Transformational Leader Behaviors and Substitutes for Leadership as Determinants of Employee Satisfaction, Commitment, Trust, and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

TLDR

The study examined how transformational leadership behaviors influence employee satisfaction, commitment, trust, and citizenship within the framework of substitutes for leadership. Researchers surveyed 1,539 employees from diverse industries, organizational contexts, and job levels. Hierarchical regression revealed that while few substitutes moderated transformational effects, both leader behaviors and substitutes uniquely predicted follower attitudes and behaviors, jointly accounting for substantially more variance than prior studies and showing significant interrelations among specific behaviors.

Abstract

The goal of this study was to examine the effects of transformational leadership behaviors, within the context of Kerr and Jermier’s (1978) substitutes for leadership. Data were collected from 1539 employees across a wide variety of different industries, organizational settings, and job levels. Hierarchical moderated regression analysis procedures generally showed that few of the substitutes variables moderated the effects of the transformational leader behaviors on followers’ attitudes, role perceptions, and “in-role” and “citizenship” behaviors in a manner consistent with the predictions of Howell, Dorfman and Kerr (1986). However, the results did show that: (a) the transformational leader behaviors and substitutes for leadership each had unique effects on follower criterion variables; (b) the total amount of variance accounted for by the substitutes for leadership and the transformational leader behaviors was substantially greater than that reported in prior leadership research; and (c) several of the transformational behaviors were significantly related to several of the substitutes for leadership variables. Implications of these findings for our understanding of the effects of transformational leader behaviors and substitutes for leadership are then discussed.