Abstract: More and more attention had been paid to transformational leadership and transactional leadership in the existing research. And most researchers suggested that transformational leadership was more effective than transactional leadership. However, the effectiveness of transformational leadership and transactional leadership was influenced by the situational and followers’ variables in the view of contingency theories. This paper tried to analyze the effect of such moderate variables as substitutes for leadership, leader-subordinate relationship and organizational culture on the relationship between leadership and leader’s effectiveness. The trend of future research was also discussed.

Key words: transformational leadership, transactional leadership, contingent analysis