research on transformational leadership style

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• 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

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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.

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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

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Transformational Leadership Style: How to Inspire and Motivate

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People who have transformational leadership possess four attributes to varying degrees (Bass, Avolio, & Atwater, 1996).

They are idealized and charismatic (highly liked role models), demonstrate inspirational motivation (optimistic about goal attainment), are intellectually stimulating (encourage critical thinking and problem-solving), and are considerate (show empathy and purpose).

Transformational leadership inspires positive changes in those led and is invested in the success of every single member involved in the process.

Transformational leaders are full of energy, passion, and drive. It’s not a surprise that these qualities can be the things that can make or break an organization.

This kind of leadership is very popular—it can be seen in board rooms, hospitals, schools, and in the entertainment industry. Suddenly, as we look around, transformation seems to be everywhere.

What most people overlook is the time and effort required to fully understand and apply any leadership style, let alone one as dynamic and powerful as transformational leadership.

Transformational leadership style is characteristic of leaders who focus on supervision and organizational goals achieved through a system of rewards and punishments; maintenance of the organizational status quo.

What is transformational leadership?

• Transformational leadership is a leadership model that relies on a team’s encouragement to realize overall success. By raising a team’s morale and self-confidence, the team can then align itself to an overall vision or common purpose.
• This purpose, however, must be established early on for it to be effective. Transformational leadership, when properly applied, can take a struggling or stagnant team, and completely transform it into a productive and dynamic group of individuals.
• This starts by identifying the struggles and strengths of each individual member. Next, it is up to the leader to define a new common goal and guide the members of the team towards this new vision.
• Practically, transformational leadership is used to inspire team members to work together as a single unit, rather than many individual parts. For a stat so dynamic, it is no wonder that many researchers and experts had a hand in its development.

In their seminal work, Transformational Leadership , authors Bass and Riggio explained:

Transformational leaders…are those who stimulate and inspire followers to both achieve extraordinary outcomes and, in the process, develop their own leadership capacity. Transformational leaders help followers grow and develop into leaders by responding to individual followers’ needs by empowering them and by aligning the objectives and goals of the individual followers, the leader, the group, and the larger organization.

Origin and Development

Transformational leadership was started by James V. Downton in 1973. He was the first to coin the term. This was later added to by James Burns in 1978.

Burns was a leadership expert and biographer and proposed that it was only through the strength of the vision and personality that team members could be encouraged to follow.

After agreeing to follow, members then are inspired to change their expectations, perceptions, and are invited to a higher level of morality and motivation.

A few years later, Bernard Bass (1990) added even more to the concept. This is known as “Bass’s Transformational Leadership Theory”. Bass added ways to measure and rank the success of transformational leadership as well as the idea of leaders expressing authentic and focused energy to inspire the other team members to become more like them.

Bass felt that measuring the impact inspires more authentic community. He also explained the psychological mechanisms that are the basis of the theory. According to Bass, the followers of a leader must feel not only trust and admiration, but also loyalty and respect.

These emotions create an environment where the followers are willing to work harder than they originally thought they were capable. This is because transformational leaders offer followers something beyond self-gain—an inspirational mission and self-identity.

Even though it dates to the 70’s, Bass’s model looks much more like transformational leadership today. The basis of the transformational leadership style never changes, only the environment in which it must be applied. Therefore, it can apply in every industry, especially team-focused work environments.

Components of Transformational Leadership Style

Bass also suggested that there were four primary elements to transformational leadership style (also known as the “four I”s”): idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration.

Each of these four components is valuable to the leadership style and helps to transform its followers into better, more productive people. When these factors are combined, they help transformational leaders radically change the course of their following.

1. Idealized Influence / Charismatic

Idealized influence describes leaders who have charisma, are curious, and deliver messages with simplicity and tact. These leaders are exemplary role models and are readily trusted and respected by all members of the team.

Charisma is one of the essential pieces of this characteristic. Charisma is essential because it is how leaders can rally their followers around a shared vision. Charisma is most often expressed by their ability to listen actively to each team member and focus on the present moment.

Charismatic leaders give praise to individual members of the team with each success, and they are the first to take responsibility when things go wrong. They also provide constructive feedback to each individual team member. Intended influence is also represented through their curiosity.

