What Makes a Transformational Leaders

WHAT MAKES A TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADER: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ANTECEDENT EXPERIENCES OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERS

by

WILLIAM J. SCHELL IV

A DISSERTATION

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering and Engineering Management to The School of Graduate Studies of  The University of Alabama in Huntsville

HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA 2010

UMI Number: 3410783

All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

UMI 3410783 Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346

UMI Number: 3410783

All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

UMI 3410783 Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346

In presenting this dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a doctoral degree from The University of Alabama in Huntsville, I agree that the Library of this University shall make it it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission permission for extensive copying for scholarly purposes may be granted by my advisor or, in his/her  absence, by the Chair of the Department or the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies. It is also understood that due recognition recog nition shall be given to me and to The University of  Alabama in Huntsville in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in this dissertation.

  ___________________________ (student signature) (date)

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DISSERTATION APPROVAL FORM

Submitted by William J. Schell IV in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial and Systems Engineering, with a concentration in Engineering Management and accepted on behalf of the Faculty of the School of Graduate Studies by the dissertation committee. We, the undersigned members of the Graduate Faculty of The University of Alabama in Huntsville, certify that we have advised and/or supervised the candidate on the work  described in this dissertation. We further certify that we have reviewed the dissertation manuscript and approved it in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of  Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial and Systems Engineering.

  ___________________________________ Committee Chair  Dr. Dawn R Utley (Date)  ___________________________________  Dr. Philip Farrington (Date)  ___________________________________  Dr. Sampson Gholston (Date)  ___________________________________  Dr Julie Fortune (Date)  ___________________________________  Dr. Anthony Morris (Date)

  ___________________________________ Department Chair  Dr. James Swain (Date)

  ___________________________________ College Dean Dr. Philip Farrington (Date)

  ___________________________________ Graduate Dean Dr. Debra Moriarity (Date)

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ABSTRACT

School of Graduate Studies The University of Alabama in Huntsville Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

College/Dept.: Engineering/Industrial Systems Engineering and Engineering Management

 Name of Candidate: William J Schell IV Title: What makes a transformational leader: An Investigation into the Antecedent Experiences of Transformational Leaders The headlines of any major newspaper give evidence that American culture is fascinated with the results of its leaders, whether they are political or sports leaders. The scholarly work on leaders leaders is also vast. vast. While recent history may show an increasing level of study, human interest in leadership is not a recent phenomenon. Discussion of  the study of leadership can be found in the classical works of the Greeks, Romans and Chinese. Leadership has an impact impact on all areas of society. The empirical literature has shown that good leadership promotes good organizational performance while bad leadership degrades the quality of life for those associated with it. Additional research has shown that transformational leadership is akin to good leadership. For this reason, researchers are drawn to better understand transformational leadership and how it is developed. Leadership development is a vast area of literature, but there is little research that   promotes an understanding of how development experiences influence the types of  leadership behaviors displayed by leaders. This dissertation sought to address this gap in two ways. First, a new instrument was developed, the Lifetime Leadership Inventory (LLI), that that

enables researchers to understand the development experiences of the

respondent. Second, the LLI was utilized to examine the development experiences of 

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leaders of entrepreneurial companies and correlate those experiences with the behaviors measured by the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) using correlation analysis and Structured Equation Modeling (SEM). The study found significant (α = 0.05) correlation between many of the antecedent areas explored and the components of transformational leadership measured by the MLQ. These included positive correlations between transformational leadership components and experiences with mentors, professional leadership experiences, and formal leadership development programs. A negative correlation was found between transformational leadership components and leadership experiences in high school and college. The  practical results of the study include implications for hiring decisions and the design of  leadership training programs.

Abstract Approval:

Committee Chair: Dr. Dawn R Utley Department Chair: Dr. James J. Swain Graduate Dean: Dr. Debra M. Moriarity

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To Dr. Paul Schillings, thank you for encouraging a freshman engineering student to pursue graduate work and a career in academia. If not for you, this journey would likely never have started, someday I’ll fulfill that vision of moving into your old office.

To Geert Letens at Royal Military Academy, Belgium and Verne Harnish at Gazelles, Inc., without your assistance to gain access to participants for this dissertation, its completion would not have been possible.

To the staff of the UAH Salmon Library who have built a remarkable collection of electronic reference materials. If not for the instant access and powerful search capabilities those collections provide to distance learning students, I would still be wading through the leadership literature.

To my dissertation committee, Dr. Dawn Utley, Dr. Phillip Farrington, Dr. Sampson Gholston, Dr. Julie Fortune and Dr. Anthony Morris, thank you for your  support and guidance. I would like like to provide special acknowledgement to my Chair, Dr. Utley, for your encouragement and coordination and to Dr. Morris for pushing me to take the right steps to develop the LLI and for consistently being my most vocal supporter as the research began to take shape.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... x List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... xi Chapter  I.

INTRODUCTION ............................................... ............................................... 1 1.1 The Importance of Leadership.................................................... ............ 2 1.2 The Need For Transformational Leadership...................................... ..... 4 1.3 The Antecedents of Transformational Leadership ................................. 5 1.4 A Study into Transformational Leaders in Entrepreneurial Organizations.......................................................................................... 7

II.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE.......................................................... 9 2.1 What Is Leadership .................................................. ............................. 10 2.1.1 Leadership Defined for this Dissertation ................................... 11 2.1.2 Pioneering Leadership Concepts....................................... ......... 12 2.1.3 Leadership or Management.............................................. .......... 15 2.1.4 Why Study Leadership.................................... ........................... 17 2.2 General Leadership Theories............................................... ................. 18 2.3 Transformational Leadership.............................................. .................. 20 2.3.1 The Full Range Leadership Model ............................................ 23 2.3.2 Transformational Leadership vs. Transactional Leadership ...... 24 2.4 Leadership Effectiveness ...................................................................... 25 2.4.1 Examples and Definitions of Leadership Effectiveness ............ 26 2.4.2 Effectiveness of Transformational Leadership .......................... 27 2.5 Measuring Transformational Leadership.............................................. 29 2.5.1 The Leadership Practices Inventory........................................... 29 2.5.2 The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire................................ 31 2.6 Previous Studies into Leadership Antecedents..................................... 34 2.7 Review Summary.............................................................. .................... 37

III.

RESEARCH STATEMENT................................ ............................................. 39 3.1 Research Questions, Conceptual Model and Hypotheses..................... 40 3.2 Importance of Research and Contribution............................................ 42

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IV.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ..................................................................... 44 4.1 Study Overview ................................................ .................................... 44 4.2 Instrument Selection .............................................. ............................... 47 4.3 Development of the Lifetime Leadership Inventory (LLI)................... 49 4.3.1 The Nature of Key Relationships......................................... ...... 50 4.3.2 Early Development Experiences................................................ 51 4.3.3 Exploratory Experiences .................................................. .......... 51 4.3.4 Early / Previous Work Experience............................................. 52 4.3.5 Formal Development Experiences .......................................... ... 52 4.3.6 Demographic Questions............................................................. 53 4.4 Refinement of the LLI .......................................................................... 53 4.4.1 Initial LLI Pilot Study..................................................... ........... 54 4.4.2 Reduction of LLI Question Set into Final Form........................ 55 4.5 Description of the Survey Population................................................... 55 4.6 Deployment of the Study Instruments .................................................. 56 4.7 Data Collection and Analysis Plan ............................................ ........... 58

V.

