Transformational Leadership or Effective Managerial Practices?

Over the past several years, much attention has been given to Bass and Avolio's notion of transformational leadership. However, there are striking similarities between Bass and Avolio's concepualization and several fundamental managerial practices. To examine this concern, we conducted a study that compared the transformational leadership scales from Bass and Avolio's Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) with four scales from Yukl's Managerial Practices Survey (MPS). The results provided mixed support for the distinctiveness of the MQ. A confirmatory factor analysis supported a distinction between the underlying constructs measured by the MLQ and MPS scales. In addition, a composite measure of transformational leadership did account for a significant proportion of variance in ratings of leader effectiveness, beyond that accounted for by the MPS scales. However, the proposed dimensionality of the MLQ was not supported, and the MLQ scales were highly related to the MPS scales.