Curiosity, not intelligence, is the driving force behind the success of these leaders. It is their job to find innovative solutions to problems and create new and dynamic paths for a team to follow.

Displays of charisma make others want to be more like that person, and as a role model, members will strive to mimic this leader.

2. Inspirational Motivation

Inspirational motivation describes leaders that are motivating and willing to commit to a vision. They encourage team members to also commit to this vision by raising team spirit, fostering community and a sense of purpose.

To do this, there must be simplicity in communication. This means their communication style must be best suited to the needs of the team. Leaders speak clearly and concisely to easily articulate their vision to the members.

This provides structure and order so that members can execute tasks without confusion. Leaders articulate a clear plan for the future and communicate expectations in the beginning before the work starts. Leaders must also express their messages with a sense of authority, in order for members to respect their thoughts and trust in their vision.

Along with this, leaders must be upbeat and positive, bringing energy to a room with their enthusiasm. As a visionary, transformational leaders use these skills to look toward future goals and have the foresight to see the small obstacles that may hinder this vision.

They recognize the smallest things that can turn into larger issues. Leaders have intuition towards the things that help to push their team and goals forward. These actions begin to instill trust in their followers and confidence in their leader.

3. Intellectual Stimulation

Intellectual stimulation describes leaders who encourage their members to think outside the box and be innovative. Stimulating followers promote critical thinking and problem-solving skills in order to improve the group or organization as a whole.

This challenges the normal beliefs of a group and encourages the team to perform better than they ever thought originally possible. Encouraging innovation involves each team member in the decision-making process and fosters a sense of importance and a stake in the organization’s over-all success.

The important thing about this is a leader must not criticize the thoughts or opinions of the members. Premature shutting down of ideas can create a climate of distrust and hurt.

Leaders must, therefore gently change the way followers problem-solve and brainstorm new and innovative ways to achieve their teams” goals. In short, leaders must recognize that there are many ways to achieve a goal, and no ordinary path to innovation.

Being a transformational leader requires risk-taking, creativity, curiosity, and openness to new ideas from each individual member.

4. Individual Consideration

Individual consideration is the degree to which a leader attends to each follower’s personal needs. Transformational leadership encourages members by focusing on the way each person effects the overall goal.

This means recognizing and valuing the motivations, desires, and needs of individual members. Upon recognizing the motivation behind the drive of the individual, leaders then provide opportunities for customized training.

This allows team members to grow and learn in an environment they feel comfortable in. Engaging individuals requires emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence includes showing genuine compassion, empathizing with the needs of individuals, and encouraging the on-going personal growth of individuals. When a leader takes into account the emotions of their followers, they then learn how to best engage with them.

Emotionally intelligent leaders connect with members, and build a bond based in trust. Leaders act as mentors, or a coach and are willing and open to listening to their followers’ concerns.

Examples of transformational leaders

Transformational leaders are all around us. Because of their marked positive impact on productivity and success, they are at the top of each of their individual industries.

Below are 5 examples of transformational leaders, their stories, and ways that you can begin to apply this leadership style to your own team.

Oprah Winfrey: Media Mogul

Oprah Winfrey was the host and producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show from 1986 to 2011. It is one of the highest rated talk shows in American history, so it is no surprise that Winfrey quickly became one of the richest women in the 20th century.

Winfrey was the continent’s first black multi-billionaire and was among Time Magazine’s most influential people for 6 years straight. Winfrey’s amazing communication skills, beginnings in poverty, and charismatic persona have enabled her to connect with people from every background and inspired people everywhere to dream big.

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos

In 1994, Jeff Bezos took the first step to creating the world’s first online bookstore. Bezos spearheaded the first initiative to create an online eBook reader, where digital eBooks could be stored in an eLibrary for later consumption.

This was introduced as the Kindle. Kindle sales, in addition to multiproduct sales, have contributed to Amazon’s current market value of 1.14 trillion as of April 2020.

Nike Corporation

Nike is one of the most famous footwear companies of the 20th century. With their slogan, “Just Do It,” it is one of the most obvious examples of transformational leadership and motivation.

Nike connected with customers through this focused marketing and created exclusive membership opportunities. By motivating its entire customer base to be the best, most healthy versions of themselves, Nike increased its product development cycle, quickly responding to changes in trends and customer feedback.

This resulted in Nike’s stock price increased from less than $50 to nearly 100 dollars in two years.

