This document summarizes a research study on the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership styles and creativity. The study used questionnaires to measure 178 students' leadership styles (using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire) and creativity (using divergent thinking tests and the Remote Associates Test). The results showed a statistically significant positive relationship between transformational leadership and creativity. Transformational leadership had a higher correlation with creativity than transactional leadership. The study recommends using measures of leadership style in the selection process and focusing leadership training on transformational skills to enhance creativity and performance in institutions.

1. The behavioural and
personality correlates of
transformational and
transactional leadership
Presented by
Dr. Renalde Huysamen

2. agenda
• Introduction and background.
• Transformational and Transactional
leadership and Creativity
• Research Methodology and Composition
• Analysis and Results
• Conclusions and Recommendations
• Limitations of the research
• Managerial implications of the research

3. External threats
Leadership with
creative
traits
Sustainable
institution

4. Introduction
• Based on personal experience I have found
that one of the biggest challenges in
leadership development is to identify specific
development needs and focus training
accordingly.
• Even more problematic is the selection of
creative people

5. Introduction
• I believed that if a positive correlation could
be found between creativity and leadership
style then institutions would be able to:
1. Select creative people
2. Focus training and leadership development
initiatives and
3. Enhance a performance culture in
institutions.

6. INTRODUCTION
• Literature:
Leadership &
Creativity has been
studied extensively
but
…………………….
separately.

7. TRANSFORMATIONAL AND
TRANSACTIONAL
LEADERSHIP (Bass and Avolio 1985)
Transformational leadership style:
• Comprises 4 components: idealized influence, inspirational
motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized
consideration (behavioural)
• Most appropriate in managing changes in institutions in
that they motivate others to do more than they even
thought possible. They set more challenging expectations
and achieve higher performance's
BUT
Can not be taken for granted that this leadership style will also
be creative (personality) at the same time

8. TRANSFORMATIONAL AND
TRANSACTIONAL
LEADERSHIP
Transactional leadership style:
• Focus on interpersonal transactions between
managers and employees. Helps the follower
to identify what must be done to accomplish
desired results (better quality output/more
services/reduced costs).

9. (Getzels, Greeno, Sternberg, Chand and
Runco, Cougar, Ansburg, Finke, Guilford,
Mednick)
• Contemporary views on creativity recognise its
multifaceted nature. Kneller (1967) defines
fluency of thought and originality as traits of a
creative person and he believes the traits can
be acquired

10. FLUENCY OF THOUGHT
• The number of solutions that fit the requirements of the
problem.
• Associational fluency of thought= list words that bears
relation to a given word, and
• Ideational fluency=rapid listing of ideas
ORIGINALITY OF THOUGHT
• The number of unusual or unique solutions that are
generated by very few other people.

11. RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY AND
COMPOSITION
Research question: what is the correlation between TF
and TR leadership and the creativity traits namely:
fluency of thought and originality?
Design: Quantitative approach was followed
Location of data: Students enrolled for MBA and
M.Com degrees at different universities in Gauteng.
(N=178)
Sampling type: non-probability, judgemental as
purposive.

12. Research instruments
1. Leadership style measured by Multifactor Leadership
Questionnaire (MLQ) developed by Bass and Avolio (1985).
(20 min). It measures a broad range of leadership styles
from laissez-fair to TF and TS. MLQ consists of 45 items
loading on 4 factors that represents the meaning of each
construct of the Full Range Model.
• These measures of leadership style represents the
variable.

13. 2. Creativity (ideational fluency and
originality) was measured by two
divergent thinking ability tests
list the uses of a paper clip
(3 min) & list possible solutions for
crime in SA
(3 min)

14. 3. Associational fluency measured by
Remote Associates Test
(20 min) (Thompson 1993)
+
+
These measures
of
creativity
represents the
=
variable

15. 1
MLQ
RAT
2
3 Raters
3
Statistical consultation services

16. ANALYSIS
• MLQ-principle factor analysis
• Items inter-correlated and eigenvalues of
unreduced intercorrelation computed.
• To overcome differential skewness of
items, sub- scores in respect of each
factor was computed by adding items
with high loadings on one factor
together.
• Factor matrix rotated to a simple
structure by means of Oblimin Rotation.

17. Results
• 4 Factors were extracted, as 4 of the eigenvalues were greater than
unity.2 of the factors were poorly determined with low
reliabilities...therefore a three factor solution was tried and:
3 factors were extracted with a substantial loadings on all three
factors. However from an inspection of the communalities it was
apparent that several of the subscores shared only a small proportion of
their variance with other subscores. In order to identify the obtained
factors the items associated with each factor were grouped into
categories as given by Bass (1999)
The three factors of this research differs from Bass in the sense that items
are grouped differently.
• Factor 1= transformational leadership/transactional (reliability of 0.752)
• Factor 2= non-transactional (reliability of 0.494)
• Factor 3= transformational leadership/leadership outcome (reliability of
0.837)

18. ANALYSIS &RESULTS
• Fluency of thought • All 6 six scores had
and originality substantial
yielded 4 scores. loadings on the
• 2 scores were same factor. This
derived form RAT factor represents
(associational fluency and
fluency) originality of
• These 6 scores thought. (reliability
of 0.735)
were subjected to
factor analysis and
only one
eigenvalue was
greater than unity.

19. ANALYSIS & RESULTS
between 3 scales of MLQ and 6 scales of creativity.
1. Transformational/transactional correlates
positively with all 3 creativity tests (65% of
items loaded on transformational leadership.
2. Transformational/transactional positively
correlated with RAT
3. Transformational/leadership outcome is
inversely related to 6 creativity scores (only
39% if items represented transformational
leadership in its pure form)

20. ANALYSIS & RESULTS
• The 2 x regression • From the ßeta coefficients
analysis indicate that only it is clear that scale 1
two predictor variables (transformational/
were included in transactional) is a better
regression equation (i.e prediction of creativity.
• scale 1:
transformational/transacti
onal &
a combination
of scale 1 and scale 3:
transformational/ leader
outcome)

21. CONCLUSIONS
1. There is a statistically significant positive
relationship between leadership style
and creativity.
2. There is a higher statistical significant
positive relation between
transformational leadership style and
creativity than between creativity and the
other leadership styles.

22. 1. Measurement of creativity necessitates an
element of subjectivity-rater bias.
2. Can originality be measured in terms of rarity of a
response?
3. Judgements of creative ability can only be made
with reference to actual output.
4. It would be worthwhile pursuing means of
upgrading the MLQ and RAT.
5. Superiors of respondents should also rate
respondents.

23. 1. The MLQ can be recommended as a test in the
selection process.
2. If transformational leadership style is identified..
the head/line manager can assume that the
person will also be creative.
3. Focus training and leadership development
initiatives.
4. Enhance a performance culture in institutions.

24. Thank you…………..
Huysamenca.rd@mail.uovs.ac.za