James Burn’s concept of transformational leadership is in
essence a process in which “one or more persons engage with others in such a
way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation
and morality.”[1] This
includes a moral commitment to develop followers, especially morally.
To Burns, transformational leadership is therefore “an ethical,
moral enterprise.”[2] I
contend that the term transformation is
not inherently ethical, and so it can apply to leadership in an amoral sense. Freed
up from the limitations of being viewed primarily or even exclusively as moral,
transformation can be seen to apply
to leadership in at least two, much more direct—or central—ways than morally:
as referring to a leader’s own transformation and to a leader’s vision being
transformational.
Material from this essay has been incorporated in The Essence of Leadership, which is available at Amazon in print and as an ebook.
Material from this essay has been incorporated in The Essence of Leadership, which is available at Amazon in print and as an ebook.
1. James M. Burns,
J. Leadership (New York: Harper &
Row, 1978): 20.
2. Ken
W. Parry and Sarah B. Proctor-Thomson, “Perceived Integrity of Transformational
Leaders in Organizational Settings,” Journal of Business Ethics 35, no. 2
(January, 2002): 75.