Expectations of Grassroots Community Leadership in Times of Normality and Crisis

The article compares the preferences of community members for the transformational and transactional leadership styles of grassroots leaders at times of normality with those during a crisis. A structured questionnaire was administered to members of a community that experienced security crises on the Lebanese border of Israel before the 2006 Lebanon War. It reveals differences in the dominance of preferred leadership styles depending on the type of situation – normality or crisis. The article discusses these differences, compares the findings with those of other studies and considers their practical implications.