Netflix’s Reed Hastings

Reed Hastings founded Netflix in 1997, with a handful of team members. The subscription-based video streaming service offers popular movies and TV shows as well as original content.

When it first launched, despite its large competitor, Blockbuster, Hastings had a grand vision of Netflix replacing this company. He came up with the novel idea of user-friendly streaming that became the starting point of this dream’s actualization. Today, Netflix has nearly 200 million subscribers world-wide and is the largest online streaming service.

Apple’s Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is one of the best examples of transformational leadership in the 21st century. From wearing pairs of the same clothing each day for increased productivity, to designing the break-through idea of the iCloud, Steve Jobs was the brain behind the success of Apple.

With Steve Jobs’ legacy guiding the company, the company shifted from product-based identification to more services and brand loyalty services. Apple is a 2 trillion-dollar company today, and in the next few years, this is only expected to expand.

What are the effects of transformational leadership?

Transformational leaders are those who inspire their members to achieve beyond their presumed potential. In the same way, these transformed members then go on to become leaders in their own right.

Transformational leaders’ personalized response empowers individuals and helps them to develop their potential. The effects of transformational leadership have a lasting and positive impact.

Research evidence from Psychology Today reported that teams led by transformational leaders have higher levels of performance and report overall high satisfaction than teams led by other styles.

Members develop positive psychological states and find greater meaning in their work. In addition, they also learn to think positively about themselves and the tasks that they are meant to complete.

This results in decreased burnout, social loafing, and increased individual motivation.

Leadership expert Ronald Riggio suggests that this is because of transformational leaders’ unflinching belief that each and every member brings unique talents and skills to a team, and that the voice of each member is important.

He also suggests that the leaders’ strong belief in the vision of the team has a significant impact on the overwhelmingly positive results of the leadership style. By creating a common goal, or vision, leaders enhance the quality of their relationships and create environments that are fair, respectful, and supportive.

It is important to recognize that while this leadership style is extremely effective, there are some team members who will not respond as favorably to transformational leadership. Leaders must adjust their efforts as needed in order to meet their goals.

Implications for managers

While it is important to look at the success and growth of companies and entrepreneurs, it is important to recognize that most of these companies and people did not start out successful.

It is important to recognize that these people and companies were mentored and guided by a transformational leader. The stories here show that this leadership style can help to transform you, your team, and your mission.

What can you do to become a more transformational leader? One of the critical ways to start is by having belief. You must believe in the vision and path you have created, so that you can inspire others to believe in your vision as well. Being charismatic, motivating, and focusing on each individual team member can help you accomplish this through transformative leadership.

Yukl (1994) draws some tips for transformational leadership:

• Develop a challenging and attractive vision, together with the employees.
• Tie the vision to a strategy for its achievement.
• Develop the vision, specify and translate it to actions.
• Express confidence, decisiveness and optimism about the vision and its implementation.
• Realize the vision through small planned steps and small successes in the path for its full implementation.

Bass, B. M. (1985) Leadership and Performance beyond Expectations. Free Press, New York.

Bass, B. M. (1990) From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to share the vision. Organizational Dynamics 18, 19-31.

Bass, B. M. and Avolio, B. J. (1989). Manual for the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto.

Bass, B. M. and Avolio, B. J. (1994) Improving Organizational Effectiveness through Transformational Leadership. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Bass, B. M., Avolio, B. J., & Atwater, L. (1996). The transformational and transactional leadership of men and women. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 45 , 5–34

Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership.

Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. NY: Harper & Row.

Downton, J. V. (1973). Rebel leadership: Commitment and charisma in a revolutionary process. New York: Free Press.

Yukl, G.(1999). An evaluation of conceptual weaknesses in transformational and charismatic leadership theories. Leadership Quarterly, 10, 285-305; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1048-9843(99)00013-2

Further Information

• Leithwood, K., & Jantzi, D. (2005). Transformational leadership. The essentials of school leadership, 31-43.
• Bass, B. M. (1999). Two decades of research and development in transformational leadership. European journal of work and organizational psychology, 8(1), 9-32.
• Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1993). Transformational leadership and organizational culture. Public administration quarterly, 112-121.
• Bass, B. M., & Steidlmeier, P. (1999). Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior. The leadership quarterly, 10(2), 181-217.

