Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Transformational Leadership and Leaders’ Mode of Care Reasoning

  • Published:
Journal of Business Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Previous research on the moral foundations of transformational leadership has focused primarily on stage of justice reasoning; this study focuses on developmental mode of care reasoning. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted on data coded from interviews with a sample of Canadian public sector managers (N = 58) and survey responses from their subordinates (N = 119). Results indicated that managers’ developmental mode of care reasoning significantly and positively predicted subordinates’ reports of transformational (but not transactional) leadership, with significant differences in follower reports of transformational leadership between those using more versus less advanced modes of care reasoning. Conceptual implications for understanding transformational leadership and the ethics of leadership, directions for future research, and suggestions for leadership interventions are discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Notes

  1. The Ethic of Care Interview was used with permission of Dr. Eva Skoe, University of Oslo, Norway. All rights reserved.

  2. MLQ items were used by special permission of the Distributor, Mind Garden, Inc., 855 Oak Grove Ave., Suite 215, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA www.mindgarden.com from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire by Bernard M. Bass and Bruce J. Avolio. Copyright 1995 by Bernard M. Bass and Bruce J. Avolio. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of items is prohibited without the Distributor’s written consent.

  3. Based on a priori conceptual analysis, those in the focus on self or first transitional phase were classified as group one; those with a focus on others were classified as group two, and those in the second transitional phase or having a focus on both self and other were classified as group three.

  4. See footnote 3.

References

  • Barling, J., Christie, A. M., & Hopton, C. (2010). Leadership. In S. Zedeck, et al. (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 1). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barling, J., Weber, T., & Kelloway, E. K. (1996). Effects of transformational leadership training on attitudinal and financial outcomes: A field experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81, 827–832.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (2000). MLQ multifactor leadership questionnaire for research: Permission set (2nd ed.). Redwood City, CA: Mind Garden.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bass, B. M., Avolio, B. J., & Atwater, L. E. (1996). The transformational and transactional leadership of men and women. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 45, 5–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bass, B. M., & Steidlmeier, P. (1999). Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior. The Leadership Quarterly, 10(2), 181–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bono, J. E., & Judge, T. (2004). Personality and transformational leadership and transactional leadership: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 901–910.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, M., Treviño, L. K., & Harrison, D. A. (2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97, 117–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ciulla, J. B. (2009). Leadership and the ethics of care. Journal of Business Ethics, 88, 3–4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, P. (2008). When can group level clustering be ignored? Multilevel models versus single-level models with sparse data. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 62(8), 752–758.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clement, G. (1996). Care, Autonomy, and Justice. Boulder, CA: Westview Press, A Division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dvir, T., Eden, D., Avolio, B. J., & Shamir, B. (2002). Impact of transformational leadership on follower development and performance: A field experiment. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 735–744.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eagly, A. H., Johannesen-Schmidt, M. C., & van Engen, M. L. (2003). Transformational, transactional, and laissez-fair leadership styles: A meta-analysis comparing women and men. Psychological Bulletin, 29(4), 569–591.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilligan, C. (1977). In a different voice: Women’s conceptions of self and morality. Harvard Educational Review, 47(4), 481–517.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilligan, C., Rogers, A. G., & Tolman, D. L. (Eds.). (1991). Women, girls, & psychotherapy: Reframing resistance. New York: Harrington Park Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guo, G., & Cai, T. (2007, Aug) Proportion of level-2 units having a single observation in multilevel modeling: linear and binary outcomes. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York City, NY.

  • Held, V. (1998). The meshing of care and justice. In M. Gatens (Ed.), Feminist ethics (pp. 537–541). Brookfield: Ashgate Dartmouth.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hofmann, D. A., & Gavin, M. B. (1998). Centering decisions in hierarchical linear models: Implications for research in organizations. Journal of Management, 24(5), 623–641.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hofmann, D. A., Griffin, M. A., & Gavin, M. B. (2000). The application of hierarchical linear modeling to organizational research. In S. Zedeck (Series Ed.), K. J. Klein & S. W. J. Kozlowski (Vol. Eds.), Multilevel theory, research, and methods in organizations: Foundations, extensions, and new directions (pp. 467–511). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

  • Hox, J. J. (2008). Email Communication via multilevel modelling discussion list. Posted 16 Oct 2008.

