Comparing Effective Leader- and Followership Behaviors: A Video-based, Multi-level Field Study

Based on the idea that followers must be included in studying leadership, this field study assesses how leader and followers’ behaviors jointly contribute to their relative effectiveness. Specifically, we examine how leaders and followers construct their roles with transformational and transactional behaviors. Video-based field data of 101 team leaders and their 1266 followers were collected during periodic staff meetings and minutely coded. Expert effectiveness ratings of these leaders, and their ratings of follower effectiveness, were added. As hypothesized, while leaders’ individual-focused transformational behavior is found to be associated with leader effectiveness, follower effectiveness is explained by followers’ transactional behavior. When followers show relative low levels of transactional behavior, higher follower effectiveness is found when individual-focused transformational leader behavior is displayed. Higher leader effectiveness is found when leaders show individually-focused transformational behavior and their followers behave in a similar mode. These findings stress the importance of comparing and contrasting the same follower and leader behaviors. The findings’ implications are addressed in the discussion section, as well as future research paths.