Leaders’ Style, Self-Sacrifice, and Team Identification

Leadership is a group feature that directly impacts on team identification. Effective leaders areespecially capable of fostering group cohesiveness and promoting efficacy in goal attainment.We assessed the relationship between transactional and transformational leadership style,team identification, and leader self-sacrifice. Participants were 186 call center employeeswho were headed by a leader who operated with either a transactional or a transformationalleadership style. The employees reported their level of team identification and leaderself-sacrifice. Results show how, in either the transactional or transformational leadershipcondition, levels of leadership and self-sacrifice were related to team identification, as wellas the interaction effect between transactional leadership level and leader self-sacrifice. Ourfindings demonstrate how different leadership styles play a diverse role in this relationship.