everyone makes mistakes is imperial, while it was observed that nurses tended to report other colleagues’ mistakes compared to their own [ 50 ]. Further, nursing managers noticed that nursing staff may blame themselves for a patient safety incident where they feel ashamed and worry about their colleague’s perception of them [ 49 ]. These perceptions were confirmed by nursing staff in another study, expressing their tendency to avoid reporting due to fear of punishment, humiliation, damage to reputation, disciplinary action by a licensing board, malpractice lawsuits, and limited follow-up after reporting loss of job [ 48 ]. Tekingündüz et al. (2021) also found the defect in reporting medical errors to be rooted in nurse’s fear of punishment and lack of confidentiality [ 49 ]. Generally, fear was perceived as a major reason for not reporting adverse events, and nursing managers saw this as a barrier to the effectiveness of their leadership and the attempt to develop their operational models to improve patient safety [ 46 , 49 , 50 ]. However, visionary leadership styles such as TFL correlate positively with both incident reporting and patient safety outcomes. Additionally, TFL is linked to improved patient safety, including reduced mortality rates, fewer medication errors, lower incidences of pneumonia and urinary tract infections, and fewer patient falls, attributed to the leaders’ approach of using errors as chances to enhance processes and promoting the reporting of near misses and adverse events [ 17 , 51 ].

Interestingly, a part of the literature showed that when TFL and transactional leadership were compared, reporting errors without blame and discussing errors openly were the two initiatives that transactional leadership implemented better than TFL [ 40 , 48 ]. These findings confirm the weakness around reporting adverse events and blame culture within TFL units.

4. Discussion

This review has collectively reviewed literature that has examined the effectiveness of transformational leadership (TFL) in a nursing work environment and patients’ outcomes. TFL has a complex, interconnected effect on nurses’ intrinsic environment and patient outcomes.

Nurses’ Work Environment:

The literature revealed substantial evidence that TFL can significantly enhance nurses’ psychosocial work environment by indirectly increasing job satisfaction. Three significant mediators between TFL and job satisfaction were nurse empowerment, organizational commitment, and spiritual climate, which altogether were thought to prevent retention in nursing [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 37 ]. Simultaneously, TFL was not the primary factor in job satisfaction but instead a facilitator and constructor of structural empowerment, organizational commitment, and spiritual climate. It is, therefore, evident that the literature revealed a positive domino effect that transformational leaders in nursing can generate. Generally, the literature revealed a strongly positive relationship between TFL and workplace culture in nursing [ 33 , 37 ]. Specific TFL attributes created an inclusive and supportive work environment, either directly or indirectly enhancing the nurses’ work environment and decreasing the risk of nurse burnout [ 37 , 52 ]. Nurses continuously reported managers’ support as a particularly important resource in their work environment, where establishing a high-quality relationship with their leaders was seen as imperial for patient safety culture [ 38 , 42 ].

The correlation observed between supportive leadership and favorable patient safety outcomes underscores the significance of Transformational Leaders (TFLs) possessing a comprehensive grasp of patient safety protocols, as well as recognizing the pivotal role played by bedside nurses in advancing improved safety outcomes. [ 17 ]. More specifically, managers’ support was also found to reinforce innovative behavior [ 39 ], increase job satisfaction [ 35 , 37 ], and even be the primary factor in a positive work environment, compared to TFL [ 29 ]. Conversely, the literature also described managers’ support as a core transformational behavior, where the more transformational the leader was perceived, the more the staff nurses experienced individual support in their clinical environment [ 29 , 42 , 46 ]. As concluded by the literature, TFL is not the primary factor but rather a mediator to job satisfaction, which was determined as an essential nursing outcome, shadowing quality work environment and may be an effective retention strategy in nursing. Previous studies confirm that safety outcomes are improved when workplace empowerment takes place in a positive nurse–leader relationship based on trust and respect, where they, together, work toward a patient safety culture [ 53 ].

Therefore, incorporating transformational leadership in nursing has numerous implications, with a direct and positive impact on job satisfaction. By nurturing a sense of purpose, providing support and empowerment, and promoting individual growth, transformational leaders create a fulfilling work environment that motivates nurses to excel. As nurses experience greater job satisfaction, patient care quality also improves, resulting in cooperative success for healthcare organizations, nursing staff, and the patients they serve.

Patients’ Outcomes:

The connection between supportive leadership and positive patient safety outcomes points to the importance of the TFL’s understanding of patient safety processes and the role of bedside nurses in promoting better safety outcomes [ 38 ]. However, several researchers reported not having a visible leader [ 43 ], which is documented as essential for patient safety changes to occur [ 53 ].

Researchers are linking negative patient safety outcomes to a lack of effective leadership, while relational leadership styles like transformational leadership continue to be associated with reduced adverse patient outcomes [ 17 ]. However, TFL nursing managers were repeatedly reported by the staff nurses only to communicate errors and problems after the adverse event, waiting for the event before resolving problems and taking proactive action [ 36 , 50 ]. Literature highlights that organizations that have successfully created a non-blame culture have better patient safety outcomes because the staff are encouraged to report errors, unsafe practices, and adverse events, perceiving safety around seeking help and assistance without threat [ 54 ]. Therefore, avoiding a blame culture and developing a reporting system serves as a proactive approach to identifying and mitigating risks, ultimately preventing errors and recurring mistakes, which, when left unaddressed, can result in significant social and economic burdens due to fatalities and preventable incidents [ 51 ] Additionally, developing a safety culture through managers’ interdisciplinary walkabout safety rounds has been associated with safety outcomes [ 17 ].