DATA ANALYSIS ............................................................ .............................. 60 5.1 Pilot Study and Refinement of the LLI................................................. 62 5.1.1 LLI Pilot Study Data Analysis................................................... 63 5.1.2 Reduction of the LLI Data Set ................................................... 67 5.2 Demographic Analysis of the Study Data Set ...................................... 68 5.3 Analysis of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) ............ 71 5.3.1 Comparing the Leadership Measures of the Study and MLQ Population ............................................... ................................... 71 5.3.2 Examination of the MLQ Factor Structure ................................ 75 5.3.3 Comparing the Factor Loadings of the Study Data with the MLQ Population ................................................. ....................... 79 5.4 Analysis of the Lifetime Leadership Inventory (LLI) .......................... 80 5.4.1 Descriptive Statistics for the LLI............................................... 82 5.4.2 Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the LLI .................................. 83 5.5 Exploring the Relationship Between the LLLI and the MLQ Using Correlation ............................................... ............................................. 86 5.6 Structured Equation Modeling Between the LLI and MLQ................. 89 5.6.1 Further Reduction of the LLI and CFA Revisited ..................... 90 5.6.2 SEM Analysis Description and Results ..................................... 91 5.7 Correlation Analysis Between LLI Questions and the MLQ ............... 93 5.8 Analysis Summary................................................................................ 94

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VI.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ........................................... 96 6.1 Hypothesis Testing Results and Contribution to the Body of  Knowledge ............................................................................................ 97 6.2 Theoretical Implications of Study ................................................... ..... 99 6.3 Implications for the Engineering Manager ......................................... 103 6.4 Limitations Of The Study .............................................. ..................... 104 6.5 Areas for Future Research .................................................................. 105

APPENDIX A: APPENDIX B: APPENDIX C: APPENDIX D: APPENDIX E: APPENDIX F: APPENDIX G:

Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire ................................................ 108 Initial Lifetime Leadership Inventory Sample Questions...................111 Refined Lifetime Leadership Inventory Sample Questions................113 Mind Garden Permissions.................................... ............................... 115 Gazelle’s Participant Invitations ................................................ .........120 LLI Correlation Analysis ................................................... .................123 Factor Analysis Of Alternative LLI Model ........................................ 130 G.1 Exploratory Analysis of the LLI ............................................. 131 G.2 Correlation Analysis Between LLI Factors and the Two Factor MLQ ....................................................................136 G.3 Correlation Analysis Between LLI Factors and the  Nine Factor MLQ....................................................................137 APPENDIX H: Structured Equation Model Output.............................................. .......139 APPENDIX I: Study Approval from IRB................................................................... 152

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 154

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

Page

2.1

Leadership Literature Review Pyramid......................................... ..........................10

3.1

Study Conceptual Model ......................................................................................... 41

4.1

Overview of Theoretical LLI Model ................................................... ....................50

5.1

Overview of Analysis Methodology ................................................... ....................61

5.2

Single Linkage Dendrogram for LLI Pilot Study.......................................... ..........64

5.3

LLI Pilot Study Dendrogram Using Ward's Method .............................................. 65

5.4

Scree Plot Result of Exploratory Factor Analysis of the MLQ............................... 78

5.5

Factor Model for Idealized Influence (Attributed) as Measured by the MLQ........79

G.1

Dendrogram from Cluster Analysis of Full LLI Data Using Ward Linkage ........ 131

G.2

Scree Plot of Exploratory Factor Analysis on the LLI .......................................... 134

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LIST OF TABLES

Table

Page

4.1

Leadership Measure Selection Criteria and Winner ............................................. ... 47

5.1

Pilot Study Population Overview .......................................... .................................. 62

5.2

Pilot Study Correlation Analysis Summary.................................................... ......... 67

5.3

Participant Ethnic Demographic Information by Gender ........................................ 69

5.4

Participant Job Level Demographics by Source ................................................... ... 69

5.5

Participant Experience Level Demographic Information by Source ....................... 69

5.6

Participant Education Level Demographic Information by Source ......................... 69

5.7

Descriptive Statistics for MLQ Results ................................................................... 73

5.8

P Values for Comparisons of MLQ Scores........................................................... ... 74

5.9

Cronbach Alpha Reliability Score for Nine Factor MLQ Components .................. 75

5.10 Cronbach Alpha Reliability Scores for Alternate MLQ Models ............................. 76 5.11 Factor Loading Comparisons for Individual MLQ Questions within their  Expected Factor ................................................... .................................................... 81 5.12 Descriptive Statistics for LLI Pillars........................................................................ 82 5.13 Loadings of Individual LLI Questions within their Hypothesized Factors ............ 85 5.14 Correlation Coefficients and Significance for LLI Pillars & Nine Factor MLQ..... 88 5.15 Correlation Values Found with SEM.................................... ................................... 93 5.16 Significant Correlations Between LLI Questions and MLQ Leadership Factors... 94 G.1 Varimax Factor Loadings from LLI Exploratory Factor Analysis ........................ 135 G.2 Correlation Coefficients for LLI Exploratory Factors & Two Factor MLQ ......... 137 G.3 Correlation Coefficients for LLI Exploratory Factors & Nine Factor MLQ ......... 138

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DEDICATION

For Ana and Megan, thank you for being a daily source of inspiration and fascination to your daddy. Thank you for your patience while I was locked in the office at home, out at the library, or in Alabama - even if you didn’t understand why I was still in school as a grown up. Someday you’ll get to tell your new little brother about all of  the fun he missed before his arrival. We’ll now have more time to spend together and I’m looking forward to it more than you will ev er know.

For Melanie, thank you for all of your support throughout the years, during this work and on oh so many other things. Who would have guessed when this process started, that we’d live in a different time zone, have one more kid (almost two) and see countless other changes big and small in careers and life before it was done. Through it all, the constant has always been us and my love for you.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

“The gift of leadership belonged to him in supreme degree.” - Gifford Pinchot speaking of President Theodore Roosevelt (1947 )

One need look only as far as the headlines of any major newspaper on any given day to see the culture of America is focused on the accomplishments and failings of its leaders. Whether it is the challenges faced by a major political initiative backed by the President, the fall from grace of leading sports figures, or the compensation packages of  executives, the public appears very interested in getting a regular feed of information on those who hold leadership positions. This interest in leaders is not just a popular culture   phenomenon. The scholarly work on leaders is also vast, as a current Google Scholar  search on the word generates over 2.4 million results in English (Google 2010). But why are leaders so important that interest in them borders on obsession? Why did the topic of  leadership generate such interest that no fewer than 2,800 books on the topic were   published in 2008 and 2009 (Amazon 2010)? Roosevelt had and what is known about it?

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What is this gift of leadership that

1.1 The Importance of Leadership

While recent history may show an increasing level of study, human interest in leadership is not a recent phenomenon. Discussion of the study of leadership can be found in the classical works of the Greeks, Romans and Chinese (Bass 1981). The study of leadership through human history eventually found its way into two camps at the dawn th

of the 20 century. The first typified by Carlyle’s (1888) belief that “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” The second captured by Tolstoy (1869), “In history, so-called Great Men are but labels serving to give a name to historical events, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself.” Gergen (2005) argues that the first half of the 20

th

century served to resolve this conflict of  th

opinion, stating that leaders do matter, a lot. The 20 century dawned with hopes for a new golden age, as European nations had not engaged in war for over 80 years. But the century hit its mid point having seen two of the bloodiest wars in human history while the economy of the world suffered. Why was this the result when hopes were so high? Keegan (2002) argues the answer to this question can be found in the biographies of  six men: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt. The first four acted as tyrants and could have destroyed the world, if not successfully challenged  by the other two men. The first half of the 20

th

century acts as an extreme example for why Bennis

(2004, 331) states that the “quality of our lives is dependant on the quality of our  leadership.” The importance of leadership, while often most visible in politics, is not limited to this arena. Leadership has an impact on all areas of society. In sports, the differences in leadership can be seen by the championships amassed by coaches

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Lombardi, Auerbach and Jackson. In business, leadership drove the success of General Electric under Jack Welch, Microsoft under Bill Gates and Apple under Steve Jobs. The empirical literature has shown that good leadership promotes good performance while  bad leadership degrades the quality of life for those associated with it (Hogan and Kaiser  2005) and that leader differences do account for a substantial degree of an organization’s  performance variation (Thomas 1988). It is this power of leadership that draws researchers to better understand the topic. Subsequent to the Great Man theory, the quest to understand leadership has generally fallen into two categories. The first, trait theories, generally hold that effective leaders   possess different traits than their less effective counterparts (Bass 1981). The second group, behavioral theories, generally holds that the behaviors of leaders impact their  effectiveness. These behaviors are typically combined into groups similar to those of  Katz and Kahn (1952), who categorized behaviors as task oriented, relationship oriented, and participative leadership. The relationship oriented behaviors led to the development of charismatic leadership theories (Barbuto 2005). But these categories have often fallen into dispute, a dispute summed up by Drucker (2001a, 269 - 270): What then is leadership if it is not charisma and not a set of personality traits? The first thing is that it is work […] The foundation of effective leadership is thinking through the organization’s mission, defining it, and establishing it, clearly and visibly. The leader sets goals, sets the priorities and sets and maintains the standards. […] The second requirement is that the leader sees leadership as a responsibility, rather than as rank and   privilege. […] [The leader] holds himself ultimately responsible for the mistakes of his associates and subordinates, he also sees the triumphs of  his associates and subordinates as his triumphs […].