Transformational leadership is a leadership style where leaders inspire, motivate, and stimulate their followers intellectually to work towards a shared and valued goal. These leaders encourage innovation, creativity, and personal development among their team members, fostering an environment of trust, respect, and admiration. They aim to transform their followers’ individual and collective consciousness to achieve organizational success.

Which leadership style can resemble transformational leadership because these leaders inspire enthusiasm in their teams and are energetic in motivating others to move forward?

Charismatic leadership style can closely resemble transformational leadership as charismatic leaders inspire enthusiasm and motivate others towards their goals. They use their personal charm and appeal to inspire, energize, and encourage their teams to move forward.

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How Transformational Leadership Can Inspire Others

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

• Key Components
• Transformational Traits
• Transformational vs. Transactional
• Potential Pitfalls

Are You a Transformational Leader?

Transformational leadership is a  leadership style that can inspire positive changes in those who follow. Transformational leaders are generally energetic, enthusiastic, and passionate. Not only are these leaders concerned and involved in the process, but they are also focused on helping every member of the group succeed.

Transformational leaders take control of situations by conveying a clear vision of the group's goals. These leaders have a marked passion for the work and an ability to make the rest of the group feel recharged and energized.

Transformational leaders focus on helping members of the group support one another and provide them with the support, guidance, and inspiration they need to work hard, perform well, and stay loyal to the group. The primary goals of transformational leadership are to inspire growth, promote loyalty, and instill confidence in group members.

This article discusses the characteristics of transformational leadership and its effects on groups.

History of Transformational Leadership

The concept of transformational leadership was initially introduced by leadership expert and presidential biographer James MacGregor Burns. According to Burns, transformational leadership can be seen when "leaders and followers make each other advance to a higher level of moral and motivation."

Through the strength of their vision and personality, transformational leaders are able to inspire followers to change expectations, perceptions, and motivations to work towards common goals.

Later, researcher Bernard M. Bass expanded upon Burns's original ideas to develop what is today referred to as Bass’s Transformational Leadership Theory. According to Bass, transformational leadership can be defined based on the impact that it has on followers. Transformational leaders, Bass suggested, garner trust, respect, and admiration from their followers.

Components of Transformational Leadership

Bass also suggested that there were four different components of transformational leadership. The four main elements of transformational leadership are:

• Intellectual stimulation: Transformational leaders not only challenge the status quo; they also encourage creativity among followers. The leader encourages followers to explore new ways of doing things and new opportunities to learn.
• Individualized consideration: Transformational leadership also involves supporting and encouraging individual followers. To foster supportive relationships, transformational leaders keep lines of communication open so that followers feel free to share ideas and so that leaders can offer immediate recognition of the unique contributions of each follower.
• Inspirational motivation: Transformational leaders have a clear vision that they can articulate to followers. These leaders can also help followers experience the same passion and motivation to fulfill these goals.
• Idealized influence: The transformational leader serves as a role model for followers. Because followers trust and respect the leader, they emulate this individual and internalize their ideals.

Groups led by this type of leader tend to be both successful and loyal. They give a lot to the team and care deeply about the group's ability to accomplish its goals. Turnover tends to be relatively low as transformational leaders can inspire a great deal of commitment in their followers.

Transformational Leadership Traits

So what are some typical signs of a transformational leader? Common characteristics of transformational leaders include:

• Able to encourage others to communicate and participate
• Active listening skills
• Adaptability
• Authenticity and genuineness
• Emotionally intelligent
• Inspirational
• Open-mindedness
• Proactive problem-solvers
• Self-awareness
• Willingness to take responsibility
• Willingness to take well-informed risks

While each leader is different, transformational leadership is characterized by a number of key traits. Five of the main qualities of a transformational leader are authenticity, self-awareness, humility, collaboration, and interdependence.

Examples of Transformational Leadership

Recognizable figures who are often cited as examples of transformational leadership include:

• Barack Obama : The former U.S. President was known for his transformational approach to running his administration, as well as his unifying, motivating, and hopeful communication style.
• Nelson Mandela : The former President of South Africa was famous for serving as a source of authentic inspiration.
• Oprah Winfrey : The media mogul is famous for her charismatic, visionary, and inspirational leadership style.
• Steve Jobs : Jobs was famous for his visionary leadership that transformed Apple into a leader in the technology industry.

