IsTransformational Leadership Past its Prime or Increasingly Useful? A Temporal Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Transformational leadership (TL) is one of the most studied leadership constructs found in the literature and has been related to positive follower outcomes (i.e., performance, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment). However, as the nature of work and employees continually change in the modern era, scholars have questioned the extent to which the relevance and importance of TL has strengthened or weakened over time. Using a sample of U.S. based studies consisting of 105 studies, 173 effect sizes, and a total sample size of 44,566 between the years of 1987 and 2018, we examined changes in the use of TL and the strength of the relationship between TL and the organizationally relevant outcomes of follower in-role performance, extra-role performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, satisfaction with leader, and leader effectiveness. Our results show that over the past thirty years, supervisor usage of TL behaviors, as indicated by mean level changes, has increased over time. Furthermore, the relationships between TL and follower job satisfaction, organizational commitment, satisfaction with leader, and leader effectiveness have remained stable over the past thirty years. In contrast, preliminary evidence suggests that the relationship between TL and supervisor rated follower in-role and extra-role performance has increased over time.