In this statement, Drucker captures the need for transformational leadership. This type of  leadership is defined as being able to lift a team above the day-to-day preoccupations to

3

rally around a common purpose (Burns 1978). Transformational leadership differs from transactional leadership which is more focused on a cost benefit, economic exchange with subordinates (Bass 1985).

1.2 The Need for Transformational Leadership

“Since the 1980s, research has supported the idea that transformational leadership is more effective than transactional leadership in generating the extra effort, commitment, and satisfaction of those led” (Avolio and Bass 2002, 1). Transformational leadership has been shown to have strong positive impacts on the performance of organizations from financial firms (Walumba, et al. 2005), to school environments (Higgins 1998, Blatt 2002), to sales forces (Jolson, et al. 1993), to the U.S. Navy (Murphy 2002), to IBM, and the Third Army (Bass 1985). But if transformational leadership is so effective, why has it not become part of the lexicon of the average American? Perhaps it is because transformational leadership has often been found to be most effective in creating success regarding organizational change (e.g., Ozaralli 2003, Zagorsek, et al. 2009) and most   people have a natural discomfort with change. However, in times of complex systems and high technology, change is constantly on the horizon. Now seems an opportune time to better understand transformational leadership and capture its benefits. While it seems that most generations claim that their generation is in the most turbulent times, Friedman (2005) has made a popularly accepted argument that the current rate of change is the most rapid in human history.

As times become more

challenging, it is held that leadership becomes more important (Goldsmith 2007, Collins 2009). How does transformational leadership fit into these challenging times?

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In times of turbulence, it has been shown that charismatic leadership, an important subcomponent of transformational leadership, has a predictive relationship with   performance (Waldman, et al. 2001). Furthermore, one of the greatest impacts a leader  can have on their organization is to set and reinforce the values, mission and culture of an organization (Phills 2005, Bossidy 2002, Peters and Waterman 1982). Transformational leadership, by its very definition, is concerned with the motivation of followers through idealized influence, creating a common purpose around which to rally (Bass 1985). Since transformational leadership appears to hold the potential of being a powerful asset within these turbulent times, the question arises, how is it developed?

1.3 The Antecedents of Transformational Leadership

Leadership development is a vast area of literature (Bass 1981). As mentioned  previously, most studies in this area focus on one of two paths to leadership development, trait and behavioral. Studies of the trait theories sought to determine what innate traits made a leader effective, the research of these theories sought to understand and identify traits, not develop them (Bass 1981).

Conversely, studies of the behavioral theories

looked to identify the behaviors that made effective leaders, so the behavior could be taught (McCauley, et al. 1998). Both of these development theories are well understood, with vast supporting literature. An area that is not as well understood is the effect that experiences have on an individual’s leadership development (Bennis and Thomas 2002). Research on how experience effects leadership development has been completed through a variety of studies.

These include investigations into leadership crucibles

(Bennis and Thomas 2002, Bennis 2004), studies into the impacts of parental

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relationships on leadership (e.g., Avolio 1994, Towler 2005), and research into the impacts of previous leadership experiences on current leadership behavior (e.g., Howard and Bray 1988, Atwater, et al. 1999). While some of these studies (e.g., Avolio 1994, Atwater, et al. 1999, Towler 2005) specifically looked at the development of  transformational leadership, none investigated the breadth of development experiences discussed in the literature.

Examples of these development experiences include

relationships with mentors (e.g., Atwater, et al. 1999), activities in high school (e.g., Avolio 1994), and exploratory experiences (e.g., Louv 2005, Evans and Cope 2003). Clearly there is a gap in understanding, but why does this gap exist? One reason for this gap appears to be the lack of an available instrument that explores a broad range of potential leadership development experiences.

Because of this missing

instrument, existing experience focused research has been largely completed through structured interview techniques (e.g., Bennis and Thomas 2002, Wong 2004), which lack  the breadth of exploration and sample size generally developed through instrument based studies. This gap in the literature points to a need to develop an instrument that could aid in understanding the breadth of experiences that may lead to development of measurable leadership behaviors. The purpose of such an instrument would be to understand the development experiences of a leader or potential leader who responds to the instrument.

These

experiences could be broken into five different theoretical groups based on the different types of development experiences examined in the literature. The first group would seek  to understand the nature of the key relationships of the participant, including their  relationships with parents and mentors (e.g., Towler 2005, Sosik, et al. 2004).

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The

second group would seek to understand the early development experiences of the  participant, including high school and college activities (e.g., Muldoon, et al. 2005). The remaining groups would investigate the exploratory experiences (e.g., Louv 2005), early work experiences (e.g., Howard and Bray 1988), and formal development experiences (e.g., McCauley, et al. 1998) of the participant. By utilizing this rationalized set of  experiences investigated in previous literature, the research is able to better understand the experiences of the participant. This dissertation will then look to correlate those experiences with the participants’ displays of transformational leadership.

But the

question remains, what population of leaders should be included in the study? Since the end of the economic crisis of the late 2000’s is expected to be driven by growth in small entrepreneurial

companies

(e.g.,

Obama

2009,

United

States

Small

Business

Administration 2009), a study targeted to this population of leaders, that aides in the understanding of the development of transformational leadership may be beneficial.

1.4 A Study Into Transformational Leaders in Entrepreneurial Organizations

Prior to the current global economic challenges, Drucker (2001b) argued for the importance of an entrepreneurial society, a society in which innovation and entrepreneurship are normal, steady, and continual. This focus on steady and continual improvement can only be completed in a culture that is open to, even welcoming of  change.

The literature has shown that a culture welcoming of change is effectively

created with transformational leadership. How can a study be structured to learn more about leaders in these types of organizations?

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The answer came with access to the readers of the Gazelles weekly newsletter. The newsletter serves a group of readers who are leaders of mid-market companies focused on growth, coming from all industries (Gazelles 2009). This population was studied to begin to learn more about these leaders, including their leadership styles and development experiences.

The study expects to have two contributions to the

Engineering Management body of knowledge.

The first contribution will be the

development of a new data collection instrument that allows the researcher to understand the experiences that may contribute to the leadership behaviors of the participant. The second contribution will be any correlations identified between development experiences and displays of transformational leadership in the study population.

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The available literature in the area of leadership, both in the popular press and scholarly work is vast and continues to expand rapidly due to a “great interest in the   phenomenon of leadership by both academicians and practitioners” (Antonakis, et al. 2004a, vii). However, the body of knowledge presents problems to the researcher. First not only is the literature vast, it is often disparate and inaccessible. Second, much of the  published information in the field regarding what makes a leader effective, has minimal scientific backing, if any at all (Antonakis, et al. 2004a). In order to clarify the literature and attempt to deal with these shortcomings, this review takes a macro to micro approach, as illustrated in Figure 2.1. The review starts with definitions of leadership and an investigation of foundational leadership theories, then discusses leadership and management and the importance of leadership, and then introduces transformational leadership, before stepping through leadership effectiveness, methods to measure leadership and the antecedents of leadership in light of both general leadership theories and transformational leadership. In this manner, the literature provides a multi-layered foundation for the pinnacle of this pyramid, the proposed research investigation of the antecedent experiences of transformational leaders.

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Leadership Antecedants Measuring TL

Leadership Effectiveness Transformational Leadership (TL) and the Full Range Model Leadership or Management and the Importance of Leadership Definitions and Foundational Theories of Leadership

Figure 2.1 – Leadership Literature Review Pyramid

2.1 What is Leadership

What is leadership?

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (2007) defined

leadership simply as “the office or position of a leader.” Follett (1949) held a different opinion of what defined leadership, noting nothing of the position, but instead stating that it had two key tenets.

