Motivation and Transactional, Charismatic, and Transformational Leadership: A Test of Antecedents

TLDR

The study examined how leaders’ motivation relates to their use of charismatic, transactional, and transformational leadership. The study surveyed 186 leaders and 759 direct reports across diverse organizations, measuring leaders’ motivation with the MSI and assessing leadership behaviors via both follower and self‑rated MLQ questionnaires. Motivation sources were positively correlated with leaders’ self‑reported and follower‑rated inspirational motivation, idealized influence, individualized consideration, charisma, transactional, and laissez‑faire behaviors, with correlation coefficients ranging from .10 to .29.

Abstract

Relationships between leaders' motivation and their use of charismatic, transactional, and / or transformational leadership were examined in this study. One hundred eighty-six leaders and 759 direct reports from a variety of organizations were sampled. Leaders were administered the Motivation Sources Inventory (MSI) while followers reported leaders' full range leadership behaviors using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-rater version). Leaders were also administered the self-rating version of the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-rater version). The Motivation Sources Inventory subscales subsequently significantly correlated with leader self-reports of inspirational motivation, idealized influence (behavior) and individualized consideration (range, r = .10 to .29), as well as with raters' perceptions of inspirational motivation, idealized influence (behavior) and individualized consideration (range, r = .18 to .19). The Motivation Sources Inventory subscales significantly correlated with leaders' self-reports of charisma, transactional and laissez-faire leadership (range, r = .12 to .28), with rater-reports of the same variables (range, r = .16 to .29).