Structural Validity Of Abraham Lincoln As A Transformational Leader
“In order to win a man to your cause, you must first reach his heart, the great high road to his reason.” Abraham Lincoln (cited in Crowley, M (2001)
As one of the most successful transformational leaders in political history, Abraham Lincoln inspired loyalty and willingness for self-sacrifice among his followers by raising their level of motivation through the development of a shared vision, morality, loyalty, trust and communication.—as evidenced by changing their attitudes toward emancipation of the slaves. (Crowley, M .2001)
There are many leadership styles that are not as altruistic as the one adopted by Lincoln such as authoritarian, autocratic models aimed at increasing productivity in a top down, power driven relationship …show more content…
dynamic. As microcosms of society, school administrations often took on a similar role through the implementation of hegemonic hierarchical models of leadership. However, in 1980’s the education system was forced to restructure and adapt to meet the changing needs of a world of high technology, reduced budgets, changing demographics at schools, demands created by centralized curriculum and assessment policies (Dommock, 1995; Leithwood, 1994, 1996; Leithwood, Jantzi & Steinbach,1999). Consequently, many education administrators began to transform their schools into authentically democratic institutions based on a shared vision, empowerment and mutual growth to increase teaching and learning outcomes (Leithwood,1992). ). “As times change, what works for leaders changes also”(Stone, Patterson 2005).
In the ever increasing complexity of social, corporate and educational reform it can be argued that the only sustainable leadership is one that collaboratively builds the capacity of and value adds to the holistic and moral development of all members of school communities to improve teaching and learning outcomes. The leadership model which is commensurate with this description is Transformational Leadership.
Downtown (1973), as cited in Barnett, McCormick & Connor, (2001) initiated the transformational leadership movement. A number of researchers expanded on Downton’s theory finding that a transformational leader engages with and empowers followers through shared purposeful altruistic, supportive and mutually beneficial relationships in an effort to transcend self-interest for the greater good of the organisation. (Engelbrcht & Murray, 1995; McGregor, Burns 1978; Leithwood, Jantzi & Steinbach 1999).
In order to transcend ones self-interest and increase productivity, Maslow (1959) posited that all individuals have a hierarchical set of needs which must to be met such as physical, security, social and self-actualizing (extrinsic) . This is quite opposite from the traditional power model as the leaders needs and goals are inseparable from the followers’ (Burns, 1978; Engelbrcht & Murray, 1995; Stone, G. Patterson, K . 2005)
Burns (1978), claimed that when the leader and follower share a mutually beneficial vision they are able to transcends short-term goals and exchanges (transactions) to create long term positive changes (transformations) within the school. “The full range of leadership” is a theory Burns (1978) created to explain the interrelationship between transactional and transformational relationships. He argued that they were distinct dimensional constructs at opposite ends of the continuum and are thus inter-related. In contrast to Burns, Bass (1995) argued that transformational and transactional leadership are separate concepts, and further argued that the most effective leaders are both transactional and transformational.
Transactional leadership takes place when individual exchange valued financial, political and or psychological goods. Upon completion of the transaction the relationship ends and there is no charged long term goal or vision (Barnett, 2003; Bryant, 2003, Gellis, 2001).This is in contrast to transformational leadership which goes beyond exchanging ‘rewards’ for performance by facilitating first order change (transactional) which the leader builds upon through stimulation and inspiration to assist followers to transcend their own self-interest in favour a achieving the schools vision thus creating higher order (transformational) change ”(Howekk & Avolio, 1993; Kuhner & Lewis 1987, Leithwood 1994).
Bass (1995) provided a model of transformational leadership comprising of four inter-related dimensions of leadership practice (four I’s); idealized influence (charisma), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualised consideration, and aspirational motivation. Three transactional dimensions were also included; contingent reward, management-by-exception, and laissez-faire. Avilio and Bass (1991) substituted idealized influence for charisma as a person can display visionary influence without exhibiting a charismatic personality. As the transformational leadership movement gained popularity, researchers needed a way to objectively measure the success of the approach.
In 1985 Bass devised the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), which is an instrument intended to measure transformational and transactional leader behaviours (Yukl, 1999). Sceptics argued that the four main elements of transformational theory (idealized influence/charisma, inspirational, motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration) are not sufficiently distinct to form a unique genre and therefore cannot be classified as separate from other leadership theories (Northouse, 2007).