  • Hox, J. J., & Mass, C. J. M. (2001). The accuracy of multilevel structural equation modeling with pseudobalanced groups and small samples. Structural Equation Modeling, 8, 157–174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • James, L. R., Demaree, R. G., & Wolf, G. (1984). Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and without response bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69, 85–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • James, L. R., Demaree, R. G., & Wolf, G. (1993). rwg: An assessment of within-group interrater agreement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 306–309.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Judge, T. A., LePine, J. A., & Rich, B. L. (2006). Loving yourself abundantly: Relationship of the narcissistic personality to self and other perceptions of workplace deviance, leadership and task and contextual performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 762–776.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Judge, T. A., & Piccolo, R. F. (2004). Transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 755–768.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Judge, T. A., Woolf, E. F., Hurst, C., & Livingston, B. (2008). Leadership. In C. L. Cooper & J. Barling (Eds.), Handbook of organizational behavior (pp. 334–352). New York: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stages in the development of moral thought and action. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kohlberg, L. (1976). Moral stages and moralization: The cognitive-developmental approach. In T. Lickona (Ed.), Moral development and behavior (pp. 31–53). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kreft, I. G. G., De Leeuw, J., & Aiken, L. S. (1995). The effect of different forms of centering in Hierarchical Linear Models. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 30, 1–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lichtenstein, B. M., Smith, B. A., & Torbert, W. R. (1995). Leadership and ethical development. Business Ethics Quarterly, 5(1), 97–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • May, D. R., Chan, A. Y. L., Hodges, T. D., & Avolio, B. J. (2003). Developing the moral component of authentic leadership. Organizational Dynamics, 32(3), 247–260.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mayer, D. M., Kuenzi, M., Greenbaum, R., Bardes, M., & Salvador, R. (2009). How low does ethical leadership flow? Test of a trickle-down model. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108, 1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Muthén, B. O. (1989). Latent variable modeling in heterogeneous populations. Psychometrica, 54, 557–585.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Muthén, B. O. (1994). Multilevel covariance structure analysis. Sociological Methods and Research, 22, 376–398.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Muthén, B. O., & Satorra, A. (1989). Multilevel aspects of varying parameters in structural models. In R. D. Bock (Ed.), Multilevel analysis of educational data (pp. 87–99). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Porter, E. (1999). Feminist perspectives on ethics. New York: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raudenbush, S. W. & Bryk, A. S. (2002). Hierarchical linear models (2nd ed.) (J. De Leeuw, Series ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

  • Raudenbush, S. W., Bryk, A. S., & Congdon, R. (2000). HLM6 Hierarchical linear and nonlinear modeling. Scientific Software International. http://www.ssicentral.com.

  • Rest, J. R. (1994). Background: Theory and research. In J. R. Rest & D. Narvaez (Eds.), Moral development in the professions: Psychology and applied ethics (pp. 1–25). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simola, S. K., Barling, J., & Turner, N. (2010). Transformational leadership and leader moral orientation: Contrasting an ethic of justice and an ethic of care. The Leadership Quarterly, 21, 179–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sivanathan, N., & Fekken, G. C. (2002). Emotional intelligence, moral reasoning and transformational leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 23(4), 198–204.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Skoe, E. (1993). Ethic of care interview. Norway: University of Oslo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skoe, E. (1998). The ethic of care: Issues in moral development. In E. Skoe & A. von der Lippe (Eds.), Personality development in adolescence: A cross national and life span perspective (pp. 143–171). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swank, P. (2008). Email Communication via multilevel modelling discussion list. Posted 15 Oct 2008.

  • Treviño, L. (1986). Ethical decision making in organizations: A person-situation interactionist model. Academy of Management Review, 11, 601–617.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, N., Barling, J., Epitropaki, O., Butcher, V., & Milner, C. (2002). Transformational leadership and moral reasoning. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 304–311.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business Administration Program, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada

    Sheldene Simola

  2. School of Business, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Julian Barling

  3. Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

    Nick Turner

Authors
  1. Sheldene Simola
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Julian Barling
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Nick Turner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sheldene Simola.

Additional information

This research was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grants to each of the authors.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Simola, S., Barling, J. & Turner, N. Transformational Leadership and Leaders’ Mode of Care Reasoning. J Bus Ethics 108, 229–237 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1080-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1080-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation