TRANSFORMATIONAL/CHARISMATIC

LEADERSHIP’S TRANFORMATION OF THE

FIELD: AN HISTORICAL ESSAY

James G. (Jerry) Hunt*

Texas Tech University

I use a framework by Reichers and Schneider (1990) to explore the evolution of leadership
research across time. This analysis leads to development of the doom and gloom arguments about
the field in the 1970s and early 1980s. Transformational and charismatic leadership is discussed
as it takes off following the doom and gloom period. That takeoff is followed by revisiting the
shift to transformational/charismatic leadership and considering why some of the leading and
next-generation scholars set off in this new direction. I then link transformational/charismatic
leadership with more traditional approaches and finish with conclusions concerning forces for
change, assessing where the leadership field is currently, and providing a future assessment with
some caveats. I conclude that a crucial contribution of transformational/charismatic leadership
has been in terms of its rejuvenation of the leadership field, regardless of whatever content
contributions it has made. This rejuvenation came about because of what most would consider
a paradigm shift that has attracted numerous new scholars and moved the field as a whole out
of its doldrums.

Once I was active in the leadership field. Then I left it for about ten years.
When I returned, it was as if I had been gone only ten minutes.
Unknown leadership scholar
The heresy that I propose is that the concept of leadership itself has out-lived
its usefulness. Hence, I suggest that we abandon leadership in favor of some
other more fruitful way of cutting up the theoretical pie.
John B. Miner
(Quoted in Hunt & Larson, 1975, p. 200)

* Direct all correspondence to: James G. Hunt, Institute for Leadership Research, College of Business
Administration, Texas Tech University, 15th St. and Flint Ave., Lubbock, TX 79409; email: odjgh@ttacs.
ttu.edu.

Leadership Quarterly, 10(2), 129–144.

Copyright  1999 by Elsevier Science Inc.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
ISSN: 1048-9843
130 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 10 No. 2 1999

If leadership is bright orange, leadership research is slate gray.

(Quoted in Lombardo & McCall, 1978, p. 3)
There is a remarkable inconsistency in the logic which links the concept
of leadership to its translation to research. The general definition of leadership
is drawn from charismatic imagery, the measurement of leadership is under-
taken with technique designed to study managers or military officers, and the
stereotype . . . is rather Hollywood-like.
Henry L. Tosi, Jr.
(Quoted in Hunt, Sekaran & Schreisheim, 1982, p. 223)

For readers of Leadership Quarterly and other literature, it is hard to believe now
that not so many years ago the leadership field was increasingly characterized by
the kinds of quotes above. Indeed, to be active in the field as I was in the 1970s
and 80s was to question its survival as a serious area of academic interest. A number
of us became very concerned. First we defended it (e.g., Hunt & Larson, 1975),
but as the critical crescendo continued, we began to have doubts ourselves. Maybe
the Miner quote was right. Maybe the concept had outlived its usefulness. Could
the study of leadership wither away? Was it really, as many Europeans argued,
primarily a U.S. phenomenon, overemphasized because of our individualistic cul-
ture? For them, if explicitly considered at all, it was examined as part of broader
organizational phenomena (Hosking & Hunt, 1982; Stewart, 1982).
It is at this point that the study of transformational and charismatic leadership
came in to save the day. Indeed, I contend that a major, if not the major, contribution
of transformational and charismatic leadership has been its transformation of the
field. This transformation involves a field typified by the quotes above: rigorous,
boring, static, but most of all examining more and more inconsequential questions
and providing little value added given the plethora of published studies (upwards of
8,000 by the late 1980s; see, Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership, Bass, 1990).
The advent of transformational/charismatic leadership—including a whole host
of related leadership notions, such as visionary and change-oriented leadership,
and the like—changed all that. All of these notions are encompassed under Bryman’s
(1992) “new leadership school” or House and Aditya’s (1997) “neocharismatic
school.” We use the new leadership term interchangeably with transformational/
charismatic leadership. Indeed, such new leadership has led to what many would
consider a paradigm shift (changing world view) in the leadership field. Many able
new scholars came into the field and many new ideas from other fields were brought
in. Thus, for me, the new leadership school’s breakthrough function, in moving the
field out of its doldrums and breathing new life into it, goes beyond new leadership’s
content contributions.
Let us put this opening discussion into analytical and historical context. To do
that, I first discuss a framework by Reichers and Schneider (1990) which explores
the evolution of research and thinking about scientific constructs and argues that
such constructs have a predictable evolution. Then I use the framework to do a brief
historical analysis of the leadership field. I next tie leadership into the framework and
develop the weeping and gnashing or doom and gloom arguments of the 1970s
and early 1980s. Following these sections, I examine transformational/charismatic
Transformational/Charismatic Leadership: An Historical Essay 131

