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A questionnaire used often to measure transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership is the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire developed by Bass (Bass & Avolio, 1989). This study aims to test the factor structure of the MLQ as developed by Bass & Avolio. The MLQ-8Y was analysed using data collected in Dutch organizations. Seven hundred employees from eight organizations rated their leader's behaviour with the MLQ. First, an indication of the internal consistency of the scales developed by Bass is reported. The results of subsequent factor analyses show that the three types of leadership can be found in the data; however, the scales found here are slightly different from Bass' scales. Especially, the transactional and laissez-faire scales have been altered on theoretical and empirical grounds. The adapted version of the MLQ covers the domain with fewer items.
Leadership has been an important topic in the social sciences for many decades. Recently there has been a renewed interest in leadership. Meindl (1990) notes that this recent resurgence of interest in studying the topic of leadership appears to be accompanied by an acceptance of the distinction between transactional and transformational leadership, with an emphasis on the latter. Quinn (1988) compares transactional and transformational leadership with other differentiations in leadership such as relations oriented-task oriented leadership (Fiedler, 1967), consideration-initiating structure (Korman,1966), and directive-participative or autocratic-democratic leadership (Heller & Yukl, 1969). Bass (1990b) claims that the transactional-transformational model is a new paradigm, neither replacing nor explained by other models such as the relations oriented-task oriented leadership model. Some authors describe concepts similar to transformational leadership as charismatic, inspirational or visionary leadership (Bryman, 1992). Although the terminology used by these authors is different, more similarities than differences seem to exist between these views of the phenomenon of leadership. Bass inspired and is still one of the major contributors to this approach that Bryman (1992) calls `the New leadership'. `The New leadership' approach revived leadership as a topic of theory and research, after many lost interest and faith in this concept (see, for instance, Miner, 1975). `The New leadership' integrates ideas from trait, style and contingency approaches of leadership and also incorporates and builds on work of sociologists such as Weber (1947) and political scientists such as Burns (1978). Transactional leadership A better...