Recognition of employees as transformational leaders: a social network analysis approach

This study aims at using social network analysis methods to analyse a transformational leadership network and identify the factors that make an employee perceive another as a transformational leader. Specifically, we examined the impact of boundary spanning ability, or the employees' ability to control and disseminate work information, on the likelihood for transformational leadership network ties to be established among the employees. Our results confirmed the impacts of the employees' boundary spanning ability and background characteristics on the emergence of transformational leaders. The background characteristics that can make employees recognise each other as transformational leaders are their work assignment to the same project, gender, and formal seniority