Leithwood (1994) found that in order for transformational leadership to be successful, leaders need to create goals for their work and inspire higher levels of commitment to the schools’ vision while simultaneously building capacity within staff through aligned professional development experiences to assist the attainment of increased student outcomes and the fruition of the school vision. The Leithwood model of transformational leadership in education focused on; building school vision, establishing school goals, providing intellectual stimulation, offering individualised support, modelling best practices and important organisational values, demonstrating high performance expectations, creating a productive school culture and developing structures to foster participation in school decisions.
Another model for transformational leadership was created by Sergioovanni (1984) who devised four key dimensions to leadership; technical leadership, humanistic leadership, educational leadership, symbolic leadership and cultural leadership. The utilisation of technical leadership, human’s leadership; educational leadership can create effective schools. However, symbolic leadership and cultural leadership will value-add by going beyond effective and to excellence though purposefully working together towards common higher level goals.
There have been a number of researchers who dispute the validity and success of transformational leadership. Gronn (1996; 1995) found fundamental flaws in many of the models of transformational leadership arguing that; other leadership styles had been categorised as only transactional, insufficient research on the effectiveness of transformational leadership, weak links between transformational leadership and teaching and learning outcomes and subjective methods of follower-leadership development. He argued that schools were becoming ‘greedy’ institutions which are results driven. The attainment of and pressure to achieve these high results requires a role expansion for all members of the school creating problems such as illness, ‘burn out’ and ‘workaholism’.
Another concern was raised by Bass & Riggio, 2006 who commented on the potential ‘pseudo- transformational’ leaders who use their charismatic personality (idealised influence) to persuade people towards destructive and selfish acts. In this case, leadership is unauthentic and personalised with no moral compass as opposed to socialized and transparent. Carlson and Perrewe, 1995 stated that unauthentic transformational leadership has the ability to socialize individuals into an a-moral culture.
Bass (1997) elaborated on his concerns regarding transformational leadership arguing that consistent transparency can maintain moral foundations and reduce the tendency to autocratic rule. While Griffin (2003) held a similar view arguing that authentic transformational leadership can be attained but only through a strong commitment to the values of honesty, loyalty, equity and justice.
This raises the questions of morality in transformational leadership theory and it’s practical application. In schools and organisations transformational leaders work collaboratively with individuals to create vision and direction based on shared moral beliefs. Many researchers have questioned the integrity of this process through the potential conflicting moral beliefs of diverse members in the group and the final decision about whose morals will apply and how the decision will be fairly mediated (Stone, Russell and Patterson, 2003; Griffin, 2003; Yukl, 1989. Turner et al. (2002), found that authentic transformational leaders fostered the development of moral reasoning based on universal principles rather than self-interest.
This type of authentic leadership is what researchers describe as transforming. The word ‘transformation’ implies some type of change or transcendence. When used in an educational setting it is often difficult to objectively measure ‘change’ as it is not always as simple as new building or school logo. There are more significant social and cultural transformations (changes) that occur in school structure but more importantly within the members of the school community. A key criterion to transformation within school members is the transcendence to a higher stage of moral development (Burns 1978)
In conclusion, current literature highlights the acknowledgement among researchers that transformational leadership is an effective leadership style to meet today’s complex educational climate of reform (Leithwood,1994).This paper provides a detailed analysis of the current literature and highlights the differences between leadership styles over recent years as well as the components of transformational leadership. Leithwood (1990; 1992) found that transformational leadership is conducive to school success and has an overall positive affect on school culture and outcomes. However, future research on many aspects of this style of leadership are necessary to validate it’s appropriateness within schools. One particular area which could be examined is idealized influence (charisma) and how a school can create a vision based on universal morals and the objectivity of the process. References
Bass & Stogdill (1997).Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research & Managerial Applications. New York: Free Press.
Bass & Riggio (2006) Transformational Leadership; Second Edition. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Barnett, A. (2003, November). The impact of transformational leadership style of the school principal on school learning environments and selected teacher outcomes: A preliminary report.
Paper presented at NZARE AARE, Auckland, New Zealand.
Bennett, Tepper, Paul & Percy (1999). Structural Validity of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. Educational and Psychological Measurement 1994 54: 734
Burns, J. M. (1978) Leadership. New York: Harper & Row
Bryant, E. (2003).The role of transformational and transactional leadership in creating, sharing and exploiting organizational knowledge. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 9(4), 32-44.
Carlson, S & Perrewe, L.(1995). Institutionalization of organizational ethics through transformational leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 14(10), pp. 829-839.
Crowley, M (2001). The Heart: Transformational Leadership for The 21st Century. Bloomington: Balboa Press.
