Abstract Leaders’ preferences on gathering information become an important factor to predict leadership effectiveness under uncertain environment. Using 227 leaders samples from 43 companies of 8 provinces in China, this study empirically examines the mediated effect of leadership behavior transformational leadership behavior in linking leaders’ preferences of gathering information with leadership effectiveness drawing on Jung’s psychological typology and the managerial cognition and psychological filtering mechanisms. Further, the study examines the moderated mediation roles of state uncertainty in influencing the mediation based on trait activation theory. The result shows that (1) transformational leadership partially mediates the effect of SN on leaders’ performance; (2) State uncertainty moderates the mediation of transformational leadership on SN and leaders’ performance. Finally, the theoretical contributions, practical implications and future directions are discussed.
2014, Vol. 11 