Effects of Transformational Leadership

In their classic text, Transformational Leadership , authors Bass and Riggio explained that these leaders inspire people to achieve extraordinary results. Group members are not just encouraged to participate; they are also inspired to become leaders themselves.

Transformational leaders can accomplish this by being responsive and empowering. The individual's goals become better aligned with the purposes of the entire group so that each group member's success furthers the organization's goals.

Researchers have found that this style of leadership can have a positive effect on the group. Some of these effects include:

• Better performance : Those led by transformational individuals have better performance and are more satisfied than those in groups with different types of leaders.
• Better well-being : Employees who identified a higher level of transformational leadership in their employers also reported higher levels of well-being. The effect stayed significant even after researchers controlled for factors linked to well-being, such as job strain, education, and age.
• Sense of empowerment : This is attributed to the fact that transformational leaders believe that their followers can do their best, leading group members to feel inspired and empowered.

How to Become a More Transformational Leader

Becoming a more transformational leader may provide many benefits. Researchers believe that such results can help companies develop leadership training programs that can be used to teach transformational leadership skills.

Acquiring communication skills such as resolving workplace conflicts and recognizing employees' needs are important parts of transformational leadership. Such programs can serve as essential parts of health promotion efforts in the workplace to help improve employee well-being.

What can you do to become a more transformational leader? Leadership experts suggest that a robust and positive future vision plays a critical role. Not only is it essential to believe in this vision yourself, but you've also got to inspire others to buy into your vision as well.

You can also develop your transformational skills by being:

• Trustworthy

Transformational Leadership vs. Transactional Leadership

Transformational leadership is often contrasted with transactional leadership , which is a style that is essentially the opposite of transformational. In the transactional approach, leaders motivate their subordinates through the use of rewards and punishment.

While the transformational approach focuses on communication, inspiration, and positive reinforcement, transactional leaders supervise, monitor performance, and create routines to maximize efficiency. While the transactional approach can be effective in some situations, it does not foster loyalty, innovation, or creativity.

Motivates using rewards and punishments

Focused on compliance

Tends to focus on short-term goals

Uses extrinsic rewards (pay, promotions, etc.)

Motivates using enthusiasm and charismatic inspiration

Focused on commitment

More focused on long-term success

Uses intrinsic rewards (esteem, pride, etc.)

Potential Pitfalls of Transformational Leadership

While transformational leadership is often viewed as one of the best approaches to leadership, that doesn't mean that it is necessarily right for every situation. For example, when group members need more guidance and direction, it can be more effective to utilize a more transactional approach.

The transactional style can help improve group cohesion and commitment, but it can also contribute to burnout when group members feel constantly pressured to give up all of their time and effort to support the goals of the group.

In situations where a lot of creativity and innovation are important to success, a transformational style is often a beneficial approach. But if the focus is on achieving a prescribed set of short-term goals, taking a more transactional approach might lead to less chaos and better results.

Try our fast and free quiz to find out if you tend towards transformational leadership or one of the other styles.

The transformational style of leadership can be highly effective when used appropriately, but it might not necessarily be the best choice for every situation. In some cases, groups may require a more managerial or autocratic style that involves closer control and greater direction, particularly in situations where group member are unskilled and need a lot of oversight.

One way to improve your own leadership skills is to assess your own current leadership style and think about ways in which your strengths can benefit the group you are leading. By evaluating your own skills, you will be better able to play to your strengths and work on improving your areas of weakness.

Allen GP, Moore WM, Moser LR, Neill KK, Sambamoorthi U, Bell HS. The role of servant leadership and transformational leadership in academic pharmacy .  Am J Pharm Educ . 2016;80(7):113. doi:10.5688/ajpe807113

Choi SL, Goh CF, Adam MB, Tan OK. Transformational leadership, empowerment, and job satisfaction: the mediating role of employee empowerment .  Hum Resour Health . 2016;14(1):73. doi:10.1186/s12960-016-0171-2

Psychology Today. Are you a transformational leader ?

Jacobs C; Pfaff H; Lehner B, et al. The influence of transformational leadership on employee well-being: Results rrom a survey of companies in the information and communication technology sector in Germany. J Occup Environ Med . 2013;55(7):772-8.​ doi:10.1097/JOM.0b013e3182972ee5

Bass, B. M. & Riggio, R. E. Transformational Leadership . Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc; 2008.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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

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Transformational Leadership Style

The main characteristics of transformational leaders are specified by Khanin (2007) as highly receptive of their followers’ needs and wants, as well as, striving for their professional development at various fronts that would result in followers eventually replacing leaders in the future.