Dimmock, C. (1995). School leadership: Securing quality teaching and learning. In C. Evers & J. Chapman (Eds.), Educational Administration: An Australian perspective. (pp. 274-295). St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin.
Engelbrecht, S & Murray, D. (1995).The influence of leader-subordinate work value congruence on the performance and satisfaction outcomes of transactional and transformational leaders. Binghamton, NY: Binghamton
University.
Gellis, Z. D. (2001). Social work perceptions of transformational and transactional leadership in health care. Social Work Research, 25(1), 17-25.
Gronn, P. (1996). From transactions to transformations: a new world order in the study of leadership. Educational Management and Administration, 24(1), pp. 7-30.
Hall, Johnson, Wysocki & Kepner (2002).Transformational Leadership: The Transformation of Managers and Associates. Retrieved March 26, 2013, from http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/hr/hr02000.pdf
Howell, J & Avolio B. (1993).Transformational leadership, transactional leadership, locus of control, and support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78(6), 891-893.
Judge, T & Piccolo,R (2004) Transformational and Transactional Leadership: A Meta-Analytic Test of Their Relative Validity Journal of Applied 2004, Vol. 89, No. 5, 755–768
Leithwood, K & Jantzi, D (1990) "Transformational Leadership: How Principals Can Help School Cultures." Paper presented at annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies: British Columbia
Leithwood, K & Jantzi, D. (2006). Transformational school leadership for large-scale reform: Effects on students, teachers and their classroom practices. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 17(2), 201-227.
Leithwood, K. (1994). Leadership for school restructuring. Educational Administration Quarterly, 30(4), 498-518.
Leithwood, K. (1992). The move toward transformational leadership. Educational Leadership, 49(5), 8-13.
Stone, A.G., Russell, R.F., & Patterson, K. (2003). Transformational versus servant leadership – a difference in leader focus. Servant Leadership Roundtable. Retrieved April 2, 2013 from http://www.regent.edu/acad/cls/2003servantleadershiproundtable/stone.pdf
Griffith, S (2007) Servant Leadership, Ethics and the Domains of Leadership. Servant Leadership Research Roundtable. Retrieved April 2, 2013 from http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/sl_proceedings/2007/griffith.pdf
Turner, J, Barling, O, Epitropaki, V, Butcher & Milner, C (2002).Transformational Leadership and Moral Reasoning’, Journal of Applied Psychology 87, 304–311.
Yukl, A. (1989). Leadership in Organizations (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
As one of the most successful transformational leaders in political history, Abraham Lincoln inspired loyalty and willingness for self-sacrifice among his followers by raising their level of motivation through the development of a shared vision, morality, loyalty, trust and communication.—as evidenced by changing their attitudes toward emancipation of the slaves. (Crowley, M .2001)
There are many leadership styles that are not as altruistic as the one adopted by Lincoln such as authoritarian, autocratic models aimed at increasing productivity in a top down, power driven relationship …show more content…
dynamic. As microcosms of society, school administrations often took on a similar role through the implementation of hegemonic hierarchical models of leadership. However, in 1980’s the education system was forced to restructure and adapt to meet the changing needs of a world of high technology, reduced budgets, changing demographics at schools, demands created by centralized curriculum and assessment policies (Dommock, 1995; Leithwood, 1994, 1996; Leithwood, Jantzi & Steinbach,1999). Consequently, many education administrators began to transform their schools into authentically democratic institutions based on a shared vision, empowerment and mutual growth to increase teaching and learning outcomes (Leithwood,1992). ). “As times change, what works for leaders changes also”(Stone, Patterson 2005).
In the ever increasing complexity of social, corporate and educational reform it can be argued that the only sustainable leadership is one that collaboratively builds the capacity of and value adds to the holistic and moral development of all members of school communities to improve teaching and learning outcomes. The leadership model which is commensurate with this description is Transformational Leadership.
Downtown (1973), as cited in Barnett, McCormick & Connor, (2001) initiated the transformational leadership movement. A number of researchers expanded on Downton’s theory finding that a transformational leader engages with and empowers followers through shared purposeful altruistic, supportive and mutually beneficial relationships in an effort to transcend self-interest for the greater good of the organisation. (Engelbrcht & Murray, 1995; McGregor, Burns 1978; Leithwood, Jantzi & Steinbach 1999).