First, a leader does not lead by personality, but by superior 

knowledge of a situation. Second, that leadership is not only an innate quality, but is a skill that can be learned. This concept of leadership as a born trait has its beginnings in the Great Man Theory (Carlyle 1888), while the concept that leadership is a set of skills that can be learned was furthered by the personality school of leadership research (Bass 1981).

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This conflict and confusion about leadership theory is not new. Almost 50 years ago, Bennis (1959, 259) surveyed the leadership literature and concluded “it seems the concept of leadership eludes us or turns up in another form to taunt us again with its slipperiness and complexity. So we have invented an endless proliferation of terms to deal with it . . . and still the concept is not sufficiently defined.” Nor has this conflict  been satisfactorily mediated in the intervening years, as Antonakis, et al. (2004b, 5) more recently noted that “given the complex nature of leadership, a specific and widely accepted definition of leadership does not exist and might never be found.”

2.1.1 Leadership Defined for this Dissertation

Despite the lack of a general agreement in the way that leadership is defined, in order to continue this discussion, a broad definition is needed. For this dissertation the general definition of leadership created by Antonakis, et al. (2004b, 5) will be utilized. This definition is leadership can be defined as the nature of the influencing  process – and its resultant outcomes – that occurs between leader and followers and how the influencing process is explained by the leader’s dispositional characteristics and   behaviors, follower perceptions and attributions of the leader, and the context in which the influencing process occurs.

This definition is consistent with those commonly used in investigations of  transformational leadership. For example, McLaurin and Bushanain Al Amri (2008, 15) utilize a similar definition where “leadership is a dynamic relationship which is based on mutual influence between leaders and followers which results in a higher level of  motivation and technical development as it promotes changes.”

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2.1.2 Pioneering Leadership Concepts

While the written material on leadership can often be found in studies of human history, the professional study and research into leadership can be found in those   publications interested not in studying the past, but in how to build things with greater  efficiency. A key contribution in this area can be attributed to Taylor and his study of  scientific management (Russell 1987).

In 1916, Taylor published his definitions of 

scientific management principles, key among them that management could improve the output of an organization by the scientific study of work. This study led to a better  understanding of the job and how to better fit workers to the job. Additionally, Taylor  (1916, 17) identified what he referred to as the “highest type of management” where employers deliberately set out to make conditions for their employees better than the conditions found at other employers.

This type of action is a precursor to the

individualized attention concept included in transformational leadership (Bass 1985). From Taylor, the research began to focus more completely on ways to understand and motivate employees. This need to motivate employees is closely tied to the leader’s ability to influence followers, included in this dissertation’s working definition of  leadership. This area of study began with Maslow (1950) who defined a framework for  understanding the needs of human beings in a hierarchical format.

In addition to

developing the framework, Maslow contributed a deep understanding of how people move from one level to another on the hierarchy and the ability for multiple levels to be simultaneously partially satisfied and partially unsatisfied. In this way, Maslow provided the foundation to understand human behavior that was applied by a number of  management philosophers in their work about how to effectively motivate employees.

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McGregor (1957) took the conventional view of management’s role to harness and control employee actions and behavior to meet the needs of the employer and labeled it Theory X management. He went on to challenge the view of management – that control of employees was necessary due to employees inherently passive nature, similar  to Taylor’s soldiering (1919) – as the cause of this behavior not the result. As a solution for this behavior, McGregor offered an alternative set of management behaviors which he matched to different assumptions about employee behavior; these assumptions were labeled Theory Y. Under this set of assumptions, management’s core responsibility is to arrange the organization so that employees can once again find their motivation, and use that motivation to determine their own path to successfully complete the goals of their  role.

In this way, employees are given the autonomy to do their best work and

management is simply capturing the inherent skill in employees to deliver the results that are needed by the organization. The motivation thread of leadership research continued with a notable step being taken by Herzberg et al. (1959), who outlined a two factor model for employee motivation - hygienes and motivators. This work was further clarified to make it more actionable almost 10 years later (Herzberg 1968). In this framework, the key was to recognize that many of the reward approaches utilized by organizations have limited use, since they focus on areas labeled hygienes. These hygienes possess limited opportunity to truly engage employees and benefit from higher performance.

Instead, managers

should focus on job enrichment with the intent to improve aspects that truly motivate employees such as the opportunity for responsibility and achievement. This research thread continues, with such researchers as Daniels (2009) and his best practices for 

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eliminating practices that demotivate employees, Tompkins (2007) and his bold leadership theories for motivations and Jacobs (2009) and his investigations into what is wrong with employee feedback practices from the perspective of neuroscience. In addition to the research into how to best motivate employees, a related research stream investigated how organizational outcomes could best be achieved through effective goal setting at both an individual and organizational level. Key concepts in this area were developed by Drucker (1958) who presented the framework for successfully managing the enterprise of business through the use of objectives. House and Mitchell (1974) combined the two streams of understanding employee motivation and managing   performance toward organizational objectives with the Path Goal Theory.

In their 

research the authors found empirical support for higher performance against goals where the followers were motivated by the achievement of objectives.

Furthermore, that

motivation leads to greater performance against future objectives. In this environment, it is the role of the leader to increase the motivational factors associated with goal achievement while communicating the types of paths that might be taken to achieve the objectives. As Path Goal theory began to look at management as leader behaviors that influence the resultant outcomes of an organization (House and Mitchell 1974), a number  of other investigators began to more fully focus on behaviors as the key to successful leadership.

These investigations included Hersey and Blanchard’s (1969) theory of 

Situational Leadership and Tannenbaum and Schmidt’s (1973) concept of the leadership continuum. With these studies the line between what constituted effective management and effective leadership begins to become broader and less well defined.

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2.1.3 Leadership or Management

The review of the leadership related literature clearly points to studies that fall into two categories, those interested with effective management and those interested in effective leadership.

But what is the difference between these two categories? Just as

there are conflicts in what the exact definition of leadership is, there exist conflicts in how leadership and management are or are not inter-related.

In his seminal work,

Sheldon (1923) developed a professional creed for managers to ensure that industry was run with the greatest efficiency possible. Included in this creed were key tenets regarding how management should be incorporated as a stabilizing influence on industry, one that safeguards against disruptive change. This tenet runs in conflict with the concept of  leadership as the catalyst for managing and even promoting change in an organization to enable further growth and success discussed by many authors including Collins (2001) and his discussion of the Level 5 leader who quietly moves his organization forward to greatness and Tompkins (2007) and his discussion of the bold leader who energizes the organization to move and grow. This division between the meaning of management and leadership is a relatively recent split within the literature. In his extensive review of the literature in this area, Rost (1998) found the words used interchangeably beginning in the 1930’s and continuing on in some research areas through the 1980’s.

The effort to split the meaning of the

two words began in the late 1950s and remains unresolved. Rost notes that a key gap in these efforts to split the meaning of the two words is the tendency of researchers to denigrate management to ennoble leadership. Or as Mintzberg (2009, 12) states simply: “ever since the distinction was made between leadership and management – leadership

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somehow being the important stuff and management being what surgeons call the scut work – attention focused on leadership.” This increase in attention has seemingly driven an increase in the confusion   between the two terms, created by their being used interchangeably (Hunt 2004). To avoid this overlap, Kotter’s (1990) distinction can be utilized.

In this definition,

management, including its planning function, makes an operation run smoothly, and leadership, including direction setting, closely related to planning, makes an organization  produce or adapt to change. In this way, management and leadership are two sides to a coin and both are needed to successfully move an organization forward. Leadership could be considered the key part of what Mintzberg (1971) described as the interpersonal work of managers. A view he echoed almost four decades later when he said: My view is that management without leadership is disheartening or discouraging. And leadership without management is disconnected, because if you lead without managing, you don’t know what’s going on. It’s management that connects you to what’s going on. (Mintzberg 2009, 12)

This understanding of the differences, both perceived and real, between management and leadership is important because of its relationship to transformational leadership.

As will be discussed in later sections, oftentimes the break between

transformational leadership and transactional leadership is considered to be akin to the  break between leadership and management (Graham 1988).

