Presidents' Leadership Behaviors Associated with Followers' Job Satisfaction, Motivation Toward Extra Effort, and Presidential Effecitveness at Evangelical Colleges and Universities

Transformational leaders have tendencies that include: 1) projecting confidence and optimism about goals and followers' ability, 2) providing a clear vision, 3) encouraging creativity through empowerment and rewarding experimentation, 4) setting high expectations and creating a supportive environment, and 5) establishing personal relationships with followers. Transactional leadership as a process in which leaders and followers decide on goals and how to achieve them through a mutual exchange. The leader provides followers with resources, rewards, and punishment in order to achieve motivation, productivity, and effective task accomplishment. Laissez-faire leadership is the process of letting followers work without direction or guidance from the leader. The laissez-faire leader avoids providing direction and support, shows a lack of active involvement in follower activity, and abdicates responsibilities by maintaining a line of separation between the leader and the followers. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the assumption that a combination of transformational and transactional leadership factors is more predictive of greater followers' job satisfaction, motivation toward extra effort, and perceived presidential effectiveness than either leadership style alone. The study investigated perceptions of the degree to which transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and laissez-faire leadership were practiced by presidents of member colleges and universities in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). In addition, the study considered whether some combination of transformational and transactional behaviors is more predictive of job satisfaction, motivation toward extra effort, and perceived presidential effectiveness than either transformational or transactional leadership alone. The independent variables in the study included the transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership behaviors of the college and university presidents and the dependent variables were job satisfaction, motivation toward extra effort, and perceived presidential effectiveness. This study points to specific behaviors that are predictive of job satisfaction, motivation toward extra effort, and perceived presidential effectiveness. By combining the behaviors identified as transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership behaviors, this study determines specifically which behaviors are predictive of the three dependent variables. By combining the transformational leadership behaviors of Attributed Charisma and Individual Consideration with the transactional leadership behavior of Contingent Reward, leaders may develop leadership styles that are more satisfying, motivating, and effective for followers than solely using the transformational model of leadership. Followers indicate that they are more satisfied and motivated by leaders who possess great energy, high levels of self-confidence, strong beliefs and ideals, are assertive, have the ability to make followers feel more confident, who create greater personal confidence within their followers, and who use positive reward systems to affirm desired behavior. This information provides empirical data to support the concept that a combination of charisma, personal consideration, and a reward system may increase follower's job satisfaction, motivation toward extra effort, and perceptions of leaders' effectiveness better than transformational leadership behaviors alone