The Notion of Transformational Leadership,

The notion of transformational leadership, first developed by James MacGregor Burns in 1978, has become the subject of great debate and discussion in academic and corporate circles. While management scholars may disagree on the exact definition of transformational leadership, and what exactly it means to be a transformational leader, there does appear to be some consensus that transformational leading involves bringing an organization to a higher level of performance by selling a vision that appeals to organizational and staff values (Boje, 2000). Transformational leadership has been credited with success at companies such as Apple, Chrysler and Disney, and companies regularly seek charismatic executives who have the potential to be transformational leaders (Yukl and Howell, 1999). But in order to truly appreciate the effect of transformational leadership, we must be able to measure its results. As the saying in business goes, anything worth doing is worth measuring. This, of course, raises the question of how best to measure the effects of transformational leadership. Researchers often have relied on observational case studies and quantitative survey instruments in an effort to study transformational leadership, and both strategies have advantages and drawbacks. Determining the best practice for studying transformational leadership will ultimately require a three-step approach: 1) Developing a consensus definition of transformational leadership, so we understand what exactly needs to be measured. 2) Reviewing case-study research to asses relative strengths and weaknesses; and 3) Analyzing quantitative studies of transformational leadership to determine how they function as a measurement tool. By conducting this three-step process, we learn that transformational leadership involves a series of components that are not always easily measured by both research methods, and that, ultimately, the best research practice would combine elements of case-baed and quantitative study.

Defining transformational leadership While Burns may be credited as a founder of transformational leadership, and, indeed, he was first to use and define the term, he was strongly influenced by the earlier writings of Max Weber (Boje, 2000). In publications that appeared in the first half of the 20th century, Weber began to explore what he considered to be the three types of leaders -- bureaucratic, traditional and charismatic. The bureaucratic leader relies on a system of rules and transactional measures, such as compensation, to lead his or her followers. The traditional leader, such as a king or queen, relies on a historically-based claim to leadership. The charismatic leader, however, commands the respect and admiration of his or her followers, who believe in the leader's vision. Weber's charismatic leader is the antithesis of the bureaucratic leader, and advocates a higher moral purpose. Building on Weber's theory, Burns (1978) developed a concept based on transactional and transformational leaders. Transactional leaders, like Weber's bureaucrats, see loyalty as something that is acquired through a transaction. For example, an organization's employees become loyal in exchange for salaries and benefits. The transformational leader, similar to Weber's charismatic leader, develops loyalty by seeking out the followers' needs, engaging them, and motivating the followers toward a higher purpose. While Burns acknowledged that people in power can be moral and amoral, he believed a leader must necessarily be moral in order to be considered transformational. Burns considered leaders such as John Kennedy, Martin Luther and Mao Tse Tung to be transformational leaders, because people followed these leaders based on their charisma, vision and sense of moral purpose. Bernard Bass, diverging somewhat from Weber and Burns, did not envision a separation between transactional and transformational leadership that could not be breached (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1998 and "Bass transformational," No date). Rather, Bass contended that good leaders needed to be both transformational and transactional. For example, Bass believed a transformational leader needed to be able to result to transactional methods to augment his or her leadership strategy, particularly if purely transformational methods were not completely effective (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1998 and Homrig, 2001). Bass was also less stringent on the moral component of transformational leadership envisioned by Burns and Weber. He contended that followers will not typically adopt a leader's values wholesale, but, instead, will make good-faith efforts to implement a leader's vision without necessarily altering their own value structure (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1998 and Homrig, 2001). This, of course, may not be a fair criticism of Burns' who, in fact, does state that transformational leaders should understand and appeal to the value system of their followers. However, it is fair to say that value systems can range across an organization, and Bass is correct that buy-in may always be something less than total. It is important to note that Bass still believes that transformational leaders rely on a values-based vision to lead followers through great chance ("Bass transformational," No date). However, his definition of transformational leadership incorporates the notion that transformational leaders can turn to transactional methods, which may even be necessary if followers' values can not be universally engaged. Many scholars have offered expanded interpretations of transformational leadership. Lynn Ballster Liontos (1992) offers practical strategies that she claims are a necessary part of transformational leadership, such as creating a collaborative atmosphere, offering staff development, and helping staff solve problems. The end product, Liontos claims, should be improved staff morale and the leader's heightened influence on staff and how they do their jobs. Liontos also subscribes to the notion that a leader must sell a vision with a higher purpose, and that transformational leaders must sometimes incorporate transactional methods. Elizabeth Lolly (1996), similar to Liontos, focuses on building a collaborative effort and giving employees the resources and support to succeed. Transformational leaders, in Lolly's model, provide a vision and a clear understanding of organizational goals. From there, leaders encourage the fulfillment of their visions by fostering collaboration and encouraging risk-taking, so long as it supports the organization's mission. Also, leaders provide ongoing development opportunities and coaching -- they do not reside in an ivory tower, preaching values, but rather provide support to help employees implement the leader's vision. Further, transformational leaders maintain their legitimacy by practicing what they preach, and are seen by followers as standard bearers of the organization's vision and goals. While the notion of transformational leadership has evolved over time, there are some characteristics that are arguably universal. For example, if we want to gauge the impact of transformational leadership at an organization, we ought to be able to measure the following things: * Vision: Has the leader communicated a clear vision of transformation to employees, and is that vision more or less universally understood? * Values: Is the organizational vision values-based to some degree, and is there an effort to engage employees through their own value structure? * Loyalty: Does the organization rely mainly on transactional methods to earn loyalty from followers, or is a good deal of their loyalty based on their belief in the leader and his or her vision? While Bass and others may contend that transformational leaders occasionally need to turn to transactional methods, an organization that relies mainly on these methods is arguably not engaging in transformational leadership. * Environment: Does the organization support collaborative work and offer training, support, and encouraged risk-taking to help the organization achieve its mission? As we consider whether case studies or quantitative research best measure the impact of transformational leadership, we will look at several studies and how effectively they have been able to measure these four criteria.

