Transformational women leaders in organizational contexts

Transformational Women's Leadership

The website for Changing Minds.org describes transformational leadership in the standard way, as charismatic leaders with vision and imagination who inspire followers to achieve radical change in an organization or society. Transformational leaders are passionate and exciting and they care about their followers. They make people believe that their ideals can be achieved through their own commitment, enthusiasm and drive. In the process, their followers are also transformed and empowered to do things that they would never have believed possible. This website also points out some of the dangers of transformational leadership in that when such leaders are wrong they can lead "the charge right over the cliff and into a bottomless chasm." They may also "wear out" their followers with constant demands for high energy and commitment, especially if those at the lower levels really do not desire change (Transformational Leadership 2002-11)

Legacee.com has a very extensive guide to transformational leadership, including information on such leaders in history like Queen Elizabeth I and Alexander the Great, links to other websites and reviews of books on this subject. In history, the character of transformational leaders runs the gamut from Christ and Buddha on one end of the spectrum to Hitler and Attila the Hun on the other, and they can motivate their followers to carry out great good or great evil. About the only commonality all of them have is the ability to inspire followers to change the status quo, for better or worse. In everyday life, parents, teachers and religious leaders may also have a transformational effect on their friends, relatives and communities (A Guide to Transformational Leadership 1996-2011). .

About.com Psychology also has a very general definition of transformational leadership, mentioning the work of James MacGregor Burns and Bernard M. Bass. Both of them described transformational leaders as having a positive effect on society or their organization since they are motivated by a moral vision, contrary to charismatic dictators and military leaders like Hitler who leave only destruction in their wake. Like every other article and website on this subject, this one also mentions that these leaders are creative, inspirational, intellectually challenging and opposed to the status quo.

D.M. Boje (2000) also mentions the theories of Burns and Bass, who criticized the ideas of Nietzsche and Machiavelli about charismatic leaders being amoral, authoritarian and dictatorial: this was not what they meant about transformational leadership. Boje also refers to Max Weber's concept that modern leadership was bureaucratic and legalistic (transactional) compared to traditional, feudal leadership, which was based on birth and appeals to Divine Right. Within this schema, for example, Marie Antoinette would represent feudal-traditional leadership overthrown in a revolution. Weber regarded charismatic leaders as revolutionaries, prophets and great religious teachers like Christ, Mohammed and Buddha, or heroes and Supermen with a strong Will to Power. Capitalist entrepreneurs and founders of large corporations are also more likely to fall into this category than the managers or large, well-established corporations, who will more likely be in the rational-transactional-bureaucratic mold.