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2.1.4 Why Study Leadership

Why is the topic of leadership so interesting and important to human kind that the depth and breadth of research on the topic is so great? Put simply, it may be the very fact that the “quality of our lives is dependant on the quality of our leadership” which occurs   because “leaders wield power, and so we study them with the same self-interested intensity with which we study diabetes and other life-threatening diseases” (Bennis 2004, 331). Given the disproportionate impact that leaders can have on the population, it is of  little wonder that so much effort is dedicated to the pursuit. However, this answer does not appear to be sufficient. For while Bennis’ words are dramatic, they best support the interest in studying political and military leaders and do little to support the level of  interest in business and other leaders who do not hold a position with potential for life and death impacts. To understand the high interest in industrial and other organizational leaders, other sources must be investigated.

Beginning with early studies, the interest in

understanding leadership springs from self interest, whether it was the work of Taylor  (1916) showing how better organizational leadership lead to better working conditions or  Follett (1949) who noted that good leaders assume grave responsibilities and play a creative part in the success of a large portion of our society. This vein of research  pioneered by Follett, where the actions of leaders were thought to impact the output of   business, has gained even more focus with the ongoing struggles of the performance of  the world economy in 2009, driven in part by ethical lapses in business leadership (George and McLean 2007, Palmer 2009). Just as the actions of a small number of   business leaders had a large negative impact on the global economy, this highly leveraged

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impact of business leadership can create large positive impacts for humanity’s largest  problems (Maak and Pless 2009). For these reasons, even though the impact of business leadership may not involve life and death, it can have material repercussions on society.

2.2 General Leadership Theories

It seems that leadership has been viewed as an important area of study for much of human history. Discussions of the study of leadership can be found in the classical works of the Greeks, Romans and Chinese (Bass 1981).

Over time, the study of 

leadership generally began to follow one of two paths: trait and behavior theories. The first path, trait theories, has its origins in the Great Man theory (Carlye 1888). This theory is focused on the traits of leaders and how those traits set the leader apart from his followers (Bass 1981); it also sets effective leaders apart from ineffective ones (Higgins 1994). Generally, trait are built on the idea that a leader is born, not made. As such, the research is focused on identification of leadership traits, so the successful future leader can be identified and hired. The research into trait theories was extremely active th

in the first part of the 20 century, before falling out of favor (Bass 1981). The reason for this change included the studies of Bird (1940), who found little agreement in a meta study of leadership traits regarding which traits were truly important for leadership effectiveness; Jenkins (1947) who found little agreement on important traits in a meta study of military leadership studies; and Stogdill (1948) who, used a meta study that found clusters of items that were more generally important than the findings of Bird or  Jenkins, identified that the importance of the cluster varied based on the situation. With these studies pointing to a general inadequacy in the trait theories, leadership research

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faced its first crisis (Antonakis et al. 2004b). As a result of that crisis, researchers began to focus their efforts on the identification of what was hoped to be a more universal set of  findings regarding effective leaders, which lead to the behavioral theories. The second path, behavioral theories, looks at leadership as a series of behaviors. This path had its origins in the studies of Lewin and Lippitt (1938) which investigated democratic vs. autocratic leaders.

The seminal works in this space were completed

through the University of Michigan (Katz, et al. 1951) and Ohio State (Stogdill and Coons 1957) studies that identified two dimensions of leadership. The first dimension, generally referred to as consideration, seeks to capture a leader’s employee orientation. While the second, initiating structure, is concerned with the production of the organization. These concepts where furthered by other researchers, notably Blake and Mouton (1964) who developed the two-dimensional managerial grid as a guide to understanding leader behavior in terms of a focus on people vs. a focus on production. By breaking leadership into multiple dimensions based on the actions of the leader, the   behavioral school of research set the groundwork for the new leadership school   promoting visionary or charismatic leadership theories (Antonakis, et al. 2004b). Included in these theories was the beginning of transformational leadership.

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2.3 Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership has been called the new paradigm of leadership (Bryman 1992) and is generally considered to have its foundation in the work completed  by Burns in political leadership in the late 1970’s (Barbuto 2005). At that time, Burn’s (1978, 20 - 21) explained that transformational leadership: . . . occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality. Their purposes, which might have started out as separate but related, as in the case of transactional leadership, become fused. Power    bases are linked not as counterweights but as mutual support for common purpose. [. . .] But transforming leadership ultimately becomes moral in that it raises the level of human conduct and ethical aspiration of both the leader and led, and thus it has a transforming effect on  both.

This foundation was furthered by the work of many, predominately Bass (1985, 1990) who defined the components of the full range leadership model, including transformational leadership, and co-researchers, notably Avolio (1994, 2005), who completed many studies that further refined the questions and factor structure of the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) instrument utilized to measure the full range of participant leadership, and Kouzes and Posner (1995), who defined the concept of exemplary leadership (Barbuto 2005). Bass (1985) was the first to publish a multifactor definition of transformational leadership. In his definition, which has become the dominant

definition

in

the

research

space,

transformational

leadership

has

four dimensions:

•

Charisma – The degree to which the leader behaves in admirable ways that cause followers to identify with and trust the leader.

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This trait is about the leader 

 providing a role model for the followers (Bass 1985). The label of charisma was later changed to Idealized Influence when the concept of charisma was criticized as being incompatible with transformational concepts (Barbuto 2005).

•  Inspirational Motivation – The degree to which a leader articulates a vision that appeals and inspires followers.

These leaders challenge followers with high

standards, communicate optimism about future goals, and provide meaning for the task at hand (Bass 1985).

•  Intellectual Stimulation – The degree to which a leader stimulates new ideas and creative solutions from their followers by challenging assumptions and encouraging risk taking (Bass 1985).

•  Individualized Consideration (or Individualized Attention) – The degree to which the leader understands the individual needs of each of their followers and attends to those needs (Bass 1985). While each of these individual components, is itself, an important set of leadership  behaviors, it is the combination of the four areas that leads to successful transformational leadership behavior that motivates others to do more than they thought possible (Avolio and Bass 2002). An alternate framework for transformational leadership is provided by Kouzes and Posner (1995) who defined the concept of exemplary leadership, sometimes referred to as transformational leadership (e.g., Bell-Roundtree 2004, Barbuto 2005), as characterized by five leadership practices:

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1) Challenge the process – leaders who venture out and accept challenge. 2)   Inspire a shared vision – leaders who have a clear vision for the future and can articulate that vision in an inspiring way to followers. 3)   Enable others to act – leaders who recognize that it takes a team action to accomplish organizational objectives and empower the team to take the actions needed to achieve success. 4) Model the way – leaders who go first, by setting the example they build commitment and create progress and momentum. 5)   Encourage the heart – leaders who show others that they can win, they understand the needs of their followers and provide appropriate encouragement. Although the exemplary leadership model has been utilized with the label transformational leadership, it is both similar to and different than the complete definition of transformational leadership created by Bass (1985). The key difference is that Bass (1990) holds that charisma is a key component of the success of the transformational leader, while Kouzes and Posner (1995) view charisma as a myth of leadership, stating that leaders do not posses special powers, but instead hold strong beliefs in a purpose and a willingness to express those convictions. Despite this difference in components, both models hold that transformational leadership delivers results by going beyond the individual leader and follower needs and focusing on a common purpose, vision, set of  values, commitment and intrinsic rewards (Bass 1985, Kouzes and Posner 1995). However, the single largest difference in the two models was in their development approach. Bass (1985) developed a theoretical model based on the work of Burns (1978) and then built an instrument to validate that model.

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The approach has been the

foundation of extensive research, resulting in evidence supporting the model (Antonakis, Avolio and Sivasubramaniam 2003). In contrast, the exemplary leadership model was developed by analyzing the “personal best” memoirs of a sample of leaders to identify specific characteristics of each case and then building a long list of questions on leadership behavior, from which factor analysis was used to extract the five key   behaviors (Kouzes and Posner 1995). This empirical case data approach provides the Kouzes and Posner model with strength in its basis of evidence (Sashkin 2004). In this way, Kouzes and Posner (1995) developed a model with behaviors that are much more specific than the dimensions developed by Bass (1985).

However, the exemplary

leadership model focuses almost entirely on behavior, ignoring situational context and leadership traits and there does not appear to be any clear theory base for the model (Sashkin 2004). For this reason and others discussed later in the measurement section, this dissertation will focus its work on the transformational leadership framework  developed by Bass.

