Police leadership has traditionally been dominated by the commander style, yet the more recent generation of police officers reject this style of leadership. Little, however, is known about whether the different leadership styles of the full range of leadership model result in positive outcomes in policing organizations. The purpose of this quantitative meta-analysis study was to examine the relationship between transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles and the leadership outcomes in a policing context, such as subordinate satisfaction, perception of leadership effectiveness, and exerting extra effort. Data for this research synthesis derived from primary research studies, which included 9 U.S. and international correlational policing studies that together comprised 1,939 police officers who completed the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) instrument. The meta-analysis provided effect size estimates on the relationship between transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles and perception of leadership effectiveness, extra effort, and subordinate satisfaction. The results of this meta-analysis indicate the transformational style has a stronger positive relationship with perception of leadership effectiveness, extra effort, and subordinate satisfaction, than the other 2 leadership styles. The positive social change implications of this study provide recommendations to police executives to include transformational leadership with contemporary law enforcement practices. The transformational style may result in improvements to police officer motivation, performance, and job satisfaction, thus offering opportunities to improve public safety outcomes.

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