leadership as it takes off following the doom and gloom period. That takeoff is
followed by revisiting the paradigm shift and considering why some of the leading
and next-generation scholars set off in the new leadership direction. Then I show
linkages between new and various forms of traditional leadership and finish with
concluding commentary that examines forces for change, assessing where the field
is currently, and providing an assessment of the future accompanied by some caveats.

REICHERS AND SCHNEIDER’S EVOLUTION OF

CONCEPTS FRAMEWORK
The Reichers and Schneider (1990) model uses three stages of indeterminate length
to illustrate predictable historical sequences for development of scientific constructs.
The stages are: (1) concept introduction/elaboration; (2) concept evaluation/aug-
mentation; and (3) concept consolidation/accommodation.

Concept Introduction/Elaboration
Here, the attempt is to legitimize a new concept or a newly borrowed concept.
Typically, this legitimization starts with articles or (sometimes) books to educate
people about the concept. Early data are presented to bolster the argument that
the concept represents a real phenomenon. The concept usually is treated as an
independent or dependent variable. Reichers and Schneider apply their model to
organizational culture as a construct and contrast that with organizational climate
as a construct. They show that climate as a construct developed initially some 40
years earlier than did culture. Even though the two constructs share many similari-
ties, they developed parallel to each other rather than in tandem and had little
cross-fertilization.

Concept Evaluation/Augmentation
Assuming the concept does not die in the first stage, then it enters the evaluation
and augmentation stage. There are critical reviews of the concept and the literature
supporting it. Cries of faulty conceptualization, inadequate ways of operationalizing
the concept, and equivocal empirical results are heard. Along with these cries are
suggestions of moderating or mediating variables and exhortations to improve the
concept measures. Accompanying the above is work that attempts to overcome the
major criticisms and augment the early findings. Finally, there is a reconceptualiza-
tion. Reichers and Schneider argue that climate moved very rapidly to this stage
with a large number of articles compared with stage one. In contrast, for organiza-
tional culture, there have been a great many articles in stage one and relatively
few in stage two.

Concept Consolidation/Accommodation
If a concept gets to this stage, then the controversy in the second stage has waned
and there are matter-of-fact literature reviews. There tend to be one or a few
definitions generally accepted and the antecedents and consequences are well known
by this time. Boundary conditions are specified and books and meta-analyses appear.
132 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 10 No. 2 1999

The concept also frequently appears as a moderator or mediator in more general

models. Overall research declines. Neither climate nor culture has reached this
stage for Reichers and Schneider.

Conclusion
Reichers and Schneider conclude their discussion by making two points: first,
that sometimes there is a revival and recycling of a concept; and second that
sometimes one can see these stages illustrated through the work of a single scholar.
We shall see illustrations of both of these points.

