Uncover the black-box of leadership effectiveness: Leader-member exchange as the mediator

This study is an integration of the leader-focused perspective and leader-follower exchange perspective, attempting to understand the relationship between leadership styles, leader-member relationship, and their joint impact on followers’ effectiveness, satisfaction, extra effort and organizational commitment. 615 respondents from five big pharmaceutical companies in China participated in this study. Results show that: (1) transformational leadership has positive influence on followers’ effectiveness, satisfaction, extra effort and organizational commitment; contingent reward has positive influence on effectiveness; management-by-exception leadership has negative influence on satisfaction; laissez-faire leadership has negative influence on effectiveness and satisfaction. (2) Leader-member exchange partially mediates the relationship between transformational, contingent reward, management-by-exception, laissez-faire leaderships and followers’ effectiveness, extra effort, satisfaction and organizational commitment.