Leadership & Change in a Crisis Organization

A financial service organization implemented the Consolidation Project to offset declines in the economy and operational revenue. This exploratory study examined the relationships between transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles of departmental leaders and their subordinates' perceived extra effort, leadership effectiveness, satisfaction of leadership, and perception of change in a crisis situation. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Form 5X-Short) survey (Bass & Avolio, 2004), perception of change questions, the full range leadership model (Antonakis, Avolio, & Sivasubramaniam, 2003), and comparative analysis were used to analyze these relationships. The results of this research supported previous studies in that the participating leaders possessed the transformational leadership behaviors required to obtain employee buy-in and sustain the successful implementation of the Consolidation Project. This research through comparative analysis demonstrated the link between transformational leadership style and employee perception in sustaining organizational change success and preventing crisis reoccurrence.