Transformational Leadership

What transformational leadership is

Transformational leadership (القيادة التحويلية) is a style of leadership in which the leader seeks to raise the ambition, the values and the sense of meaning in the work of the followers, so that they go beyond their immediate interest to a larger purpose. In this it differs from leadership based on exchange: a reward for an achievement and a penalty for a shortfall. A transformational leader is not content to obtain the performance required and tries to change what people want from their work.

The concept is associated with James MacGregor Burns, who distinguished transformational from transactional leadership in his book on leadership, and with Bernard Bass, who developed it and shaped its components into the form in which they are now cited. It helps anyone who wants to understand why people follow certain leaders with enthusiasm and other leaders only with compliance, and it offers no ready recipe for any particular manager.

The four components of transformational leadership

Bass describes transformational leadership through four behaviours that complement one another:

• Idealized influence. The leader is a model whom followers trust and respect. The leader keeps to what the leader asks of others and puts the interest of the group before personal interest.
• Inspirational motivation. The leader shows followers the meaning and purpose of the work and states a convincing vision that moves them to put in effort beyond what is required.
• Intellectual stimulation. The leader invites followers to review existing assumptions and put forward new solutions, and accepts error made in the attempt.
• Individualized consideration. The leader treats each follower in the way that suits that follower’s circumstances and needs, listens, guides and takes an interest in the follower’s growth.

The components work together, so they are assessed together and not one by one. A leader who shows inspiration but no interest in individuals appears more an orator than a leader, and one who cares for individuals but has no vision appears a kind guide with no direction.

An example of a branch manager moving a team to a new system

Take the manager of a customer service branch whose organisation has decided to move the branch to a new system for logging requests. A transactional manager sets a target for the share of requests logged in the new system, rewards those who reach it and holds to account those who fall short. A transformational manager does four things, each matching a component:

• Starts working on the system first and shows the difficulties found in it, so the team sees that the manager does not ask what the manager does not do (idealized influence).
• Explains why the branch is being moved and what that means for the customer and the team, before explaining how (inspirational motivation).
• Asks the team to identify what was obstructing the old way and what the new way could put right (intellectual stimulation).
• Meets each member to fit the training to that member’s need, since someone used to paper is trained differently from someone used to the screen (individualized consideration).

In reality neither style cancels the other. A manager may set a target and do all four things together. The difference lies in what the commitment is built on: fear of being held to account in the first case, and an understanding of the meaning of the work in the second.

How transformational leadership can be observed in daily work

An HR officer or a more senior manager can watch for behavioural signs that correspond to each component, without treating them as a measurement:

• Idealized influence. Does the leader apply to himself or herself what the leader asks of the team, and is error acknowledged in that leader’s presence?
• Inspirational motivation. If team members are asked one at a time, do they know why they do their work? Differing answers show that the meaning has not arrived.
• Intellectual stimulation. Is an objection to what has been settled raised in the leader’s meetings, and what happens to the person who objects?
• Individualized consideration. Does the leader know what each member wants from the work, and does the time and guidance given vary with the members’ differing needs?

The followers’ view of the leader’s behaviour can be gathered with a tool such as 360 degree appraisal or subordinate appraisal. That gives a picture of what the team sees, and it is not a verdict on the leader’s style in itself.

How transformational leadership is developed in leaders

The style is not passed on by one course, but an organisation can prepare the conditions in which it appears. The leader’s team gives its views through the tools above, the leader takes part in mentoring with a mentor, and the leader’s appraisal includes what concerns the growth of the team and not only the achievement of the leader’s own target. We do not say that these means produce an effect of any stated size, since we found no measurement in our sources to refer to.

Where transformational leadership sits among other leadership styles

Bass places transformational leadership at one end of a range of three styles. The first is the transformational style with its four components. The second is the transactional style, which rests on rewarding agreed achievement and on the leader stepping in when there is a deviation from the standard, and that stepping in is called management by exception. The third is the laissez faire style, in which the leader does not intervene and leaves decisions to whoever takes them. Each of these styles is measured as a score, so a leader is not placed in one of them and is instead described by how far each style shows in each situation.

