Effects of leadership on organizational performance in Russian companies

This study investigated concurrently the main effects of the transformational- and transactional-leadership behaviors on organizational performance of Russian companies, the moderating effects of support for innovation on the relationship between the transformational-leadership behaviors and organizational performance, and the impact of group cohesiveness on transformational-leadership behaviors in a Russian context. The results demonstrated that transformational leadership directly and positively predicted organizational performance of Russian companies over and beyond the impact of transactional leadership; Russian managers who displayed more transactional-leadership behaviors also made a positive contribution to the achievement of organizational goals; support for innovation significantly moderated the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational performance; and group cohesiveness was positively related to the ratings of transformational leadership. These research findings were, then, used to draw conclusions concerning finding new effective ways to promote organization development (OD) and to achieve better organizational performance results in Russia. The potential benefits for Russian companies of Full Range of Leadership Development Modules, process consultation (PC), sensitivity training, and other OD techniques were discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.