Moreover, Walumba and Hartnell (2011) justly attribute high achievement of transformational leaders to their attractive behaviour, charisma, and the ability to motivate their followers. Also, the role of organisational vision that is shared by all members of the workforce is stressed by Garcia-Morales et al (2008), who rightly specify the adoption of transformational leadership as an effective method of motivating workforce through developing and communicating the vision.

The main distinction between transformational and transactional leadership styles can be specified as the ability of the former style to address higher, intangible needs of employees as well as material needs the latter style is mainly associated with. In other words, transformational leaders promote creativity, positive team spirit and challenging working environment, thus achieving increased level of performance through highly motivated workforce.

However transformational leadership style can be time consuming process before they provide positive results, and they also create potential for abuse among certain members of the workforce. Specifically, the elements of sensitivity and gentleness expressed by transformational leaders might be perceived to be signs of weaknesses among specific members of the workforce due to their cultural differences, individual temperament and a range of other reasons.

Regardless of the type of organisation, as well as the nature of its aims and objectives, the level of achievement of the organisational objectives depends on the competence and personality of leaders, as well as the style of leadership organisational leaders adopt. This essay has mainly focused on two leadership styles – transactional and transformational, highlighting the main principles associated with each of these styles.

Transactional leaders expect high performance in exchange to wages and other tangible benefits provided to employees, whereas transformational leaders attempt to appeal to emotional needs of employees taking into account their individual differences in order to motivate them.

In summary it can be stated that organisational leaders should mainly rely on transformational style in order to achieve organisational objectives through highly motivated employees. However, it is also important to note that individual differences among the members of the workforce needs to be taken into account, and thus transactional leadership styles might also be used in relation to specific members of the workforce in an occasional manner, if such a necessity arises due to the nature of the job they perform, or due to the personal characteristics of employees.

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• Khanin, D. (2007)”Contrasting Burns and Bass: Does the Transactional-Transformational Paradigm Live Up to Burns’ Philosophy of Transforming Leadership?” Journal of Leadership Studies Volume 1, Issue 3, pp. 7-26
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Emotional intelligence provides a competitive advantage for entrepreneurs, but research shows there are generation and gender gaps in this key capability, writes Guillermo de Haro Rodríguez.

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The world currently boasts around 590 million active entrepreneurs , and this diverse and dynamic ecosystem has an increasing influence over the way teams are led and companies managed. From here, a new leadership style has emerged, one that rests at the nexus of emotional intelligence and transformational leadership – and that deserves a closer look, particularly in the way it crosses generations and genders.

How do gender and generational differences shape the emotional and leadership fabric of the entrepreneurial world?

The spirit of innovation and risk-taking that underpins entrepreneurial development means that it is inherently a complex emotional journey. Thus, emotional intelligence – the ability to understand and manage one’s emotions – is crucial for entrepreneurs. These individuals navigate their ventures with passion and inner drive. By mindfully applying emotional intelligence, they can significantly improve their decision-making processes.

This pivotal role of emotional intelligence in entrepreneurial activities gives way to a broader investigation: does gender and age play a role in entrepreneurial success? How do individuals of different genders and generations employ emotional intelligence in the business environment? In what way do these factors influence the presence of transformational leadership, a style that enables entrepreneurs to identify opportunities for change and guide their teams with the inspiration and passion that is so intrinsic to them?

With my coauthors, María Teresa Ballestar of Universidad Juan Rey Carlos, José Esteves of Porto Business School, and Jorge Sainz of the University of Bath, we investigated how gender (whether the entrepreneur is a man or woman) and age (what generation they belong to, from Baby Boomers to Gen Z) influence two key aspects for success in entrepreneurs: their ability to understand and manage emotions (emotional intelligence) and their ability to be inspiring and motivating leaders (transformational leadership).

As defined in 1997 by psychologists John D. Mayer of the University of New Hampshire and Peter Salovey of Yale University, emotional intelligence refers to “ the ability to perceive accurately ; appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth.” Emotional intelligence extends our ability to perceive, process, and appropriately use emotional information by providing innovative ways to better understand and evaluate human behavior. This significantly impacts the managerial capabilities of entrepreneurs given the dynamic changes and challenges they frequently face.

