Transformational Leadership and Attribution Theory: The Situational Strength Perspective.

Abstract: The objectives of this study were to study transformational leaders behaviour in manufacturing organisations with respect to situational strength and attribution theory. The methodology employed for this research was the “Concurrent nested strategy”, a mixed method approach. The mixed approach included a quantitative stage as the first phase for this study. This stage utilised a questionnaire based on the transformational leadership questionnaire developed by Podsakoff, et. al.[1], which segregated a sample of transformational leaders and qualitative interviews. The qualitative interviews were conducted to obtain an insight into the concepts of situational strength and attribution made by manufacturing leaders for the causes of poor performance. The second phase of the research involved a questionnaire using Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5. Results from the research show that transformational leaders tends to make weak situational strength to their followers and tend to make external attributions for the causes of poor performance in their organisations, and assume that follower’s mistake as a learning experience