A field study of a cognitive approach to understanding transformational and transactional leadership

A part of the cognitive model of transformational and transactional leadership proposed by Wofford and Goodwin (1994) was examined in a field setting. Ninety-six managers and 157 subordinates completed questionnaires that assessed transformational leadership and transactional leadership dimensions, four cognitive variables (i.e., follower-schemata, motivation-scripts, abstractness of vision, and idealization of vision) and three dependent variables (i.e., subordinate satisfaction with supervision, subordinate perception of leader effectiveness, and leaders' evaluation of group effectiveness). Partial Least Squares (PLS) analyses indicated that the data generally supported the hypothesized model. Some of the proposed relationships examined, however, were not statistically significant. Implications of the findings for application and future research were discussed.