Evaluation and Critique of Transformational Leadership
The Evidence
- The evidence supporting transformational leadership over transactional is strong (Khan, 2009).
- Favoured in many countries and at various job levels.
- A review of 87 studies found transformational leadership related to motivation, satisfaction, higher performance, and perceived effectiveness.
- Transformational leadership correlates with lower turnover, higher productivity, higher employee satisfaction.
- Over 100 empirical studies have linked it to organisational and leadership effectiveness (Bryman, 1992; Lowe et al., 1996).
- Samples and contexts range from Fortune 100 businesses to military units to presidential administrations.
The Critique (Northouse, 2007)
- Elitist and antidemocratic; too much emphasis on the heroic aspects of leadership.
- Leaders act independently of followers, creating and transmitting their own vision.
- Potential for abuse.
- Question: who decides if the new vision is better than the old?
- History includes leaders who exploited followers (e.g. Hitler).
- Transformational leadership may be a personality trait rather than a developable behaviour (Bryman, 1992).
The Mature Position (Bass)
Leaders should be both transactional and transformational. The combination is the most successful kind.
Transformational leadership has produced more research, more enthusiasm, and more critique than most modern leadership theories. The research evidence is strong. The critique is also legitimate. A school head needs to take both seriously to use the theory wisely without being captured by it.
What the research shows
The handout summarises the research evidence:
The evidence supporting the superiority of transformational leadership over transactional leadership is impressive (Khan, 2009). This leadership style has been favoured in many countries and at various job levels.
The specific findings:
A review of 87 studies, testing transformational leadership, found that it was related to the motivation and satisfaction of followers and to the higher performance and perceived effectiveness of the leaders. (Khan, 2009)
The overall evidence indicates that transformational leadership is more strongly correlated than transactional leadership with lower turnover rate, higher productivity, and higher employee satisfaction.
Well over 100 empirical studies have found transformational leadership to be consistently related to organisational and leadership effectiveness (Bryman, 1992; Lowe et al., 1996).
Samples and contexts from Fortune 100 businesses to military units to presidential administrations.
The breadth of the research is unusual. Transformational leadership has been studied in businesses, militaries, hospitals, schools, and governments, across many countries and cultures. The correlation with positive outcomes has held up in most of those settings. This is not a fad theory.
What “correlation” means here
A useful caveat: the research finds correlation, not strict causation. Transformational leaders are associated with better outcomes. Whether the leadership produces the outcomes, or whether the outcomes attract transformational leaders, or whether some third factor produces both, is harder to disentangle. The careful position is that transformational leadership is a strong predictor of better outcomes, without claiming it is the only or strongest cause.
The critique
The critique of transformational leadership is also serious and worth taking on board. The handout cites Northouse (2007).
Elitism and the heroic frame
It is elitist and antidemocratic; too much emphasis is placed on the “heroic” aspects of leadership. (Northouse, 2007)
The critique: transformational leadership puts the leader at the centre of the story. The team is a recipient, not a partner. This is uncomfortable in democratic cultures and reproduces inequality of voice.
A reasonable response: well-practised transformational leadership includes individualised consideration, where the leader listens deeply to followers. The risk Northouse names is real, but it is a risk of bad practice, not an inherent feature of the theory.
Independent action
They act independently of their followers; they create and transmit a vision of their own in an effort to achieve change.
This is related to the elitism critique. A transformational leader can create a vision without enough input from the followers and then sell it to them. The selling is sophisticated; the followers may sign on without realising they had no real choice.
This risk is real. The mitigation is in step 1 of the transformational process: developing the vision should include the values of the followers. A leader who skips this step ends up with her own vision dressed as a shared one.
The risk of abuse
Transformational leadership has the potential to be abused.
The Four I’s are powerful. Idealised influence is essentially charisma. Inspirational motivation is the ability to move people through vision. Intellectual stimulation is the ability to reshape how people think. Individualised consideration is the ability to know each follower deeply. In bad hands, these are tools of manipulation.
Since transformational leaders change employees’ values and provide a new vision of the future, the question is: who decides if the new vision is better than the old one? Who determines whether the new direction is good?
The honest answer: the theory does not have a built-in safeguard for this. A transformational leader could be transforming her people in a destructive direction. The theory describes the mechanism, not the morality.
History provides us with examples of leaders who have exploited their people and where their vision has eventually led to death and destruction of their followers (e.g. Hitler).
The Hitler example is uncomfortable and used by Northouse deliberately. Hitler had charisma, vision, the ability to motivate, the ability to reshape thinking, and a personal connection with his followers. By the operational definition, he was a transformational leader. He led his country to catastrophic destruction.
The lesson is not that transformational leadership is bad. It is that the theory describes a mechanism, and the mechanism can be put in service of any direction, good or bad. The values come from outside the theory.
For schools, this means a transformational principal has to be especially honest with herself about whether her vision is actually good for the children, the staff, and the community. Self-deception is the recurring risk.
Trait or behaviour?
Transformational leadership may be a personality trait or personal disposition which might be difficult to change, rather than a behaviour that can be trained and developed. (Bryman, 1992)
The critique: maybe transformational leaders are just born with the right characteristics, and the theory is dressing up a trait theory in behavioural language. If so, the training programmes built on the theory are ineffective for people who do not already have the underlying traits.
This is a serious empirical question. The current research evidence is mixed. Some transformational leadership behaviours can be trained (vision communication, individualised attention). Others may depend more on underlying personality (the charisma piece in particular). A reasonable working position: most school heads can develop transformational practices to a competent level through training, even if very few will reach the high-charisma levels.
The mature position
The most credible modern position on transformational leadership comes from Bass and Avolio, refined over decades of research.
Bass differs from Burns in viewing transactional and transformational leadership not as being at opposite sides on a continuum but as two different facets where a leader can be both transactional and transformational at the same time, though to different degrees.
Also in opposition to Burns, who argued that the leader should strive for transformational leadership only, Bass argues that leaders can and should be both transactional and transformational and that a combination of these two is the most successful kind.
The mature position has three elements.
- Use both transactional and transformational. Transactional for steady-state work; transformational for change and growth. The combination outperforms either alone.
- Stay honest about the vision. A vision developed in isolation and sold to the team is not really transformational; it is autocratic dressed up. Real transformation includes the team’s input.
- Acknowledge the moral question. The theory tells you how to lead transformation; it does not tell you whether your particular transformation is worth doing. That judgement is yours, and the responsibility for it is also yours.
A school principal who holds all three elements can use transformational leadership well. A principal who only knows the inspirational frame, without the transactional discipline, the honest vision development, and the moral self-examination, can do real damage even with good intentions.
Elitism, abuse risk, and trait question.
Elitism. Putting the leader at the centre is undemocratic. Response: practise individualised consideration carefully; develop the vision with the team, not in isolation.
Risk of abuse. The Four I’s can be tools of manipulation. Response: the theory describes a mechanism; the morality of the direction is the leader’s own responsibility. Stay honest about whether the vision is actually good.
Trait or behaviour. Maybe transformational leaders are just born with charisma. Response: some practices can be trained (vision communication, individualised attention). Most school heads can reach competent transformational practice through development.
The mature position (Bass and Avolio): use both transactional and transformational, develop vision with team input, and take the moral responsibility for your direction.
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