Transactional and transformational leadership
Abstract - At the dawn of the twentieth
century, most organisations relied on large numbers of people working together
in the same building. The young started
at the bottom, and the most able would, with experience, become the leaders.
It worked well in the context of stable technology. The bosses could predict
future needs well
enough to make quite detailed plans, including the duties of employees. These
could be structured into career ladders, plus a pension, to
reward good workers. "Good" meant co-operative.
They didn't want bright ideas from low down the ladder. The boss looked after
good workers, and the
workers obeyed the bosses.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century,
all this has metamorphosed. Constant innovation makes experience, not irrelevant,
but in need of constant adjustment.
The good workers are no longer the quiet, co-operative ones, but those who
look ahead, spot what's coming, and adapt. This applies to organisations
as well as individuals. The static
ones will be left behind. To succeed, an organisation has to become a complex
adaptive system, operating through core principles that
nurture flexibility and innovation
Views of school leadership are changing
largely because of current restructuring initiatives and the demands of the
90s. Advocates for school reform also
usually advocate altering power relationships.
The problem, explain Douglas Mitchell
and Sharon Tucker (1992), is that we have tended to think of leadership as
the capacity to take charge and get things
done. This view keeps us from focusing
on the importance of teamwork and comprehensive school improvement. Perhaps
it is time, they say, to stop thinking
of leadership as aggressive action and more as a way of thinking--about ourselves,
our jobs, and the nature of the educational process. Thus, "instructional
leadership" is "out" and "transformational
leadership" is "in."
In this Hartwick Classic Film
Leadership Case®, a newly-appointed teacher inspires a love of poetry
and intellectual freedom among his young students at a
strict New England prep school. In
the process, however, he encounters the profound resistance of his teaching
colleagues and administrators. Students have
the opportunity to grasp how difficult it is to bring change about in entrenched
organizations, and, in addition, are encouraged to focus on alternative ways
in
which that change might be implemented.
Even more profound is the question of whether or not the change he attempts
will be good for the organization. The
case study also dramatically portrays
the differences between transactional and transformational leadership as
well as autocratic versus democratic leadership
styles.
ABSTRACT: Transformational leadership
is described as the dominant conception of leadership in education. The conception
of transformational leadership is
defined through reference to the work
of Sergiovanni (1984, 1990), Bass & Avolio (1993) and Leithwood (1994).
Recent criticisms of transformational
leadership by Gronn (1995) and Lakomski
(1995) are described. While these criticisms are useful in questioning the
relevance of transformational leadership to
education it is argued that they are
not strong enough to warrant its abandonment. Research on principals' and
teachers' perceptions of principal leadership in
schools is used to demonstrate support
for transformational leadership. It is suggested that transformational leadership
remains a valuable leadership conception
for education in the current climate,
although there are trends emerging that suggest that transformational leadership
may need to be modified in the future.
The ability to use the full range of
leadership behaviors is what separates effective from ineffective leaders.
This NebGuide explains the full range leadership
behaviors, transactional and transformational
leadership.
