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individualized consideration and charisma facilitate the development of high-quality LMX relationships.This suggests that there may be a link between transformational leadership and LMX. The positiveassociation between transformational leadership and LMX has been established empirically (Howell &Hall-Merenda, 1999).A link can also be established between LMX and attachment styles in that they both essentiallydescribe the way people relate to each other. A high-quality LMX relationship is dominated by trust,respect, and mutual obligation (Graen & Uhl Bien, 1995) and a securely attached person relates positivelyto others and is trusting in the workplace (Hazan & Shaver, 1990). Thus, it is expected that both secureattachment and transformational leadership would be related to LMX. Two more hypotheses can bederived from these findings:Hypothesis 2a: Secure attachment will be positively related to the quality of leader-member exchange.Hypothesis 2b: Transformational leadership will be positively related to the quality of leader-memberexchange (LMX).Outcomes of Positive Leader-Follower RelationshipsOne of the key aspects of LMX, according to Graen and Uhl Bien (1995), is that there is a cyclethrough which the relationship goes in order to reach high-quality status. This cycle begins at theacquaintance phase and ends at the partnership phase. Throughout the cycle, leaders and members aregetting to know each other better and are able to make better assessments about each other in the process.One of the propositions from Mayer et al.’s (1995) integrative model of trust states that “the effect ofperceived benevolence on trust will increase over time as the relationship between the parties develops”(p. 722). Ability and integrity are proposed to be more salient early on in the relationship between the twoparties, perhaps when information on benevolence is less available or less easily obtained. Thus, becausethis study focuses on transformational leaders and high-quality LMX relationships (that by definition taketime to form), benevolence appears highly relevant.Among the three antecedents of trust according to Mayer et al. (1995), benevolence is the onlyrelational factor in that it actually involves the trustee’s personal relationship with the trustor. In this case,it involves how well intentioned the leader is towards his/her followers. A follower can only judgewhether or not his/her leader is benevolent based on personal interactions and experiences over time. Infact, high-quality LMX relationships are characterized by mutual obligation, which is conceptuallysimilar to benevolence in that they both involve positive intentions and actions towards others.According to Mayer et al. (1995), perceptions of benevolence lead to trust. Some previousfindings have supported the positive relation between benevolence and trust (e.g., Gill et al., 2005; Mayer& Davis, 1999) while others have not (e.g., Boies & Corbett, 2005). No research to date has focusedsolely on benevolence as a predictor of trust. However, because this study pertains to leader-followerrelationships and how trust is fostered, it appears likely that followers would base their assessments oftheir leaders’ trustworthiness on perceptions of benevolence. The preceding discussion leads to thefollowing hypotheses:Hypothesis 3: The quality of leader-member exchange (LMX) will be positively related to followerperceptions of leader benevolence.Hypothesis 4: Follower perceptions of leader benevolence will be positively related to trust in the leader.Mediation HypothesesIn addition to the hypothesized direct relations, three mediating hypotheses can be derived.Firstly, a person who is securely attached is both trusting and confident in relationships (Hazan & Shaver,6