What Are The Characteristics Of Transformational Leadership?

The Transformational Leadership concept was first established and described by James MacGregor Burns in 1978 as transforming leadership in his descriptive research. He stated “transforming leadership is a process in which leaders and followers help each other to advance to a higher level of morale and motivation.” In the modern era, the study of transformational leadership has become popular among researchers. In addition to Burns (1978) was theorist Bernard M. Bass (1985) who further explained the psychological mechanisms that underlie transforming leadership; Bass also used the term "transformational" instead of "transforming." Bass added to the initial concepts of Burns (1978) to help explain how transformational leadership could be measured,

(2003) and Morales et al. (2008) identified four distinct characteristics of transformational leadership as described in Table 1.0.

Characteristics of Transformational Leadership Description

Idealized Influence “Inspire” Consisting of Idealized Attributes (IA) whereby it instills pride in employees, goes beyond self-interest, builds others respect and displays power and confidence. Additionally, Idealized Behaviours (IB) is also a sub point of this characteristic and emphasizes on important values and beliefs, has a strong sense of purpose, considers morals and ethical consequences of decisions along with the importance of having a collective sense of mission. It basically sets as a Role Model leader.

Inspirational Motivation “Motivate” The leader enthuses their followers through talking optimistically about future and what needs to be accomplished. Additionally, the leaders compel the vision of future and express confidence that goals will be achieved. This characteristic basically sets a Visionary leader.

Intellectual Stimulation “Challenge” This characteristic of the leader stimulates their followers’ efforts to be innovative and creative. They re-examine critical assumptions to determine whether they are correct, seek different perspectives in solving problems, they get others to look at problems from different angles and find new ways to complete

Thus: “To bring about change, authentic transformational leadership fosters the moral values of honesty, loyalty, and fairness, as well as the end values of justice, equality, and human rights.”(Griffin, 2003, p. 8. Emphasis added). Bass (1997) usefully summarizes some of the other criticisms of transformational leadership. It lends itself to amoral self-promotion by leaders since it makes use of impression management. He suggests it is antithetical to organization learning and development involving shared leadership, equality, consensus and participative decision-making. It encourages followers to go beyond their own self-interests for the good of the organization and may emotionally engage followers in pursuit of evil ends. This point is supported by Carlson and Perrewe (1995) who remind us that an organization’s culture socializes individuals into that