Transformational leadership in nursing has far-reaching implications for patient outcomes and care quality. By fostering a collaborative and patient-centered approach, empowering nursing staff, encouraging continuous learning, and promoting a culture of excellence, transformational leaders enhance the overall care experience for patients. Ultimately, the positive impact of transformational leadership on patient outcomes establishes it as a key factor in ensuring the delivery of high-quality healthcare services in nursing settings.

This literature review enriches nursing practice and research in a time where nursing leaders are sought to have an important and prominent role in healthcare policy development and improvement. Increased demand and complexity of patient care require effective and competent leadership skills and an understanding of TFL’s function in the current healthcare environment. Even though literature has constructed the idea of the nexus between patient safety and leadership, patient safety outcomes are unlikely to improve without facilitating and fostering the professional growth of future leaders. Additionally, factors influencing organizational job satisfaction and organizational commitment are significantly under the influence of TF nurse leaders. Therefore, healthcare organizations and the educational sector should invest in leadership training and curriculum to implement it further into nursing to support and ensure safe, quality work environments for both nurses and patients.

5. Limitations of the Study

This literature review predominantly incorporated quantitative research methodologies, which, in certain instances, can present challenges in contextualizing a phenomenon comprehensively, as the data may not always possess the robustness required to elucidate intricate issues. Additionally, it should be noted that the review’s scope was confined to studies published exclusively in the English language, with no inclusion of relevant content from the grey literature beyond the stipulated publication sources, and unpublished dissertations were also omitted from consideration. Consequently, it is essential to acknowledge that this review may not provide a fully representative overview of all pertinent scholarship within the field.

6. Conclusions

Despite the global recognition and attempted implementation of TFL in healthcare, the statistics still show that TFL is yet to be mastered within nursing. The strong relationship between TFL, structural empowerment, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment signify that an improved quality work environment may be the most essential element to enhance job effectiveness and patient safety in nursing. TFL is a vital facilitator that could help healthcare to improve job satisfaction and reduce adverse events. Evidence suggests that nursing managers who possess effective TFL attributes are likely to influence their nursing staff’s satisfaction and mitigate the risk of burnout by establishing a supportive and inclusive work environment directly or indirectly. Focusing on the adoption of a blame-free culture through effective leadership is likely to break down barriers to safety culture, which has resulted in poor patient care worldwide. Patient safety outcomes rely on a well-established patient safety culture, which is most influenced by the bedside nurse, either directly or indirectly. With effective leadership engagement and education, emerging nursing leaders can be supported while the nursing team can be empowered to make the necessary changes to reach levels of excellence within their units. It is important to comprehend that leaders are not just in executive and senior positions but include any part of the healthcare team that is influential to patient care. Effective TFL engagement has the potential to enhance patient safety, where it is conveyed that all healthcare workers, from executive to bedside nurses, participate in a positive safety culture.

PRISMA 2020 Checklist.

From: Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ 2021;372:n71. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n71. For more information, visit: http://www.prisma-statement.org/ , access on 26 March 2023.

Funding Statement

This research received no external funding.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, search, coding, and drafting, L.M.K.Y. and M.N.; search and quality assurance, coding, and feedback, S.G., E.L., G.P. and C.S.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Data availability statement, public involvement statement.

No public involvement in any aspect of this research.

Guidelines and Standards Statement

This manuscript was drafted against the PRISMA 2020 Statement. A complete checklist is found in Appendix A of the manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

6 Common Leadership Styles — and How to Decide Which to Use When

• Rebecca Knight

Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances call for different approaches.

Research suggests that the most effective leaders adapt their style to different circumstances — be it a change in setting, a shift in organizational dynamics, or a turn in the business cycle. But what if you feel like you’re not equipped to take on a new and different leadership style — let alone more than one? In this article, the author outlines the six leadership styles Daniel Goleman first introduced in his 2000 HBR article, “Leadership That Gets Results,” and explains when to use each one. The good news is that personality is not destiny. Even if you’re naturally introverted or you tend to be driven by data and analysis rather than emotion, you can still learn how to adapt different leadership styles to organize, motivate, and direct your team.

Much has been written about common leadership styles and how to identify the right style for you, whether it’s transactional or transformational, bureaucratic or laissez-faire. But according to Daniel Goleman, a psychologist best known for his work on emotional intelligence, “Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances may call for different approaches.”

• RK Rebecca Knight is a journalist who writes about all things related to the changing nature of careers and the workplace. Her essays and reported stories have been featured in The Boston Globe, Business Insider, The New York Times, BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was shortlisted as a Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University in 2023. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade as an editor and reporter at the Financial Times in New York, London, and Boston.

Partner Center