LEADERSHIP AND EMPLOYEES’ REACTIONS TO CHANGE: THE ROLE OF LEADERS’ PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES AND TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP STYLE

Abstract

We examined the role of leaders’ personal attributes and transformational leadership behaviors in explaining employees’ intentions to resist a large‐scale organizational change. Through a multilevel analysis of data from 75 school principals and 586 teachers, we found that teachers’ intentions to resist the organizational change were negatively related to their principals’ openness to change values and transformational leadership behaviors, and positively related to their principals’ dispositional resistance to change. Furthermore, principals’ transformational leadership behaviors moderated the relationship between teachers’ dispositional resistance and intentions to resist the change.