Supervisors’ Transformational Leadership: Personality and Management Practices as Antecedents

Abstract

To date, most research on leadership has been focused on impact of transformational leaders on employee attitudes, behaviors, and performance. Much less attention has been given to the antecedents of transformational leadership behaviors. This article bases on follower-centric perspective of leadership. We examine subordinates’ and supervisors’ personal characteristics, work-related perceptions and attitudes, and observed managerial practices as predictors of transformational leadership. Empirical analysis uses a obtained from a standardized survey of 112 employees from two organizations (in IT and manufacturing). Our results revealed that supervisors’ transformational leadership is significantly predicted by subordinates’ agreeableness (“big five” model), perceived justice of performance-based payments and career promotions, and practices of professional training and implementation of employees’ initiatives. Among these, perceived justice of performance-based promotions showed the highest relative importance for predicting supervisors’ transformational leadership.