Transformational Leadership across Cultures: Follower Perception and Satisfaction

Abstract

Leading people from diverse cultures is centrally important in organizations. This study investigates the extent to which transformational leadership behaviors are universal: by examining if leaders and followers perceive transformational leadership behaviors the same way across cultures; and by determining if the magnitude of satisfaction that followers derive from transformational leadership behavior is the same across cultures. Survey data from 71,537 leaders and their direct reports (n = 203,027) from 77 countries were analyzed. Respondents represented hundreds of different organizations, 12 functional areas, 26 industries, and all management levels. Cultural universality was examined by comparing internal reliability scores and using multilevel mixed coefficient models to assess the similarity of effect sizes in across cultures. Regardless of culture, when interacting with leaders from their own culture, followers were universally alike in their perceptions of transformational leadership behavior and in their satisfaction with such behavior.

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