Can Leadership Training Improve Organizational Effectiveness? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment on Transformational and Transactional Leadership

• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Author: Christian Bøtcher Jacobsen,Lotte Bøgh Andersen,Anne Bøllingtoft,Tine Louise Mundbjerg Eriksen
• Date: 01 January 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13356

Research Article

Randomized Field Experiment on Transformational and Transactional Leadership 117

Abstract: Based on evidence from a large-scale leadership training field experiment, this article advances our

knowledge about the possibilities for training leaders toward more active and effective leadership. In the field

experiment, public and private leaders were randomly assigned to a control group or one of three leadership training

programs: Transformational, transactional, or a combined program. Employee responses from 463 organizations show

that the training can affect leadership behavior positively in very different organizations (primary and secondary

schools, daycare centers, tax centers, and bank units). Furthermore, for the subsample of school principals, we find

some evidence of training effects on performance in standardized tests in elementary schools and final exams in lower

secondary schools. We discuss these findings in relation to training content and performance criteria.

Practitioner Points

• Training leaders in combined use of transformational and transactional leadership has the greatest positive

effects on employee-perceived leadership behavior.

• The results have broad applicability as the study includes leaders from welfare and financial service sectors,

representing both public and private ownership status.

• Although mostly statistically insignificant, our results on performance indicate that it may be important to

pay attention to potentially different effects across different performance criteria.

The importance of leadership for directing,

driving, and developing high-performing

organizations is acknowledged by researchers

and practitioners alike (Van Wart, 2013). Public and

private organizations worldwide devote considerable

resources to internal and external leadership training

programs with the aim of improving leadership and

performance (Seidle, Fernandez, & Perry, 2016).

However, the value of leadership training is contested,

and there is a lack of solid research-based evidence on

the causal effects of leadership training on leadership

behavior and performance.

Although they rarely uncover causal effects, generic

management studies generally point at positive effects

of leadership training on behavior and performance

(Avolio et al., 2009). Recently, leadership training has

also been linked with more active leadership behavior

in public organizations (Kroll & Moynihan, 2015;

Seidle, Fernandez, & Perry, 2016). A few field

experiments support that leadership training can

have positive causal effects on performance (e.g.,

Dvir et al., 2002), but these studies examine specific

types of leadership training in specific organizational

contexts. Thus, we lack comparative studies of

leadership training programs across different types

of organizations to advance our understanding of

the more general usefulness and causal effects of

leadership training.

Based on a large field experiment (the LEAP

[LEadership And Performance] project) of 673

leaders from very different private and public

organizations, i.e., primary and secondary schools,

private and public daycare centers, tax units, and

bank branches in Denmark, this article makes three

important contributions to our knowledge about

the causal effects of leadership training on leadership

behavior and organizational performance. First,

existing field experimental studies mainly investigate

transformational leadership (Avolio et al., 2009),

which actually should be seen as complementary

to transactional leadership (Bass et al., 2003). This

study investigates stand-alone transformational and

transactional leadership as well as combined use of

the two leadership strategies, which allows a unique

comparison of the importance of leadership training

content. Second, there is a profound need for studies

that examine organizations with different functions

and ownership status (Day, 2013; Fernandez, 2005;

Moynihan, Pandey, & Wright, 2012; Trottier,

Van Wart, & Wang, 2008; Wright, Moynihan, &

Can Leadership Training Improve Organizational

Effectiveness? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

on Transformational and Transactional Leadership

Tine Louise Mundbjerg Eriksen

Christian Bøtcher Jacobsen

Lotte Bøgh Andersen

Anne Bøllingtoft

Aarhus University

The Danish Center for Social Science Research

Tine Louise Mundbjerg Eriksen is

employed as a senior researcher at The

Danish Center for Social Science Research

and Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public

Leadership at Aarhus University. She works

with empirical econometrics employing

quantitative research methods using

registry and survey data within the fields

of personnel economics including topics

such as leadership, the psychological work

environment and performance as well as

the economics of education focusing on

school performance and well-being.

Email: tier@vive.dk

Anne Bøllingtoft is an associate professor

at Department of Management at Aarhus

University, Denmark, and a member of

Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public

Leadership at Aarhus University. Her

research interests focus on organizational

behavior as well as leadership training

and development in both the public and

private sector.

Email: anne@mgmt.au.dk

Lotte Bøgh Andersen is a professor

at the Department of Political Science at

Aarhus University, Denmark. Her research

focuses on leadership, management and

administration in public organizations,

especially motivation and performance of

public employees, leadership strategies,

professional norms, and economic

incentives. She is center director of Crown

Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership.

Email: lotte@ps.au.dk

Christian Bøtcher Jacobsen is a

professor at the Department of Political

Science at Aarhus University, Denmark and

co-director in Crown Prince Frederik Center

for Public Leadership. His research focuses

on leadership, motivation, and performance

in the public sector with particular attention

to the healthcare sector.

Email: christianj@ps.au.dk

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 82, Iss. 1, pp. 117–131. © 2021 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13356.