Leadership behavior and organizational outcomes in farmer cooperatives as measured by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire

Agriculture and its related industries play important roles in the economy of Nebraska. In 1996, the agricultural industry accounted for approximately nine billion dollars to the state's economy and provided for half of the state's workforce.;The purposes of this study were to (1) identify the leadership behaviors of Nebraska farmer cooperative managers and (2) determine the relationship of farmer cooperative manager behaviors to organizational outcomes.;The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (self and rater) and a demographic survey developed by the researcher were mailed to a sample of 55 managers and 165 followers in Nebraska. A total of 34 managers and 102 followers (61.8%) returned usable questionnaires. All the respondents were males.;Major findings of the study are as follows: (1) None of the group subscale means of farmer cooperative managers in this study attained the optimum transformational leadership score of 3.00. Managers practiced constructive transformational leadership (contingent reward) and laissez-faire leadership to a greater extent than they thought. (2) There was a negative relationship between age and transformational and laissez faire leadership. (3) Income had a significantly positive relationship on transformational leadership. (4) Outcome measures were significantly related to transformational leadership. The more transformational a leader, the more positive outcomes attained. (5) Transactional leadership was positively related to the amount of extra effort and organizational effectiveness only when contingent reward was included in the mean but to a lesser degree. (6) Laissez faire leadership had a significantly negative relationship to satisfaction.