Transformational leadership (TFL) climate describes the degree to which leaders throughout an organization engage in TFL behaviors. In this study, we investigate performance linkages, mechanisms, and boundary conditions of TFL climate at the organizational level of analysis. In a sample of 158 independent organizations, 18,094 employees provided data on TFL climate, positive affective climate, trust climate, and employees' task performance behavior and organizational citizenship behavior. In addition, human resource managers rated overall employee productivity. Study results yielded a pattern of moderated mediation for overall employee productivity and employees' aggregate task performance behavior, in that an organization's TFL climate was indirectly (through positive affective climate) related with these outcome variables under conditions of high trust climate, but not under conditions of low trust climate. Further, we found an organization's TFL climate to indirectly relate with employees' aggregate organizational citizenship behavior through positive affective climate, largely independent of the level of trust climate.
With this organizational-level study, we sought to learn more about the performance linkages of TFL climate and the associated mechanisms and boundary conditions. We hypothesized that an organization's TFL climate relates to its positive affective climate, which in turn relates to overall employee productivity, aggregate task performance behavior, and aggregate organizational citizenship behavior under conditions of high, but not low trust climate. Study results confirmed the resulting moderated mediation model (see Fig. 1) for overall employee productivity and aggregate task performance behavior. Unexpectedly, we observed a somewhat different pattern of relationships for aggregate organizational citizenship behavior, in that an organization's positive affective climate mediated the TFL climate–aggregate organizational citizenship behavior linkage even at relatively low values of trust climate. Thus, while distracting employees from efficient and effective task pursuit, a lack of trust climate may impact to a more limited extent on employees' willingness and ability to react upon the organization's positive affective climate by engaging in organizational citizenship behavior. Potentially, the tendencies towards cooperative, prosocial behavior triggered by positive affective climate (George, 1990, George, 1996 and Vacharkulksemsuk et al., in press) are more stable than we had initially assumed, evoking such behavior even in low-trust settings where others cannot be assumed to reciprocate in kind. Further research is required, however, to more conclusively evaluate this pattern of results.
Overall, our findings contribute to several research streams. In the domain of leadership, our study is among the first to investigate organization-level TFL climate. Previous studies on TFL at the organizational level of analysis have typically examined single transformational leaders at the top of the organization (e.g., CEOs, see Agle et al., 2006, Colbert et al., 2008 and Ling et al., 2008). In contrast, we considered TFL as an organizational-level climate variable, capturing the extent to which leaders throughout the organization direct similar TFL behaviors toward their followers. In line with the limited literature in this area (e.g., Walter & Bruch, 2010), the results demonstrated that TFL climate is a meaningful predictor of important organization-level outcome variables (i.e., organizations' positive affective climate and workforce performance). Notably, even though previous research on top managerial TFL has provided crucial insights, the overall pattern of findings derived from this body of literature has remained somewhat ambiguous (e.g., Agle et al., 2006 and Ling et al., 2008). Thus, our focus on TFL climate may complement such research and contribute to a more comprehensive depiction of the organization-level linkages of TFL, explicating how organizations can benefit from the presence of the respective behaviors among their leaders.
Second, we reveal positive affective climate as an organization-level mediator between TFL climate and workforce performance. Ashkanasy and Jordan (2008, p. 32) recently argued that “more understanding is … needed of the impact of leaders on the affective climate in organizations.” Our findings suggest that if leaders across the organization engage in TFL behaviors, positive affect spreads throughout the organization (Dasborough et al., 2009), offering the potential for enhanced levels of productivity, task performance behavior, and organizational citizenship behavior. We therefore corroborate prior theorizing and research pointing to the affective nature of TFL (e.g., Ashforth and Humphrey, 1995, Ashkanasy and Humphrey, 2011, Ashkanasy and Tse, 2000 and Humphrey, 2008), and we show that such affective mechanisms also apply at the organizational level of analysis.
Finally, our findings contribute to the rich research stream on trust within organizations (e.g., Colquitt et al., 2007, Hurley, 2006 and Schoorman et al., 2007) and connect this research with the literatures on both affect in the workplace and TFL. The present study strengthens the perspective that trust may function as a moderator in the relationship between important organization-level variables (Dirks & Ferrin, 2001). Specifically, our results corroborate Shamir and Howell's (1999) notion that the effectiveness of TFL may hinge upon the presence of trust within organizations, addressing calls by various scholars for research examining the boundary conditions of such leadership (e.g., Bass, 1999 and Conger, 1999). Further, this study emphasizes the importance of investigating affect in conjunction with trust and adds to the emerging literature on this issue (Anderson and Thompson, 2004, Dunn and Schweitzer, 2005 and Michaelis et al., 2009) by demonstrating that the relationship between positive affective climate and workforce performance is contingent upon an organization's trust climate.
