Comprehensive Literature Review on Transformational Leadership

This report provides a comprehensive literature review on transformational leadership, exploring its impact on employee productivity and organizational success. The study begins with an introduction to transformational leadership, defining its core principles and significance. It highlights the benefits of this leadership style, particularly its role in motivating employees and fostering a positive work environment. The conceptual framework outlines how transformational leadership influences employee engagement and productivity, emphasizing the importance of leaders inspiring and motivating their teams. The literature review delves into key areas, including the influence of leader behavior on daily work engagement, the encouragement of innovative work behavior, and the four essential elements of transformational leadership: acting as a role model, inspiring confidence, giving freedom to employees, and acknowledging individual differences. The review synthesizes findings from various studies, emphasizing the positive effects of transformational leadership on employee motivation, job satisfaction, and innovative behavior. The conclusion underscores the importance of transformational leadership in enhancing employee effectiveness and organizational productivity, encouraging organizations to adopt this leadership style for their benefit. The report references several key studies to support its findings.

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW ON TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP
LITERATURE STUDY ON TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1LITERATURE REVIEW ON TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Introduction
Transformational leadership is a style or theory of leadership where the leader
encourages, inspires and motivates his employees to bring changes in the organisation through
innovation to help shape the future of the company and make it successful (McCleskey, 2014).
Such a professional environment can be achieved when the leaders at the executive level
establish a strong sense of corporate culture, a healthy work environment and give independence
to the employees in the workplace. The present literature study analyses the effects of
transformational leadership in increasing the employee productivity in an organisation.
The study will help to understand how this particular type of leadership will be helpful in
increasing employee productivity. The benefits of the study is that it will highlight the
importance in transforming the way in which the leaders run their organisation. When the
employee productivity increases, it in turn increases the profit of the organisation and therefore
leaders should take serious considerations as to how they should lead the way for others to
follow.
Conceptual framework
Y
The study on the effect of transformational leadership showed that when the leaders
applied the style of transformational leadership, then it was found that the employees were
positively motivated and were more satisfied with their jobs. It positively influenced the
Assessing the type of
leadership in the
organisation
Transformational
leadership motivates
employees
Happier employees and
increased productivity

2LITERATURE REVIEW ON TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP
performance of the employees in the organisation and were seen to actively contribute to solving
the organisational performance. The following literature study was done to understand the
effectiveness of transformational leadership on employee productivity that centers around
employee daily work engagement, increasing innovative work behaviour and understands the
four elements of transformational leadership that contribute to employee productivity.
Leader’s behaviour influences employees daily work engagement
Many researches have been done on recognizing the effects of transformational
leadership on employee productivity. One such study done by Breevart and Bakker (2014)
reported that transformational leadership showed positive work engagement on the part of the
employees especially in those who had positive characteristics. The employees feel more
motivated when they imagine their leader to be transformational and are more engaged in their
work as transformational leadership fulfills their need for relatedness and competence. The
employees are optimistic in those days when the leader showed transformational leadership.
Transformational leadership provides more autonomy to the employees; it gives them more room
and freedom to create and innovate and encourages them to take more active participation in the
decision making process (Breevaart et al., 2014). It helps the organisation increase its
productivity and in turn the profit. Employees enjoy to work and transformational leadership
contributes in motivating the employees intrinsically because such leaders provide meaningful
rationale for the employees or the followers’ work. Transformational leaders are able to show a
positive and appealing future. They also show plentiful confidence on their employees’ ability to
contribute to the organisational goals and vision. They encourage the followers to view the group
interest over self-interest and that motivates the employees. Such factors contribute to the
employee productivity and thus, transformational leadership is able to increase productivity.

3LITERATURE REVIEW ON TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Transformational encourages innovative work behaviour
Another aspect of transformational leadership is that it encourages the employees to think
outside the box and be innovative in their approach. One such study by Afsar and Saeed (2014)
assesses the relationship between transformational leadership and the employees’ innovative
behaviour in work. The results showed that transformational leadership indeed influenced the
employees innovative work behaviour in a positive manner. It focused on the employees who
had higher sense of self-awareness and transformational leadership had a positive influence on
them. It influenced more creative behaviour in such employees than those who had lesser self-
construal. The cognitive state of the employees that was characterized by an increase in task
motivation and perception of autonomy as well self-determination were happier when the leaders
applied transformational style of leadership (Afsar, Badir & Saeed, 2014). Transformational
leadership displayed positive work behaviours. Employees were encouraged by the leaders to be
more creative and innovative by their leaders. When compared with other types of leadership
styles like transactional leadership that promotes the compliance of the employees through
rewards and punishments, transformational leadership was found to be more advantageous.
Elements of transformational leadership
Transformational leadership has four elements to it that determines an employee’s
performance and productivity. According to the industrial psychologist, Bernard Bass, these four
elements establish a committed relationship between the leader and employees in an organisation
(Caillier, 2014). The first element is that the transformational leader acts as a role model for the
employees as they influence them through their charismatic personalities. Their persona

4LITERATURE REVIEW ON TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP
motivates the employees to become exactly like them and therefore, they are motivated to take
risks and go about their jobs by following the values and ethical principles in every action and
decision. This is how there is the building of trust in between the leader and the follower and the
development of confidence. The second element is the ability of the leaders to motivate and
inspire confidence. The optimism and the enthusiasm of the leaders creates an environment of
positivity all around. The third element is the ability of the transformational leader to give
freedom to the employees. The leader is able to change the way the followers think in a direction
that takes the organisation forward in a way that does not devalue the capability of the employee.
The last element is the ability of the leader to acknowledge the individuality of each employee.
Accepting that each employee is different and that they can have specifically different needs and
desires is the one appreciative quality of the transformational leader (Nguyen et al., 2017). The
transformational values each of them and provides proper coaching and mentoring to the
employees. Thus, the employees get motivated to be a part of the team and help the organisation
grow.
Conclusion
The study analysed the importance of transformational leadership in increasing the
effectiveness of employees and therefore increasing the productivity. The various literature
studies also showed that transformational leadership is the best out of all other kinds of
leadership and that all organisations should be encouraged to adopt a transformation leadership
style for their own benefit.

5LITERATURE REVIEW ON TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP
References
Afsar, B., Badir, Y. F., & Saeed, B. B. (2014). Transformational leadership and innovative work
behavior. Industrial Management & Data Systems.
Breevaart, K., Bakker, A., Hetland, J., Demerouti, E., Olsen, O. K., & Espevik, R. (2014). Daily
transactional and transformational leadership and daily employee engagement. Journal of
occupational and organizational psychology, 87(1), 138-157.
Caillier, J. G. (2014). Toward a better understanding of the relationship between transformational
leadership, public service motivation, mission valence, and employee performance: A
preliminary study. Public Personnel Management, 43(2), 218-239.
McCleskey, J. A. (2014). Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and
leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 117.
Nguyen, T. T., Mia, L., Winata, L., & Chong, V. K. (2017). Effect of transformational-leadership
style and management control system on managerial performance. Journal of Business
Research, 70, 202-213.