In order to transcend ones self-interest and increase productivity, Maslow (1959) posited that all individuals have a hierarchical set of needs which must to be met such as physical, security, social and self-actualizing (extrinsic) . This is quite opposite from the traditional power model as the leaders needs and goals are inseparable from the followers’ (Burns, 1978; Engelbrcht & Murray, 1995; Stone, G. Patterson, K . 2005)
Burns (1978), claimed that when the leader and follower share a mutually beneficial vision they are able to transcends short-term goals and exchanges (transactions) to create long term positive changes (transformations) within the school. “The full range of leadership” is a theory Burns (1978) created to explain the interrelationship between transactional and transformational relationships. He argued that they were distinct dimensional constructs at opposite ends of the continuum and are thus inter-related. In contrast to Burns, Bass (1995) argued that transformational and transactional leadership are separate concepts, and further argued that the most effective leaders are both transactional and transformational.
Transactional leadership takes place when individual exchange valued financial, political and or psychological goods. Upon completion of the transaction the relationship ends and there is no charged long term goal or vision (Barnett, 2003; Bryant, 2003, Gellis, 2001).This is in contrast to transformational leadership which goes beyond exchanging ‘rewards’ for performance by facilitating first order change (transactional) which the leader builds upon through stimulation and inspiration to assist followers to transcend their own self-interest in favour a achieving the schools vision thus creating higher order (transformational) change ”(Howekk & Avolio, 1993; Kuhner & Lewis 1987, Leithwood 1994).
Bass (1995) provided a model of transformational leadership comprising of four inter-related dimensions of leadership practice (four I’s); idealized influence (charisma), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualised consideration, and aspirational motivation. Three transactional dimensions were also included; contingent reward, management-by-exception, and laissez-faire. Avilio and Bass (1991) substituted idealized influence for charisma as a person can display visionary influence without exhibiting a charismatic personality. As the transformational leadership movement gained popularity, researchers needed a way to objectively measure the success of the approach.
In 1985 Bass devised the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), which is an instrument intended to measure transformational and transactional leader behaviours (Yukl, 1999). Sceptics argued that the four main elements of transformational theory (idealized influence/charisma, inspirational, motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration) are not sufficiently distinct to form a unique genre and therefore cannot be classified as separate from other leadership theories (Northouse, 2007).
Leithwood (1994) found that in order for transformational leadership to be successful, leaders need to create goals for their work and inspire higher levels of commitment to the schools’ vision while simultaneously building capacity within staff through aligned professional development experiences to assist the attainment of increased student outcomes and the fruition of the school vision. The Leithwood model of transformational leadership in education focused on; building school vision, establishing school goals, providing intellectual stimulation, offering individualised support, modelling best practices and important organisational values, demonstrating high performance expectations, creating a productive school culture and developing structures to foster participation in school decisions.
Another model for transformational leadership was created by Sergioovanni (1984) who devised four key dimensions to leadership; technical leadership, humanistic leadership, educational leadership, symbolic leadership and cultural leadership. The utilisation of technical leadership, human’s leadership; educational leadership can create effective schools. However, symbolic leadership and cultural leadership will value-add by going beyond effective and to excellence though purposefully working together towards common higher level goals.
There have been a number of researchers who dispute the validity and success of transformational leadership. Gronn (1996; 1995) found fundamental flaws in many of the models of transformational leadership arguing that; other leadership styles had been categorised as only transactional, insufficient research on the effectiveness of transformational leadership, weak links between transformational leadership and teaching and learning outcomes and subjective methods of follower-leadership development. He argued that schools were becoming ‘greedy’ institutions which are results driven. The attainment of and pressure to achieve these high results requires a role expansion for all members of the school creating problems such as illness, ‘burn out’ and ‘workaholism’.
Another concern was raised by Bass & Riggio, 2006 who commented on the potential ‘pseudo- transformational’ leaders who use their charismatic personality (idealised influence) to persuade people towards destructive and selfish acts. In this case, leadership is unauthentic and personalised with no moral compass as opposed to socialized and transparent. Carlson and Perrewe, 1995 stated that unauthentic transformational leadership has the ability to socialize individuals into an a-moral culture.
Bass (1997) elaborated on his concerns regarding transformational leadership arguing that consistent transparency can maintain moral foundations and reduce the tendency to autocratic rule. While Griffin (2003) held a similar view arguing that authentic transformational leadership can be attained but only through a strong commitment to the values of honesty, loyalty, equity and justice.
This raises the questions of morality in transformational leadership theory and it’s practical application. In schools and organisations transformational leaders work collaboratively with individuals to create vision and direction based on shared moral beliefs. Many researchers have questioned the integrity of this process through the potential conflicting moral beliefs of diverse members in the group and the final decision about whose morals will apply and how the decision will be fairly mediated (Stone, Russell and Patterson, 2003; Griffin, 2003; Yukl, 1989. Turner et al. (2002), found that authentic transformational leaders fostered the development of moral reasoning based on universal principles rather than self-interest.
