Transformational
Theory
Transformational
leadership works to enhance motivation, morale and performance of the followers
through different psychological tools.
This is achieved by helping the follower or sub ordinate identify with
the project and organization. The leader
helps the follower to feel that they are a role model and a point of inspiration
for other team members. This helps to
give ownership to the follower. The
leader uses the strengths and weaknesses of the followers to align them with
the correct tasks to give the follower the best chance for success.
James
MacGregor Burns (1978) first introduced the concept of transforming leadership
in his descriptive research on political leaders, but this term is now used in
organizational psychology as well (Bass & Riggio, 2006). Burns explained that the process is one in
which leaders and followers help each other to advance to a higher level of
moral and motivation. He introduced to
concepts transforming leadership and transactional leadership. The transforming
approach changes the life of both the people and the organization. This changes the perceptions and aspirations of
the followers and the leaders. The
transactional approach is a give and take relationship, this relationship both
the leader and the followers take an active role in the formation of
success. This theory supports a leader
to live by example and create the traits that they are looking for the follower
to display.
Bernard M.
Bass (1985) continued the studies originated by Burns Theories (1978) by
looking at the tools that were inspiring the transforming and transactional
leadership. Bass replaced the transforming
with Transformational leadership expanding on the methods by adding
measurements to the impact on leaders and followers and their performance. These leaders are measured by the influence
that they have on their followers. The
followers have respect for the leader and work harder towards the goal and the
leader is inspired by the followers, which in turn makes the leader work harder
toward the goals and objectives.
This
research has been ongoing for the last 30 years and the analysis has shown that
transformational and transactional leadership positively predicts a variety of
performance outcomes including individual, group and organizational level
variables.