Case studies There have been a number of case studies that have looked at the role of transformational leadership in several organizations. These studies often rely on interviews and the personal observations and interpretations of the researchers. A good example of a case study on transformational leadership is Ed Gubman's (2006) analysis of Motorola's attempts to improve its supply chain. When Ed Zander became CEO in 2004, he learned that Motorola's autonomous business groups were cooperating poorly, which was negatively impacting the company's global supply chain. Zander decided to use the principles of transformational leadership to begin getting Motorola employees to think like a team. Gubman's (2006) case study is able to measure the presence of some of the key components of transformational leadership. He noted the presence of vision, which was Zander's "One Motorola" plan, designed to get disparate business groups to understand they were part of the same family. Zander's vision also was somewhat values based, focusing on the notions of teamwork, idea sharing, and the desire for Motorola to be the leader in its field. Also, Gubman finds evidence that Zander built a corporate culture to encourage transformational change. Committees that included employees and senior managers were formed, Zander developed an e-mail account where employees could communicate with him directly, and a company was hired to train employees on best practices for supply chain management. The weakness of Gubman's (2006) case study is that it does not really measure employee loyalty or the source of that loyalty. Gubman presents evidence that transformational strategies were used to build loyalty, such as recognition programs and the opportunity to communicate with senior managers directly. However, Gubman fails to measure the degree to which employees felt loyal to the company, or whether their loyaly had even increased under Zander. While the case study approach would have allowed Gubman to interview employees on their degree of loyalty, one is left to wonder whether a few selective interviews, which would be in line with the case study format, would allow Gubman to make any generalizations about a company with thousands of employees, like Motorola. Stephen Denning (2005) also attempts to measure the effects of transformational leadership through a case study approach of IBM's e- business strategy in the 1990s. Denning demonstrates how the idea of Internet business actually originated from a low-level IBM engineer, who was able to get access to and convince corporate leadership, including CEO Lou Gerstner. Company management eventually supported the idea and launched what became a multi-billion-dollar business unit. Denning (2005) is able to demonstrate various components of transformational leadership in his research. For example, he demonstrates a vision that originated from employees and was eventually disseminated by management -- a practice encouraged by Burns and Bass. The vision was developed around the value of IBM being an innovation leader that was responsive to employee ideas and customers' changing needs. Denning further demonstrates that the IBM corporate culture allowed the engineer, and those who supported him, to take risks in support of IBM's strategic vision, which clearly led to amazing results. But Denning's research, like Gubman's, struggles to measure the role that employee loyalty played in IBM's eventual success. Did IBM employees embrace e-business because Gerstner sold them on the vision and the values, or simply because they were told what to do? Until we can measure loyalty and the source of that loyalty, we can't fully assess whether leaders are succeeding through charisma and transformational abilities, or because of a more traditional power structure where employees follow the leader simply because of tradition or because they are paid to do so. While IBM was already a powerful company before transformational leadership helped create its e-business initiative, Marvin O'Quinn and Kimberly Comer Mulqueen (2007) present a case study of an organization that was facing financial ruin before using transformational strategies to stage a turnaround. The Jackson Health System in Miami-Dade County posted an $85 million loss in 2004 before the CEO used transformational leadership to help all company employees focus on financial improvement without sacrificing patient care. The vision was spelled out to employees through a program called "reCreate Jackson," and although the program goals were largely driven by financial considerations, organizational leadership was able to tap into employee values by focusing on workplace pride and the importance of each individual employee to Jackson's mission. O'Quinn and Mulqueen (2007) also demonstrate how Jackson management created a supportive environment by organizing collaborative workplace teams that could suggest improvements and manage projects. By involving all employees in the turnaround process, management hoped to secure employee buy-in and loyalty to the plan. While the results were impressive -- Jackson posted a $10 million surplus the following year - O'Quinn and Mulqueen are unable to provide beyond a surface, anecdotal level any indication of how employees felt about Jackson management and to what degree their values aligned with management's. There was a clear attempt to develop employee loyalty using methods associated with transformational leadership, but the case study is unable to probe in a meaningful way how the employees felt as a group. In fact, the tendency to focus on the actions of management and the eventual results of management initiatives is common in case studies of transformational leadership. It is a flaw in other studies, such as Eddie Corbin's (2005) case study of transformational leadership in West Indies cricket and Paul Joyce's (2004) analysis of the turnaround of a public authority in Britain. Quite simply, it is easier for case studies to focus on a limited group, such as managers, than a larger group, such as employees, particularly when organizations have a significant number of workers. But transformational leadership depends a great deal on employee perception and why employees follow managers. Therefore, meaningful measurement of employee attitudes, beyond a few interviews, is critical for assessing the impact, or existence, of transformational leadership in an organization.

