Although a detailed review is beyond the scope of this dissertation, a brief historical perspective is called for, in order to convey how transformational leadership does hold interest for students, scholars, and practitioners alike. As Bass and Riggio (2006) expound, its emphasis on intrinsic motivation — and the positive development of turning followers into leaders — represents a more appealing perspective towards leading people compared to the more frigid exchanges of transactional leadership. Thus, transformational leadership allows for a more human developmental approach (Bass, 1990). This suits the youth sport domain. Moreover, this is prevalent within a variety of workplaces around the globe today, where environments are
present with people not only seeking inspirational leaders to help guide them, but who also want to be challenge and developed in meaningful ways (e.g. Cascio, 1995).
From its original inception, leadership scholars exchanged offerings in what typified effective leaders — what came to the forefront of discussion — was that some sort of ‘transaction’
routine occurred. An exchange or compensation for a desired behavior became a noticeable theme emerging from numerous studies on leadership throughout the years (e.g. Podsakoff &
Schriescheim 1985; Bass & Riggio, 2006). The idea of an exchange is used as ‘contingent reward’ (CR), meaning a reward which is subject to change is implicitly used to direct some kind of behavior that is desirable and agreed upon by both leader-and-follower. In most cases, this type of leadership is pronounced with reasonable, and effective results (e.g. Homans, 1950;
Avolio & Bass, 1991).
According to Riggio and Bass (2006), contingent reward is used as an external motivator for followers while transactional leaders display correcting behaviors either before or while mistakes are occurring (i.e. management by exception-active, MBE-A). In addition, transactional leadership includes conveying a more passive approach — as the term goes “If it isn’t broke don’t fix it” — which refers to passive behaviors (i.e. management by exception-passive, MBE-P). However, as Levinson (1980) argues, if you limit leadership to a reward and corrective punishment ritual, despite having — agreed upon ‘transactional’ objectives — self-worth and true commitment (internal motivation) for followers to engage will plateau in the long run.
If we go deeper — Downton (1973) was the first to conceptualize the variances noticed amongst transactional leaders — differences were seen amongst various revolutionary, rebellious, reform, and ordinary type of leaders, all of whom were capable of getting results.
However, it was not until Burns’ influential book Leadership (1978) that the concept of
‘transforming leadership’ was introduced to the discussion. It was the harbinger of change that precipitated numerous studies — and the refinement of what is referred to today — as authentic transformational leadership (Bass & Riggio, 2006). Burns postulated that most leaders fall somewhere between transactional and transformational. The roots were beginning to grow back then, as Burns argued that political leaders are transactional in their approach. They can be seen promising citizens, colleagues or political constituents favors in return (exchange) for their votes. Yet, this does not explain how other leaders have such a transformational effect, such as being able to lead their followers to heightened levels of awareness, inspiration, and
motivation. For example, some raise their followers’ interest where values become deeply expressed through action by an entire group (both good and bad). Certainly, these types of leaders have concrete strategies to achieve their own ends, and a strong basis of transactional leadership skill-sets do help.
If we try to divorce the two — transactional and transformational — the latter goes beyond the former by encouraging followers to put aside their self-interests for the good of the group (e.g.
Bass & Avolio, 1995; 2000). They do this in varied ways — encouraging autonomy, affiliation, and self-improvement through team-related objectives — all of which transcend egotistical drivers for the greater importance of the collective vision. While transactional leaders offer rewards for specified measures of productivity or deny them on the basis of not fulfilling set criteria — transformational leaders — stimulate and inspire their followers to achieve exceptional outcomes that also develop their individual leadership skills along the way (Bass
& Riggio, 2006). This is a fundamental principle of transformational leadership — developing the future leaders of tomorrow. Now, could this be a bad thing? Let’s take the devil’s advocate perspective and assume the leader has malicious intent — could he or she inspire their followers to achieve extraordinary things? Yes, they can.
Therefore, it is important to note that although transformational leaders are all charismatic, the conceptualization first envisioned by Burns (1978) found it hard to diverge a path between charismatic and transforming leadership. By defining charisma — compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others — this also means that transformational leaders could be stretched to encompass those leaders that have wreaked havoc on the world (e.g. Hitler, Stalin, etc.). As McClelland (1975) posits, charismatic leadership can be based on personal dominance with authoritative behavior — serving the interests of the individual or a specific group — which allows these leaders to gain followers through inspiring and motivating them to help exploit individuals or groups that are in their way.
However, to clarify the difference between transformational and charismatic leadership is not to claim that charisma is a bad trait, although the lead facilitator of this study is not ignorant to the fact that it has been used to achieve ill-intentioned means. So, to pave the way for ideal charismatic leadership requires introducing the four components of TFL theory. According to Bass and Riggio (2006) the distinction between the two (transformational and charismatic) is that the former is distinguished by representing an ideal leader — one who shows individual
consideration and concern for their followers. Therefore, this paper refers to the authentic, genuine transformational leader, and not the pseudo type.