This study was designed to determine both the difference between the followers perceived and preferred transactional and transformational leadership styles from their leader and the relationship between the difference in the followers' perceived and preferred leadership style from their leader and the followers' level of affective commitment. A total of 382 participants distributed among three different generations of firefighters participated in the study. The hypotheses associated with the two research questions were examined with the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and the Spearman Rank Order Correlation. Across all generational cohorts, the findings of the study revealed significant differences in the followers' perceived and preferred transactional and transformational leadership style from their leader. Findings indicated the followers preferred to see an increase in the amount of transactional (specifically contingent reward) and transformational leadership from their leader. The findings also revealed inverse relationships between the difference in the followers' perceived and preferred leadership style from their leader and the followers' level of affective commitment.