2.3.1 The Full Range Leadership Model

Transformational leadership is only one component of the framework Bass (1985) developed, which he named the full range leadership model.

It includes not only

transformational, but also transactional leadership and laissez-faire leadership (or the absence of leadership).

In this way, Bass utilized his definition of transactional

leadership to incorporate the behavioral leadership approaches studied earlier (Sashkin 2004).

Transactional leaders use conventional reward and punishment to gain

compliance from their followers – both the leader and the follower influence each other 

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to ensure that each receives something of value (Yukl 1981). The relationship becomes one of mutual dependence where the leader must continue to be aware of changes in follower’s expectations in order to meet them and remain successful (Kuhnert and Lewis 1987). Bass’s (1985) definition has two components:

•

Contingent Reward – In this system a bargain is struck and a contract signed   between leader and subordinate. From that time forward, the employee’s efforts (transactions) are actively monitored and when the terms of the contract are met,  positive reward in the form of praise, salary increases or promotion are provided. When the terms of the contract are not met, penalization occurs. When utilized consistently, contingent reward can be an effective form of leadership; however, it is seldom maintained at the level of consistency required for sustained  performance.

•

Management by Exception – This form of management is far more passive. Since, as long as the contract is honored by the employee, there tends to be little feedback provided to the employee. Instead there is a mode of silence when all is well, and when something drops below standard, there is a reaction, including negative feedback. This mode of leadership can be effective in teaching new employees what not to do; however, it has minimal effect in teaching employees what to do. The behavior follows directly from the role of manager as controller.

2.3.2 Transformational Leadership vs. Transactional Leadership

The differences between transformational leadership, an active leadership style, and laissez-faire leadership, a passive style, are clear and easily identifiable (Bass 1985).

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However, since both are active styles of leadership, the differentiation between transactional and transformational leadership, viewed as two ends of the continuum (Burns 1978), is not as well defined and therefore more researched (Den Hartog, et al. 1997).

Generally, the findings have supported that transactional leadership can be

effective when done well (e.g., Yukl 1999, Kuhnert and Lewis 1987, Tracey and Hinkin 1998).

However, this effectiveness appears to be limited to environments where

organizational transformation is not an imperative (Tichy and Devanna 1990). In this way, the split between transactional and transformational leadership can be considered to  be similar to the differences noted between management and leadership (Graham 1982).

2.4 Leadership Effectiveness

The apparent holy grail of leadership theory and research is determining what makes a leader effective. While the numerous theories of leadership are disparate in many ways, most share a common goal – to identify components of leadership that make an organization effective in achieving its goals and use the identified components to determine a methodology for creating more effective leaders. Perhaps the simplest definition of leadership effectiveness is what Yukl (1981, 5) notes as the most common measure, where “effectiveness is the extent to which the leader’s group or organization performs its task successfully and attains its goals.” The  problem with this simple definition is that it misses two key components: first, it can only utilize strictly quantifiable aspects of performance, and may miss critical subjective measures; second, it fails to include the perceptions of the subordinates with regard to

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their leader (Yukl 1981). If these missing components are included, then the definition of  successful leadership becomes as complex as the definition of leadership itself.

2.4.1 Examples and Definitions of Leadership Effectiveness

Popular literature is quick to canonize the leader of highly successful businesses; from the leaders of companies that were built to last (Collins and Porras 1994), to specific leaders, such as Jack Welch of General Electric (Robinson and Robinson 2001, Slater  1998), Bill George of Medtronic (George 2003), and Bill Gates of Microsoft (Wallace and Erickson 1992). Popular literature is equally quick to demonize those at the top of  failed enterprises such as Enron (McLean and Elkind 2003) or WorldCom (Jester 2003). While these texts provide interesting reading, they do little to create a definition for  successful leadership. Available definitions for leadership success are present in the latest leadership research. Is success defined as

•

the ability of an individual to receive positive ratings from their leaders and peers (e.g., Leslie and Fleenor 1998), or 

•

to move up the corporate ladder (e.g., Howard and Bray 1988), or 

•

the ability to lead an effective organization (e.g., Denison 1990), or 

•

the success of the organization in terms of productivity (e.g., Likert 1961, 1967), or a composite success measure (e.g., Day 2001), or is it

•

the ability to successfully bring about change (e.g., Collins 2002, Senge 1990, Beer 1988)?

Despite the differing methods for defining successful leadership, one thing is clear, most leadership studies now attempt to distinguish the level of success associated with the

26

  behaviors or other patterns being studied (McCauley 2004). This study will take the same approach.

Due to the nature of the benefits purported from transformational

leadership (e.g., Bass 1985, Avolio 2005) and the challenges associated with leadership in times of great change (Goldsmith 2007, Collins 2009), this dissertation defines successful transformational leadership by the performance of the organization and / or its ability to successfully adapt and change.

2.4.2 Effectiveness of Transformational Leadership

“Since the 1980s, research has supported the idea that transformational leadership is more effective than transactional leadership in generating the extra effort, commitment, and satisfaction of those led” (Avolio and Bass 2002, 1). It is this claim, and those like it, that drew this dissertation into the path of investigating what makes a transformational leader. Is this claim of transformational leadership success supported? Yes, according to a wide variety of research in a number of industries and environmental conditions, transformational leadership is an effective leadership style. At the very beginning of the transformation leadership research boom, Bass (1985) cited numerous examples of  transformational leaders who successfully changed organizations, including Thomas Watson at IBM and George Patton with the Third Army. More empirical examples soon followed, from studies of sales force effectiveness (Jolson, et al. 1993), to the employee satisfaction and commitment at financial firms (Walumba, et al. 2005,) to the climate of  learning created in school environments (Blatt 2002), to the success of large corporations (Antonakis and House 2004). In all of these cases, a positive correlation was found  between displays of transformational leadership and desired organizational outcomes.

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In a military setting, Murphy (2002) found that transformational leadership   behaviors had a significant correlation with respondent perceptions of employee satisfaction, effort and effectiveness as well as organizational effectiveness.

In this

manner, Murphy’s research supports the success measure of promoting change, but not that of organizational success. A similar level of success regarding organizational change is found in the research of Ozaralli (2003) and Zagorsek et al. (2009). Ozaralli (2003) completed a study of 152 individuals in a variety of private Turkish businesses finding a strong correlation (r = 0.619) between leader’s transformational leadership behaviors and the team’s perceived value of their own effectiveness.

Zagorsek (2009) found a

correlation of 0.79 on the organization’s behavioral and cognitive changes as measures of  organizational learning. While neither of the above studies showed a correlation to core organizational effectiveness measures, they all showed strong influences on other areas of  organizational behavior which have been shown to positively impact organizational outcomes.

These included

organizational learning (e.g., Senge 1990), team

empowerment (e.g., Katzenbach and Smith 1993), and employee satisfaction (e.g., Buckingham and Coffman 1999). Transformational leadership’s impact on organizational success, is shown in the study of education in Ohio performed by Blatt (2002). This study found a statistically significant correlation (p < 0.001, r = 0.569) between displays of transformational leadership by the school’s top leader and a positive school climate. In this case, school climate was used as a key measurement of the health and effectiveness of the school in educating their students. A further example of transformational leadership’s impact on core organizational outcomes is found in the work of Jolson, et al. (1993), who in their 

28

case driven studies, noted a positive impact in sales performance with the implementation of transformational leadership behaviors within sales management. Finally, Avolio and Bass (2002) completed case study analyses that looked at the organizational performance of several companies under top level leaders who display strong transformational leadership behaviors, notably Larry Bossidy at Allied Signal and Gertrude Boyle at Columbia Sportswear.

2.5 Measuring Transformational Leadership

In the vast literature surrounding leadership effectiveness, there are a number of  instruments developed to measure leadership practices and effectiveness.

In their 

overview of measuring leadership, Kroeck, et al. (2004) identify 30 unique survey instruments that have been or are being utilized to measure leadership and leadership effectiveness. Of these instruments, the two that appear to be most commonly utilized for  measuring transformational leadership in the literature are Kouzes and Posner’s Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) (e.g., Bell-Roundtree 2004, Day 2003) and Bass’ Multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ) (e.g., Antonakis, et al. 2003, Murphy 2002, and Bass 1985).

