Transactional Model: A Comprehensive Framework for Leadership Process Understanding

Previous studies in the area of leadership focused on the leader, while recent studies besides emphasizing on the involvement of both followers and situation consider leadership as a process rather than a position. Accordingly, the present study being inspired by studies done in the area of leadership, goes a step further and tries to explore these questions; what is the contribution of lenses including leader, followers and situation in leadership process? What are the effective factors in these three main lenses? Are factors effective variables in leadership process? And how the interaction between these lenses takes place? Therefore, survey methodology is using a questionnaire. The study population(n=255) included the experts from academia and industry section that the criteria to select them were their expertise, experience and familiarity with the subject. Data were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire and were analyzed by explanatory factor analysis. In addition, model fit showed that generally the presented structural model has the appropriate fitness and can explain the final internal latent variable namely leadership process. The results indicated that leader lens has the highest impact on leadership process. Then followers lens and finally the least impact on leadership process is explained by the situation lens.

Transactional model, leadership process, leader, followers, situation.