Social work perceptions of transformational and transactional leadership in health care

Despite the resurgence of leadership research, few investigations have exam ined the association between leadership behaviors and organizational perfor mance in the social work field. The purpose of this study was to evaluate e mpirically a model that delineates two types of leadership processes, trans formational and transactional leadership, within social work practice as me asured by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. The model was tested wi th a sample of 187 clinical social workers employed in hospitals. Results i ndicated that all five transformational factors and one transactional facto r were significantly correlated with leader outcomes of effectiveness, sati sfaction, and extra effort. Implications for social work practice are provi ded.