EV-0020
The landmark case that visionary leadership works
Judge, T. A., & Piccolo, R. F. (2004). Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(5), 755–768 · Source
What this entitles us to say
A meta-analysis of 626 correlations from 87 sources reporting an overall validity of .44 for transformational leadership — the standard citation for "visionary leadership works" — while also reporting that it correlates .80 with contingent-reward leadership and is outperformed by it on several criteria.
What it found
626 correlations from 87 sources. Overall validity for transformational leadership: .44, generalizing across longitudinal and multisource designs. Contingent reward followed at .39, laissez-faire at −.37. Management by exception, active and passive, related inconsistently.
Two further results matter more to us than the headline. Transformational leadership correlated .80 with contingent reward and −.65 with laissez-faire. And there were several criteria on which contingent reward related more strongly than transformational leadership did.
Why it matters here
It is the strongest available support for the book's claim that vision creates direction, and it should be cited — with its own complications attached, which are unusually damaging for a landmark.
A .80 correlation between "inspiring, visionary leadership" and "tell people clearly what you want and reward them for it" is not a detail. It says the two are barely distinguishable in measurement. And where they could be distinguished, the plain version sometimes won.
For the program this is useful rather than embarrassing. CDL is not selling charisma, and it should not want to. The finding points the Vision module away from inspiration and toward specificity — which is exactly where EV-0022 and EV-0023 also point.
The limits
Filed moderate rather than strong despite being a large meta-analysis, because of what EV-0021 does to this literature. The .80 correlation with contingent reward is itself evidence that the construct lacks empirical distinctiveness. Correlational and largely same-source. Verified to abstract level.
What we do not say
".44 means visionary leaders produce 44% better results." It is a correlation, not a percentage, and the construct it measures is contested — see EV-0021.