There are many existing and proven tools for the study of emotional intelligence. For example, The Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale was developed by Chi-sum Wong and Kenneth S. Law of CUHK Business School to provide a short measure of emotional intelligence to be used in workplace research. The measurement pulls from Mayer and Salovey’s four dimensions: self-emotional appraisal (SEA), the ability of individuals to understand their own emotions; others’ emotional appraisal (OEA), the ability of individuals to perceive and understand others’ emotions; use of emotion (UOE), the ability of individuals to make use of their emotions to enhance performance; and regulation of emotion (ROE), or, as the name suggests, the ability of individuals to regulate their emotions. In addition, a few prior studies have also examined the relationship between the emotional intelligence of leaders and transformational leadership styles, reaching contradictory conclusions.

The initial findings from our research confirm that among entrepreneurs, emotional intelligence is an antecedent of transformational leadership. The other elements that are significant contributors to transformational leadership styles are OEA and ROE, while only some dimensions of emotional intelligence are influenced by gender and generational cohort. Gender most significantly affects OEA and UOE, and generational cohort affects SEA, ROE, and UOE. We found substantial differences in emotional intelligence and transformational leadership styles across genders and generations, yet no significant difference in transformational leadership between men and women entrepreneurs. Additionally, no interaction effect between gender and generational cohort was observed.

Historically, studies have demonstrated that women exhibit more emotional intelligence than men, a trend observed in entrepreneurs as well. However, our study showed – somewhat unexpectedly – that Generation Z women entrepreneurs (born between the mid-1990s to early 2000s) have lower emotional intelligence scores than their male counterparts. What is more, while men’s emotional intelligence scores remain stable across generations, older women score significantly higher than their younger generational counterparts. Needless to say, this raises pertinent questions about gender and generational differences in regard to the development of emotional intelligence – and warrants further research.

Our research found still more interesting disparities between men and women entrepreneurs, as well as across generations. Notably, young women entrepreneurs from Gen Z got lower values in the SEA and OEA dimensions of emotional intelligence compared to their male counterparts. Additionally, as male entrepreneurs age, their confidence in their ability to understand others’ emotions decreases. This does not happen with women entrepreneurs as they age.

Moreover, our findings suggest that emotional regulation (ROE) is low among millennials but high among older generations. Remarkably, female Baby Boomer entrepreneurs outperform all others in all emotional intelligence dimensions, further indicating the trend towards diminished emotional intelligence among young entrepreneur women. Furthermore, we also found that Gen Z men demonstrate higher scores than Gen Z women across all emotional intelligence dimensions.

When it comes to being a transformational leader, emotional intelligence is key – regardless of one’s gender, age, or experience. Entrepreneurs with high levels of emotional intelligence are more affective, more creative, and create greater levels of engagement with peers and workers. This in turn means that they can promote more innovation in their ventures.

While evidence suggests that entrepreneurs are more inclined towards a transformational leadership style, gaps persist in our understanding of the relationship between entrepreneurs’ emotional capabilities, managerial orientation, and the growth of new ventures. But we do know that the long-term vision that a transformational leader brings to an organization helps stakeholders reduce uncertainty surrounding nascent entrepreneurial projects. Moreover, the characteristics associated with a transformational leadership style positively influence the growth of firms operating within rapidly evolving and highly innovative environments.

Helping entrepreneurs gain a deeper understanding of what affects their transformational leadership style is critical, particularly in the role that emotional intelligence plays. Regarding transformational leadership style, members of Gen X and particularly Baby Boomers have substantially higher results than members of younger generations, with women Gen Z entrepreneurs showing notably low levels of this leadership style. Although younger generations are highly educated, tech-savvy, well-traveled, confident, independent, goal-oriented, and open to transformative ideas, it seems that younger entrepreneurs do not develop a transformational leadership style. This comes down to emotional intelligence. Our findings indicate that those entrepreneurs with skills that include emotional intelligence have a competitive advantage because they can manage their emotions, are aware of the emotions of others, have better interactions with stakeholders, develop more tools to overcome the challenges facing their ventures, and ultimately achieve better performance within themselves, their team, and their venture.

© IE Insights.

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