2.5.1 The Leadership Practices Inventory

The LPI is a two part instrument requiring the participation of the leader and subordinates. The first part of the instrument is a 30 question survey completed by the leader, based on their perception of their own behavior. Each question is rated on a 10 point Likert type scale, ranging from 1 (almost never engage in this behavior) to 10

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(almost always engage in this behavior).

The second instrument is a 30 question

instrument completed by the subordinates using the same scale on their perceptions of the   behaviors exhibited by the leader. The LPI was thoroughly validated by Kouzes and Posner throughout its development and implementation (1995). The LPI has been widely used to measure leadership behaviors including recent dissertation work. Bell-Roundtree (2004) utilized the LPI to understand leader behaviors as they related to knowledge worker job satisfaction within the Department of the Army and its support contractors. The study included a total of 190 respondents, with 181 completing all three instruments. Bell-Roundtree then utilized multiple regression to   better understand the relationship between employee satisfaction and commitment and each of the five leadership behaviors measured by the LPI. The research found each of  the five behaviors (challenge the process, inspire a shared vision, enable others to act, model the way, encourage the heart) to significantly correlate to employee commitment and satisfaction. No validation of the LPI was conducted, as its reliability had been   previous proven by three referenced studies with Cronbach’s alpha from 0.75 to 0.93 (Bell-Roundtree 2004). In another recent dissertation, Day (2003) utilized the LPI to understand the leadership practices of project scientists in research and development (R&D) at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Similar to the work discussed above, Day did not perform a validation on the LPI instrument, instead referring to the work completed by Kouzes and Posner (1999). The study obtained a selfreport sample of 59 NASA scientists and 120 project member surveys (Day 2003). The study combined the results of the LPI with a self-reported survey of how the project scientists spent their day. Day (2003) utilized ANOVA to find a significant relationship

30

 between the self reported amount of time spent on leadership duties and the exhibition of  transformational leadership behaviors. These findings were then generalized to conclude that the more time a project scientist spent focused on leadership, the more effective they were. Like most of the instruments examined in this research, the LPI has its detractors. A study completed by Carless (2001) found that the LPI had weak discriminant validity on a single company sample of 1400 employees. The study also suggested “that while it is possible to distinguish conceptually among separate transformational leader behaviors, either these distinctions are not captured by the LPI or subordinates do not notice the differences” (Carless 2001, 237).

2.5.2 The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire

Like the LPI, the MLQ is typically utilized as a two part instrument with a self  report form for managers and a second form for raters. The instrument includes 45 items rated on a five point Likert scale measuring how frequently the behavior fits the person   being rated, ranging from 0 (not at all) to 5 (frequently, if not always). The MLQ was thoroughly validated by Bass (1985) during its initial design and has undergone revisions and additional validations (e.g., Bass and Avolio 1995, Avolio, et al. 1999) over the past 22 years. Appendix A contains a sample of MLQ questions. The literature supporting the use of the MLQ is substantial and includes two recent dissertations as well as an application by Towler (2005) similar to the  proposed research. In the first dissertation, Murphy (2002) utilized the MLQ to study the leadership styles within the United States Navy and correlated those styles to the

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effectiveness of Navy reengineering programs. Using a sample of 289 respondents, the study found that transformational leadership behaviors had a significant correlation with respondent perceptions of employee satisfaction, effort and leader effectiveness as well as organizational effectiveness. However, no significant relationship was found between actual goal attainment and any of the leadership styles measured. The second dissertation was completed by Blatt (2002) and investigated the correlation between transformational leadership, using two instruments, the MLQ and the Charles F. Kettering School Climate Profile. The study had a sample of 201 teachers from the Ohio vocational school system. Blatt’s findings (2002) included significant relationships between two leadership styles and school climate. A significant positive relationship was found between directors who utilized transformational leadership and school climate, while a significant negative relationship was found between school climate and laissez-fare leadership. Similar to the LPI, the MLQ’s use and reliability has been questioned by some in the literature. Specifically, Carless (1998) using a large sample (1440) from a single organization used factor analysis to find the MLQ to be a more suitable measure of a single higher order model than the multi-factor model that had been validated previously. This view is also supported by Tejeda, et al. (2001), who utilized a total sample of over  1300 participants, gathered through four distinct samples from three different organizations. Their study found evidence of an improved model being obtained by simplifying the transactional components of the MLQ to a three-item subscale using Factor Analysis. In their proposed version of the MLQ, the instrument would have only 27 items. Interestingly for this dissertation, the issues found with the MLQ were isolated to the transactional and laissez-fare components of the MLQ (Tejeda, et al. 2001), which

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are not the focus of the research presented here. These issues with non-transformational components of the MLQ are similar to the findings of Den Hartog, et al. (1997). However, these questions of the MLQ’s validity appear to be refuted by more recent work by Antonakis, et al. (2003), which found the full nine factor model valid in large homogenous samples. It was also refuted by Rowold and Heinitz (2007) who found transformational leadership highly convergent with charismatic leadership and both to be divergently valid from transactional leadership. These results indicated criterion validity against subjective and objective business performance. In addition to these two primary instruments, one additional instrument identified   by Kroeck, et al. (2004) was investigated.

The Leadership Behavior Questionnaire,

Revised (LBQ) was of interest due to its self-reporting nature and basis in the managerial grid theory (Kroeck, et al. 2004). However, further investigation yielded a very small research space using the instrument, with the preponderance of those studies dating back  over 30 years. For this reason, that instrument was removed from consideration. Armed with an understanding of transformational leadership and its impacts, this literature review investigated how it might be measured. After identifying an acceptable option for measuring transformational leadership, this literature review sought to understand how transformational leadership is developed. In order to better understand the potential paths for development of transformational leadership, a broad understanding of how leadership is developed must first be established.

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2.6 Previous Studies into Leadership Antecedents

The Handbook of Leadership Development (McCauley, et al. 1998) defines six leadership development experiences, three formal (360-degree format, feedback  intensive programs, and skill-based training) and three informal, sometimes occurring naturally and sometimes by design (job assignments, developmental relationships, and hardships).

Bennis and Thomas (2002) utilized structured interview techniques to

understand the leadership of a small group of leaders, separated in age by two or three generations. One of the key findings of their study was the identification of what they termed leadership crucible experiences. These leadership crucibles appeared to be a leading indicator of leadership success in the study group. These crucible experiences included experiences at war or serving in the military, imprisonment, challenges in a wilderness setting, and significant business challenges. Bennis (2004) has continued to investigate these experiences and noted that the area remained rich for potential additional research. Muldoon and Miller (2005) investigated the life experiences of managers within the context of a Manager Quad (MQ) defined by an individual success and a career  success axis. In the two quadrants of the MQ most related to transformational leadership, excellent managers, (high, high) and achievement managers (low, high), they noted similar behaviors to some of those included in the definition of transformational leadership.

These included effective managers displaying strong other-orientation,

notably when engaged in hardship situations. This other orientation often manifested itself as a focus on the work unit or company over self.

When investigating the

antecedent experiences of managers in these quadrants, they found leaders who often

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reported having support networks and groups as role models, as well as childhood’s rich with experience, vividly recalling positive and negative elements. In an investigation of army leaders in Iraq, Wong (2004) utilized interview techniques to draw general experience antecedents that appear to be contributing to the development of innovative leaders within the army.

These elements included

successfully dealing with complexity, a behavior learned through holding complex roles; understanding cultural differences, new war techniques, and rapid change; and being part of a team unified in a common purpose. These innovative leaders appear to share some similarity with transformational leaders, so their development experiences are of interest. Atwater, et al. (1999) investigated a sample of 236 male cadets over a four year   period at a military college to identify predictors of those who would later gain leadership roles.

The study investigated the cadets on seven factors: cognitive ability,

conscientiousness, self-esteem, hardiness, moral reasoning, physical fitness, and prior  influence experiences, in addition to administering the Leader Potential Index (LPI) and tracking changes in each dimension over time.

