Performance Effects of Transformational Leadership in Public

¶ … Performance Effects of Transformational Leadership in Public Administration," Doina Popescu Ljungholm examines a number of components of job performance for those in public administrator positions that work with the government. The focus of the study examined in the article is on how individual perceptions help explain employee behavior, leadership within the context of democratic governance, public administrators within their context of democratic governance, and leadership policies in public sector settings (Ljungholm, 2014). The author's goal was to build upon prior research that suggested that there was a moral component to transformational leadership, the impact of that leadership on public service motivation, how leadership can promote the moral values that promote public service, and what relationship exists between leadership and team performance (Ljungholm, 2014).

Ljungholm examines the concept of mission valence. Mission valence is not directly impacted by transformational leadership, but refers to an employee's perceptions of how the company impacts society. Therefore, leadership can impact mission valence by conveying not only the organization's mission, but also how that mission contributes to the company's overall social value. Moreover, one of the roles of the transformational leader is to increase employee awareness of the organization's mission goals.

Ljungholm also examines the association between transformational leadership and team performance (2014). The prior literature suggests that transformational leaders act as role models for the rest of the organization, modeling both pride and trust in the organization. In the public sector, this translates to providing an incentive for public service, because serving the public becomes an internalized, organization-wide value. Furthermore, for public sector positions transformational leadership also has the potential of impacting how citizens approach the rules and norms of the organization. The goal is to incorporate leaders and citizens at different levels of the organization to ensure that citizens retain input into the organizational structure of the organization and that the goals of the organization accurately and adequately reflect the goals of the citizens.

Another component Ljungholm examines is how transformational leadership impacts casual performance. Casual performance is often not measured by formal measure of performance, but, instead, represents performance aspects that are not as easily quantified. Transformational leaders help ensure that organizational goals and aims are translated to employees at all levels of the organization. It is well-established that leadership can influence employee motivation, which translates into better job performance, particularly in subjective areas of job performance. Furthermore, one of the interesting aspects is that transformational leaders can impact employees even when employee interaction is relatively limited. Transformational leaders are even able to impact employees in virtual environments; in fact, they impact those employees more than members of face-to-face teams. Ljungholm speculates about whether the impact of interpersonal interactions changes transformational leaders more in face-to-face team scenarios, which can have an impact on their ability to act in a transformative capacity (2014).

Ljungholm concludes by synthesizing the different components of the impact of transformational leadership on public sector service positions. She emphasizes the role that perception plays in the transformational leadership process. Specifically, she looks at how transformational leadership impacts team task performance. While she does not mention the term "stakeholder," what the work does is examine the perspectives of various different stakeholders in the whole team process for public administration and then examine how their approaches to performance and leadership impact other team members. The result is that she describes an interwoven web of perceptions and attitudes, which are not solely top-down but are also impacted in a bottom-up scenario and laterally, which suggests that attitudes and perceptions at all levels are critical to the success of public sector organizations.