Transformational Leadership And Trust: A Case Study

According to previous research, an employee’s trust in his/her leader has been linked to: increased individual efficiency and commitment; increased organizational performance; effective team and organizational functioning where the tasks are complex and unstructured. Considering these findings concerning the positive influence of trust on various aspects of organizational performance, we used relevant theories in literature relating to trust in organizational settings and transformational leadership to devise our research framework that aimed at gaining a better understanding of leadership behaviors leading to higher degrees of trust by followers in their leader. The results of our pilot study in a Romanian small-to medium-sized enterprise show that leader’s behaviors such as enforcing observance of organizational rules, professional objectivity in employee appraisal processes, keeping promises and commitments, fairness, as well as leader’s professional competency are essential for achieving higher degrees of trust in intra-organizational relationships. In assuming the inherent limitations of a pilot case study leading to the necessity to f{0>Dezvoltarea metodologică ulterioară, precum şi realizarea unor studii follow-up cu finanţare suficientă pentru a permite minimizarea erorilor de eşantionare sunt fără îndoială necesare pentru a confirma corelaţia dintre cele două abordări, din perspectiva societăţii „deschise” popperiene.<}0{>Further urther the methodological developments and follow-up studies, our research confirmed obvious relationships between the targeted domains, transformational leadership and trust. Also, our findings confirmed that the trust element in organizational leadership has a critical impact on building long-term employee commitment and drive for achieving higher individual and organizational performance and success.