To better understand why transformational leadership is a concept we should consider, a look at more traditional approaches is at first appropriate. Autocratic, army or public service style ‘instructional’ leadership encompasses hierarchies and the top-down use of power. This type of leader is supposed to know the best way to administer the business, conveys instructions to the subordinates then gets busy monitoring the work. The main problem with this form of leadership is that good administrators aren’t always great operators, nor can they keep up with real-world business trends, technological advances or more importantly the current rapid rate of changing customer preferences, (or social trends) and loyalties.
Another major difficulty with this style of leadership occurs as it concentrates on the growth and safety of business processes, with the development of followers, often becoming a secondary or even a non-priority. Modern business requires ‘the team’ to be “the servants of a collective vision”, thus leaders must fulfil the role of coach, cheerleader, supporter, problem solver and resource finder. Autocratic ‘instructional’ leadership, has therefore, as many correctly argue, outlived its usefulness.
Another form of traditional leadership is ‘transactional’ leadership. Transactional leadership (or bartering) is based on an exchange of services from staff for various kinds of rewards such as a salary & benefits. ‘Leithwood’ (1992) says this type of leadership “doesn’t stimulate improvement”. Mitchell and Tucker (Leadership Way of Thinking) add that ‘transactional leadership works only when both leaders and followers understand and are in agreement about which tasks are important’. Experience suggests that it is not often that staff and management, (even departments, sales vs. production, R&D vs. financial control etc.), truly agree on what is, or is not, important. It is arguable therefore that this form of leadership is also ready for the waste bin.
Ref and Adapted in part from ED347636 Aug 92 Transformational Leadership. ERIC Digest, Number 72. Author: Liontos, Lynn Balster
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Back to the topic…
WHAT IS TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP?
The idea of transformational leadership was first developed by James McGregor Burns in 1978 and later extended by Bernard Bass as well as others. Burns and Bass studied political leaders, army officers and business executives. An article in a 1995 issue of the Journal of Leadership Studies states, “Perhaps the most central notion of the transformational leader is the explicit purpose behind leading others. A transforming leader ACTS TO MAXIMISE THE NEEDS OF THE FOLLOWER. Leadership must also stimulate the needs of the entire organization of people constantly moving them to higher order needs. The term ‘transformational’ stems from the leaders ability to develop people as resources (should be potentials) and move them to a more satisfactory state of existence. Burns contrasts the transforming leader with a power wielder (transactional leader) suggesting that the transformational leader has an interest in the personal development of the follower, “leaders can also shape and alter and elevate the motives and values and goals of followers…” To Burns, transactional leadership is immature because it is based on the needs of the leader rather than the follower, “The object [in transactional leadership] is not a joint effort for persons with common aims acting for the collective interests of followers but a bargain to aid the individual interests of persons or groups going their separate ways”. Bass and Avolio (1989) argue that the transformational leader motivates followers (should be uses followers motivation) to act in the interest of the organization rather than to maximize self-interest.
Ric (orglearn – transformational leadership)
