A study of transformational and transactional leadership and its relationship to successful lean manufacturing deployments

Introduction. The manufacturing industry is facing a wide range of social and macroeconomic trends that are working together to put tremendous pressure on manufacturers to become more efficient. In response to this, many companies are turning to lean manufacturing and enterprise systems. Because of this, choosing and training leadership to navigate this lean transformation is critical in today's rapidly changing global economy.;The findings of the study are formulated from a self-administered web-based survey that was sent to 175 key lean leaders at a major Fortune 500 corporation. The researcher utilized Avolio and Bass's (2004) Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire to assess transformational and transactional leadership dimensions and Global Aerospace's (2004) year-end Lean Deployment Maturity (GALDM) scores to ascertain statistically whether there is a relationship between these variables.;Purpose. While there has been significant research conducted on the operational components and successes of deploying lean systems, there has been relatively little research conducted to identify what type of leadership styles are conducive to transforming companies from mass production to lean enterprises. The purpose of this study is to determine if there is a relationship between transformational and transactional leadership and the successful deployment of lean systems, and consequently to expand the theoretical basis for using transformational and transactional leadership to lead organizational change.;Findings. The results of the research support 4 of the 8 research questions that were set forth in the study. There were statistically significant relationships found between self-reported transformational and transactional leadership dimensions and successful lean deployment scores in 4 of the 8 hypotheses. The overall findings of the study support the conceptual framework of the full range of leadership model (Bass, 1998), which hypothesizes that the most successful leaders are both transformational and transactional. This conceptual model theorizes that transformational leadership augments transactional leadership by building on the exchanges between leaders and followers.;In summary, the findings of the study add to the existing empirical data that suggests that the transformational leadership model is useful when trying to lead organizational change and consequently may be useful for companies that are deploying lean systems.