This type of authentic leadership is what researchers describe as transforming. The word ‘transformation’ implies some type of change or transcendence. When used in an educational setting it is often difficult to objectively measure ‘change’ as it is not always as simple as new building or school logo. There are more significant social and cultural transformations (changes) that occur in school structure but more importantly within the members of the school community. A key criterion to transformation within school members is the transcendence to a higher stage of moral development (Burns 1978)
In conclusion, current literature highlights the acknowledgement among researchers that transformational leadership is an effective leadership style to meet today’s complex educational climate of reform (Leithwood,1994).This paper provides a detailed analysis of the current literature and highlights the differences between leadership styles over recent years as well as the components of transformational leadership. Leithwood (1990; 1992) found that transformational leadership is conducive to school success and has an overall positive affect on school culture and outcomes. However, future research on many aspects of this style of leadership are necessary to validate it’s appropriateness within schools. One particular area which could be examined is idealized influence (charisma) and how a school can create a vision based on universal morals and the objectivity of the process. References
Bass & Stogdill (1997).Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research & Managerial Applications. New York: Free Press.
Bass & Riggio (2006) Transformational Leadership; Second Edition. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Barnett, A. (2003, November). The impact of transformational leadership style of the school principal on school learning environments and selected teacher outcomes: A preliminary report.
Paper presented at NZARE AARE, Auckland, New Zealand.
Bennett, Tepper, Paul & Percy (1999). Structural Validity of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. Educational and Psychological Measurement 1994 54: 734
Burns, J. M. (1978) Leadership. New York: Harper & Row
Bryant, E. (2003).The role of transformational and transactional leadership in creating, sharing and exploiting organizational knowledge. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 9(4), 32-44.
Carlson, S & Perrewe, L.(1995). Institutionalization of organizational ethics through transformational leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 14(10), pp. 829-839.
Crowley, M (2001). The Heart: Transformational Leadership for The 21st Century. Bloomington: Balboa Press.
Dimmock, C. (1995). School leadership: Securing quality teaching and learning. In C. Evers & J. Chapman (Eds.), Educational Administration: An Australian perspective. (pp. 274-295). St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin.
Engelbrecht, S & Murray, D. (1995).The influence of leader-subordinate work value congruence on the performance and satisfaction outcomes of transactional and transformational leaders. Binghamton, NY: Binghamton
University.
Gellis, Z. D. (2001). Social work perceptions of transformational and transactional leadership in health care. Social Work Research, 25(1), 17-25.
Gronn, P. (1996). From transactions to transformations: a new world order in the study of leadership. Educational Management and Administration, 24(1), pp. 7-30.
Hall, Johnson, Wysocki & Kepner (2002).Transformational Leadership: The Transformation of Managers and Associates. Retrieved March 26, 2013, from http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/hr/hr02000.pdf
Howell, J & Avolio B. (1993).Transformational leadership, transactional leadership, locus of control, and support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78(6), 891-893.
Judge, T & Piccolo,R (2004) Transformational and Transactional Leadership: A Meta-Analytic Test of Their Relative Validity Journal of Applied 2004, Vol. 89, No. 5, 755–768
Leithwood, K & Jantzi, D (1990) "Transformational Leadership: How Principals Can Help School Cultures." Paper presented at annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies: British Columbia
Leithwood, K & Jantzi, D. (2006). Transformational school leadership for large-scale reform: Effects on students, teachers and their classroom practices. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 17(2), 201-227.
Leithwood, K. (1994). Leadership for school restructuring. Educational Administration Quarterly, 30(4), 498-518.
Leithwood, K. (1992). The move toward transformational leadership. Educational Leadership, 49(5), 8-13.
Stone, A.G., Russell, R.F., & Patterson, K. (2003). Transformational versus servant leadership – a difference in leader focus. Servant Leadership Roundtable. Retrieved April 2, 2013 from http://www.regent.edu/acad/cls/2003servantleadershiproundtable/stone.pdf
Griffith, S (2007) Servant Leadership, Ethics and the Domains of Leadership. Servant Leadership Research Roundtable. Retrieved April 2, 2013 from http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/sl_proceedings/2007/griffith.pdf
Turner, J, Barling, O, Epitropaki, V, Butcher & Milner, C (2002).Transformational Leadership and Moral Reasoning’, Journal of Applied Psychology 87, 304–311.
Yukl, A. (1989). Leadership in Organizations (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.