The effectiveness of the cadets’

leadership was measured using the rank achievement of the cadets at the end of the study, combined with peer rankings utilized by the institution. The study used regression and found physical fitness (r = 0.22, p < 0.01) and prior influence experiences (r = 0.24,   p < 0.01) to be most strongly correlated to leadership effectiveness. The study further  hypothesized that physical fitness may be a surrogate for other personality traits such as  perseverance and self-confidence. In perhaps the most wide ranging study, Howard and Bray (1988) studied a group of managers over a 30 year period at Bell Labs (now AT&T). The key antecedent

35

findings of that research included a negative correlation between family orientation (r    between -0.34 and -0.18) and career success with positive correlations from projected career ambition (r between 0.28 and 0.40). In the two most closely related studies to the research presented in this dissertation, Towler (2005) utilized the MLQ to understand the parental attachment of  emerging college age leaders and Avolio (1994) utilized a Life History Survey to investigate potential antecedents to transformational leadership as measured by the MLQ. Towler’s (2005) study utilized the Parental Attachment Questionnaire and Parental Psychological Control instruments. This study found that parental attachment style, a measure of the level of nurturing behavior of the parents toward their child, to be  positively correlated (r = 0.32, p < 0.001) with transformational leadership. Conversely, father’s parental control was negatively correlated to transformational leadership, showing that the more controlling the father was, the less likely the child was to display transformational leadership.

Avolio (1994) investigated 182 community leaders’

development along seven dimensions: parental interest, parental educational background,  parent characteristics, extra curricular activities and life satisfaction. The study found life satisfaction, school experience, and positive work experience to have a significant relationship to self reported transformational leadership behaviors, while parental interest and parental moral standards were significant to follower perceptions of transformational leadership. Overall, the relationships were weaker than anticipated, which Avolio (1994) confessed may be largely due to the marginal reliability of the life experiences instrument.

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2.7 Review Summary

The review has followed the leadership related literature using a macro to micro approach. It provided an understanding of some definitions of leadership, selecting the influence and perception based definition from Antonakis, et al. (2004b, 5) for the discussion moving forward. From there, a discussion of the published investigations into leadership was followed, leading into an understanding of the conjectured differences  between leadership and management, where management is made up of the activities that make an operation run smoothly, and leadership is what makes an organization produce or adapt to change. Once that foundation was established, a discussion of the importance of  leadership’s role in the world set the stage for a review of the development of leadership theories in the research literature, eventually leading to transformational leadership and the full range leadership model. This discussion and comparison provided the rationale for why transformational leadership, as defined by Bass (1985), may be worthy of further  investigation, but it was not adequate a foundation to fully justify the need for the study. For that justification, studies into general leadership effectiveness were investigated.

Additionally, specific findings of the benefits of transformational

leadership were discussed, which further strengthened the reason transformation leadership should be of interest, especially in times of high change and challenge. This led to the review of how transformation leadership is measured. This review provided the evidence to show that transformational leadership can be reliably studied. However, despite the depth and breadth of the review, it failed to identify how transformational leaders develop. This development path is a gap in the available literature.

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This gap lead to a review of the studies into the antecedents of leadership. This area of study is compelling, but has very few empirical studies into how transformational leaders develop. Thus there is a need and justification for the proposed research. A study to determine what the antecedents are, that when discovered and nurtured, could lead to the development of transformational leaders. This dissertation intends to close that gap with an investigation into the development experiences of leaders and identification of  those experiences that correlate to transformational leadership behaviors.

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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH STATEMENT

The impact of leadership on company success continues to see growing interest and emphasis in both the popular media and the research literature. One of the primary areas of leadership research involves examining the leaders of successful companies to determine what makes them unique from their peers. These differences are of interest since leadership effectiveness is believed to have a direct relationship to business  performance (e.g., Collins 2001, George 2003, Bossidy and Charan 2002). However, the theories on what constitutes leadership effectiveness are varied, and sometimes conflicting (Kroeck, et al. 2004). Transformational leadership is a set of theorized leadership behaviors that has   been shown to correlate well with organizational success in a variety of environments, examples include the United States Navy (Murphy 2002),

NASA (Day 2003) and

education (Blatt 2002). In other research (Bennis and Thomas 2002), the experiences that might make a leader effective have been examined. Examination of these studies raises the question of whether the development experiences of a leader influence their  displays of transformational leadership.

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3.1 Research Questions, Conceptual Model and Hypotheses

What is missing from these various research streams is a study into what experiences appear to have helped form the behaviors of transformational leaders. The research literature contains studies into the impacts of experiences on later displays of  leadership (e.g., Howard and Bray 1988, Atwater, et al. 1999), investigations into the   personality and cognitive predictors of transformational leadership (Bass 1996, Bass 1998), and explorations of limited developmental experiences as predictors of  transformational leadership, such as parental attachment (Towler 2005) or high school activities (Avolio 1994). However, the literature lacks an investigation into the breadth of leadership development experiences during a leader’s lifetime that may influence their  displays of transformational leadership.

This research will explore this gap in the

literature by investigating the experiences of leaders and analyzing the correlations   between those experiences and the leader’s display of behaviors across the full range model of leadership measured by the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). The general research questions that will be investigated in this dissertation are

•

What types of experiences may influence later displays of transformational leadership?

•

Are there types of experiences that correlate (positively or negatively) with displays of transformational leadership?

The specific conceptual model that the study will investigate includes multiple parts. First, the study will seek to define and explore a set of development experiences that the literature suggests will impact leadership development. Second, these experiences will  be examined in an attempt to group them into logical development subsets, initially based

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on the findings in the research literature and subsequently supported with study data. Finally, these experience groupings will be examined for a relationship with the leadership elements measured by the MLQ. Figure 3.1 provides a visual representation of the conceptual model of the study.

Figure 3.1 - Study Conceptual Model

Addressing these questions will provide insight into the development of leaders who display the full range of leadership behaviors measured by the MLQ. The collection and analysis of data in this study will enable answers to the following hypotheses: 1.

Ho:

Leadership development experiences cannot be grouped into logical factors.

Ha: There are logical groupings of leadership development experiences that can be grouped through Factor Analysis.

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2.

Ho: No grouping of development experiences correlate to later displays of transformational leadership. Ha: There are groups of development experiences that can be shown to correlate to displays of transformational leadership.

3.

Ho:  No individual development experiences can be shown to correlate to displays of transformational leadership. Ha: There are individual development experiences that can be shown to correlate to displays of transformational leadership.

3.2 Importance of Research and Contribution

  Numerous studies indicate a positive correlation between the transformational style leadership and business results (e.g., Bass 1985, Bass and Avolio 1995, Antonakis, et al. 2003). Because of this correlation between business results and transformational leadership, business should be interested in hiring leaders who exhibit transformational leadership behaviors, or at least have the potential for such. The problem is a limited understanding of the factors and experiences that enable a leader to develop and apply transformational behaviors. While there have been some studies into the development of transformational leadership, notably Towler’s (2005) investigation into the influences of parental attachment and Avolio’s (1994) study into the influences of high school and other early experiences, the understanding is not robust. A study to identify the roots of transformational leadership would be useful on many levels. The primary benefit to engineering managers will be to leverage study findings for hiring decisions. A secondary benefit could include the development of training

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 programs that lead to improved exhibition of transformational leadership qualities within the leaders of an organization.

This dissertation will identify characteristics or 

experiences that have a correlation to transformational leadership behaviors. Finally, this dissertation will introduce a new instrument into the body of knowledge that will be useful for understanding the leadership development experiences of a sample of  experienced leaders.

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CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The objective of this dissertation is to better understand transformational leaders. In order to obtain this objective, an investigation into the development experiences of a  population of leaders was planned and executed. Since the population of leaders studied was expected to contain transformation leaders, this study is expected to indentify antecedents of displays of transformational leadership behaviors.

4.1 Study Overview

In order to complete this investigation, a study was prepared using a two part instrument. The first instrument, the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) is designed to measure leadership behaviors across the full range leadership spectrum including transformational leadership (Bass 1985, Bass and Avolio 1995). In order to understand the development experiences of transformational leaders, a second instrument to investigate those experiences was developed and deployed. The investigation used these instruments to look for correlation between transformational leadership behaviors and specific antecedent experiences. This two instrument approach is similar to other studies looking into the development of leadership. Over a 30 year study with Bell Labs (now AT&T) Howard

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