How to Measure Leader’s Impact on Organizational Performance: Implications from the Comparative Case Study

The link between leadership and organizational performance has been a controversial issue. On the basis of the critique of previous research, this article puts forward an integrative indicator, which uses Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) as an indicator to measure the leaders’ impact on organizational performance. A comparative case study was applied to test the new approach. The findings show that leadership is transmitted through performance measurement, administrative ethics, and organizational learning. The organizational citizenship behavior could be employed as integrative indicator to compare leader’s impact on organizational performance in the long term. A model of leadership transmitting mechanism is drawn. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York.