Transformational Leadership

Transformational Leadership

Current business guru messages of self-analysis,

strong personal and corporate values, and

activating the dynamics of interpersonal and

group processes, are contributing to a newer

leadership approach which is gaining great

credence: transformational or new order

leadership.

This focuses on humanistic rather than

authoritive, patriarchal and conformist styles, and

is founded on the belief that inner development is

the first step to outward leadership action.

James McGregor Burns, political scientist and

biographer of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F.

Kennedy, is noted for his views on the need for

strong leadership in American society. He

articulated the distinctions between

transformational and transactional styles, after

which both terms became established in the

vocabulary of organizational development.

He is also known for his somewhat dry

description of leadership as "one of the most

observed and least understood phenomena on

earth."

In the definitive Leadership[2], he explained

that traditional leadership was a matter of

transactions and exchanges between leaders and

followers, in order to achieve goals through

rational, systematic and controlled strategies. By

contrast, transforming leadership is more complex

and potent, with leaders appreciating potential

motives in others and seeking to satisfy higher

needs through engaging the full person - the

humanistic view - of followers.

As he put it: "The secret of transforming

leadership is the capacity of leaders to have their

goals clearly and firmly in mind, to fashion new

institutions, to stand back from immediate events

and day-to-day routines, and to understand the

potential and consequences of change."

Bennis and Nanus[3], followed this view after

first stating that the problem with many

organizations is that they tend to be over managed

and underled, excelling in daily routine but never

questioning whether the routine should be done at

all.

"Leading", they said, "is influencing, guiding

in direction, course, action, opinion. Managers are

people who do things right and leaders are people

who do the right thing, with the difference being

vision and judgement."

Servant Leadership

The Indianapolis-based R.K. Greenleaf Centre for

Leadership develops the idea that the larger the

organization, the more leadership roles it is likely

to have, but from an organizational service point

of view.

It is an extension of the servant leadership

concept first articulated in practice and in theory

by Bob Greenleaf, formerly chief executive

officer of AT&T with 30 years as a Fortune 50

senior executive before retirement, and Max de

Pree, chairman of Herman Miller, regarded as one

of the USA's most admired companies.

Servant leadership insists that a leader's first

responsibility is to serve the organization, as a

fundamental linkage between leaders and their

constituents. As Greenleaf himself wrote[4], the

great leader is seen as servant first, and that

simple fact is the key to greatness:

A new moral principle is emerging which holds that

the only authority deserving one's allegiance is that

which is freely and knowingly granted by the led to

the leader ... those who choose to follow this

principle will not casually accept the authority of

existing institutions; rather, they will freely respond

only to individuals who are chosen as leaders

because they are proven and trusted as servants[4].

By contrast, de Pree[5], wrote: "The first

responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The

last is to say thank you. In between the two, the

leader must become a servant and a debtor. That

sums up the progress of an artful leader."

Indirect Leadership

Francis J. Yammarino[6] of the Center for

Leadership Studies at the SUNY Binghamton