It would therefore be wrong to say that one manager is “transformational” and another “transactional” as though they were two fixed kinds of person. It is more accurate to ask in which situations this manager shows each style, and whether what the manager does suits the situation.

How transformational leadership differs from similar styles

• Transactional leadership. It rests on an explicit or implicit agreement between leader and follower, while transformational leadership tries to change what the follower wants. A leader can combine the two.
• Situational leadership. It holds that the manager chooses a style according to the employee’s position in relation to the task, and that the unit of analysis is the task and not the person, as explained under situational leadership. Transformational leadership does not assign a style to each case and describes a way of influencing. They are different axes, and they can meet in one manager.
• Charisma alone. It is closest to idealized influence, which is one of four components. An attractive leader who neither stimulates thinking nor attends to individuals is not transformational by this definition.
• Empowerment. It means giving an employee authority to take decisions within the scope of the work, as described under employee empowerment. That is an arrangement of authority, while transformational leadership is a behaviour of influence. Authority can exist without inspiration, and inspiration without authority.

How transformational leadership relates to vision and to employee engagement

Inspiration in this style depends on a vision that the leader can present, and the vision statement is the document that states it. A written vision does not make a leader transformational, because the style lies in the behaviour by which the leader lives the vision before the team. Employee engagement is the attachment that moves an employee to put in effort beyond the minimum the job requires. Transformational leadership is discussed alongside higher engagement, but they are different concepts: one is a leader’s behaviour and the other is an employee’s state.

An example of enthusiasm closing the door to objection

In an assumed case, a persuasive leader presents a vision to the team with enthusiasm. Members of the team may see risks that they do not mention, because the leader appears wholly convinced and does not tolerate objection. The leader is practising inspiration and not intellectual stimulation, and the result is an enthusiastic team that does not point out the error. The four components do not replace one another, and when intellectual stimulation is absent, inspiration becomes a force pushing in a direction that has not been reviewed. The condition that makes objection possible, which is that the objector is not penalised, is the subject of psychological safety.

Mistakes in understanding transformational leadership

• Making it a trait of the person. The definition rests on behaviours that are practised and can be observed, not on a nature a leader is born with. To say that someone is “transformational by nature” moves from describing what the person does to a judgement that cannot be observed.
• Calling every motivating speech transformation. Inspiration is one component of four. A rousing speech that is not followed by interest in individuals, by an opening of discussion or by example does not make its speaker a transformational leader.
• Treating it as the opposite of accountability. The transactional style holds people to account against the standard, and the transformational style adds to it and does not cancel it, so a leader is not asked to give up monitoring in order to become transformational.

In hiring and promotion, the first mistake takes the form of choosing a leader because of presence in the interview. Presence is closest to the idealized influence component alone, and it shows nothing of intellectual stimulation or individualized consideration. Questions that ask the candidate to describe particular past situations help here, as behavioral interview questions do, because they ask about an action that took place and not about the picture the speaker presents of himself or herself.

When transformational leadership is not enough

The style adds what firmness and accountability alone do not add, and it does not replace them. An organisation with routine tasks governed by clear procedures may need monitoring and discipline before inspiration. A leader can also direct the energy of followers towards a harmful end, because the style describes how a leader influences and not whether the purpose is sound. The purpose to which a leader calls is therefore examined together with the leader’s style, and it is not enough that followers are enthusiastic.

Transformational leadership also needs time. It rests on trust built through repeated action, and it is not produced by an announcement or a short training course, so one speech cannot be expected to transform a team in a week.

Measuring transformational leadership and estimating its effect

In the sources we reviewed, we found no figure for the effect of transformational leadership on team performance. Claims in articles that productivity rises or turnover falls by stated percentages should be asked for their source before they are accepted.

The style is measured with a questionnaire answered by followers or by the leader, and one instrument used for this is the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. A questionnaire result is an estimate of behaviour and not a direct observation of it, and a leader’s estimate of himself or herself may differ from the team’s estimate. An organisation that relies on a measure of this kind ties its reading to who answered and does not take a single number as the truth about the leader.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.