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Despite their growing presence in France, social and solidarity economy organizations are poorly understood and often neglected by researchers. Our objective is to examine, through a study of 205 SCOP and SCIC leaders, the relationships between leadership styles (transactional vs. transformational, Bass 1985; Bass and Riggio 2006) and 1) the implementation of cooperative functioning and the use of collaborative tools, 2) the leader's managerial difficulties, and 3) the economic and social performance of the organization. The results show that the transformational style is used more often than the transactional style in cooperative societies. Further analyses show that transformational leadership is positively related to cooperative functioning and to the use of collaborative tools. It also predicts the social performance of cooperative societies, directly and indirectly through cooperative functioning, which appears here as a mediator. Transactional leadership predicts difficulties in managing cooperative societies, but it is also positively related to economic performance. These findings lead us to confirm the major role that leaders play in cooperative societies through their leadership style, despite the power of participation of associated employees and other partners.