LEADERSHIP AND THE REICHERS AND SCHNEIDER FRAMEWORK

If we start with the earliest scientific approach to leadership, we are looking at the
well-known great man and trait approaches of the early twentieth century (Bass,
1990; Bryman, 1996), which were closely related to the work of Carlyle in Heroes
and Hero Worship (1841/1907) (Peterson & Hunt, 1997).
However, in spite of the earlier-stated arguments of many scholars outside the
United States about the American leadership ethnocentrism, there is clearly a
strong leadership emphasis throughout history and throughout much of the world
(e.g., Bass, 1990). Thus, there are descriptions of leadership in ancient China (Rin-
dova & Starbuck, 1997), Greek mythology (e.g., Homer), and in the Old Testament,
among other early works.
Indeed, a strong case is made that leadership (or something like leadership) reflects
a function that needs to be carried out regardless of time or place. It also has institu-
tional roots throughout the globe. So leadership, in some form, appears to be universal
throughout the developed and less developed countries (Peterson & Hunt, 1997).
Before analyzing the trait and later leadership approaches in terms of the
Reichers and Schneider’s framework, it is important to emphasize its usage in this
essay. These authors interpret both climate and culture as constructs. For our
purposes, I treat leadership as a field with various schools, models, or approaches.
Sometimes I characterize the field as a whole in terms of stages. Along with this,
I frequently treat various schools or approaches as if they were constructs in Reicher
and Schneider’s terms. Thus, for example, transformational/charismatic leadership
might be contrasted with traditional leadership and various traditional leadership
models might be contrasted with each other. As long as I am clear, such differential
usage should not create problems.
The trait approach started within Reichers and Schneider’s stage one: the introduc-
tion elaboration stage. Here we see early treatments attempting to legitimize the
scientific study of the leadership trait approach (e.g., Bass, 1990; Peterson & Hunt,
1997; Yukl, 1998). There the approach remained until about the 1940s, when a very
influential review by Stogdill (1948) in combination with the early Michigan and Ohio
State work, on leader behavior (see Bass, 1990; Yukl, 1998), led to a virtual shutdown
of trait research by leadership scholars. We might argue that trait research reached
the evaluation/augmentation stage and was essentially replaced by the Michigan
and Ohio State work, which was in the introduction/elaboration stage one.1
Transformational/Charismatic Leadership: An Historical Essay 133

Ultimately, these approaches moved into stage two and in a virtual prototypical
illustration of the Reichers and Schneider framework, went through numerous
criticisms followed with cries for various situational moderators. Eventually, the
approaches evolved into the situational contingency models. Some of these situa-
tional contingency models emphasized both traits and behaviors, in one way or
another (e.g., Fiedler, 1987; House & Mitchell, 1974). Although there were earlier
conceptual discussions of situational contingency approaches (e.g., Tannenbaum &
Schmidt, 1958), Fiedler’s (1967) contingency model was the first systematic empirical
work. And for those recalling the weeping and gnashing period illustrated by the
quotes, it is hard to remember the sense of excitement about Fiedler’s model. For
people like me, just starting out, it was very exciting, indeed. Now the situational
contingency thrust moved the field back into stage one again.
There followed a whole series of situational contingency models (Yukl, 1998):
for example, House’s path-goal, Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership,
Kerr and Jermier’s substitutes for leadership, and ultimately Fiedler’s cognitive
resources theory.2
Each of these situational contingency perspectives had somewhat different em-
phases, and each in many ways was more complex than the one before. Interest
was so strong that it was not very long before these situational contingency ap-
proaches moved into the evaluation/augmentation stage. At this point, we began
to get the doom and gloom kinds of quotes above. And these concerns were not
just with adding mediators or moderators, but with the state of the field as a whole.

DOOM AND GLOOM

These dissenting voices did not, of course, stop leadership researchers. All the while
scholarly work tended to ebb and flow as it had for many years, depending to a
great extent on what was fashionable. In terms of fashion, John Campbell (1977)
argues that academics, but not real world managers, have the luxury of emphasizing
leadership much or little depending on what strikes their fancy. In terms of ebb
and flow, Fleishman (1973) talks about an earlier fallow period and how the Ohio
State work helped move the field beyond that fallow period. The ebb and flow,
nevertheless, lead to the vast literature mentioned earlier. