Leadership styles of Local Police in the Valencian Community: An approach based on the Transformational Leadership Theory.

Abstract

On the basis of the Transformational Leadership Theory (Bass, 1985), the patterns of behaviour found in leadership styles are examined, and also their relation to three outcome variables: leader efficacy, satisfaction with the leader and extra effort by subordinates. The study also deals with the augmentation effect in transactional leadership when combined with transformational leadership.

The sample is representative of the universe of local policemen in the Valencian Community (Spain) and it consists of 975 local policemen (828 men and 147 women) from 42 local municipalities and directed by 42 police chiefs.

Results show police chiefs with active leadership profile that combines transformational leadership behaviors and active transactional leadership. No differences were found by gender of subordinate informants. Both the positive predictive performance of the transformational and transactional styles and the negative predictive performance of passive behaviours were confirmed on the outcome variables. The results also confirm the increase of the transactional leadership effects on the outcome variables analysed when combined with transformational leadership. Practical implications are also discussed.