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
potent ...