Quantitative studies A number of quantitative studies have been conducted to assess the presence and effectiveness of transformational leadership at organizations. These studies often use random samples of employees and managers, and statistical analysis techniques that range from simple averages to regressions, ANOVA, chi squares and more. While this offers some advantages over case study research, there are some significant drawbacks as well. Quantitative research, which allows researchers to survey several subjects and analyze the results, arguably can provide a more thorough look at employee perceptions in transformational environments than case studies. For example, a quantitative study by Charles R. Emery and Katherine J. Barker (2007) looked at the effects of both transactional and transformational leadership techniques on customer contact personnel. Emery and Barker surveyed nearly 300 bank tellers and approximately 100 food- store workers on issues such as job satisfaction, and performed a correlation analysis on the data. The study was valuable because it quantified the importance of transformational leadership from the employees' perspective. For example, there was a high correlation between employees who were satisfied at their jobs and employees who said their managers were charismatic and that their jobs offered intellectual stimulation and individual consideration, which are components of the Burns and Bass models of transformational leadership. The fact that other components of transformational leadership, such as whether employees identified with the management vision and whether work environments facilitated support and collaboration, were omitted by Emery and Barker (2007) indicates a weakness of the quantitative method. Quite simply, researchers can only answer what they ask. The quantitative method is more rigid than the case study approach, which allows for open-ended questions and interviews where subjects may reveal information the researchers had not considered. While components of transformational leadership, such as vision, can be difficult to quantify, researchers have made interesting and somewhat successful attempts. Research by Naresh Khatri, et.al. (1999) investigated how employees view and respond to vision and charisma from their leaders. Khatri, et.al. surveyed 455 employees at 10 different organizations in Singapore and performed multiple regression and factor analysis on the data. The research showed that leaders who connected with employee values were often widely respected, and were assigned other positive traits, such as being "expert" or "analytical." Interesting enough, the research by Khatri, et.al. showed that transformational leadership is not always occurring, despite what managers may believe. For example, respondents indicated that they viewed charisma and vision very differently, and that they did not always consider charismatic leaders as competent, nor did they always believe that visionary leaders connected with employees effectively. In short, the research by Khatri et.al. quantified how critical employee buy-in is to the existence of genuine transformational leadership in a workplace. Simply because a leader may be implementing some of the tenets of transformational leadership, such as charisma and vision, does not mean the employees are coming along for the ride. It is easy to see how a case study that looked at only the leader's perspective could conclude that transformational leadership was occurring, when really it was not. Research by Ruey-Gwo Chung and Chieh-Ling Lo (2007) also demonstrated the need to consider employee perception when analyzing transformational leadership, and how organizations can appear very differently to outside observers. Chung and Lo surveyed 77 employees and volunteers from non- profit organizations, using Bass' Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. The study found that employees trended toward rating their organizations as low transformational, while volunteers, who may not be exposed to the organizations on a daily basis, rated them as high transformational. It is easy to imagine how a case study researcher could make the same type of miscalculation. Interesting enough, Chung and Lo (2007) discovered that employees were more likely to regard female leaders as transformational, and male leaders as transactional. Employees also assigned a higher level of reliability to leaders that used transformational techniques. The weakness of the Chung and Lo research is that it was unable to provide information on how vision was communicated and adopted by employees, and how specific value appeal and support systems facilitated buy-in. Again, the downfall of quantitative studies is that they can only provide insight on the questions that were asked in the survey instrument. The facts that Chung and Lo missed would very likely be included in a case study analysis where observation was used.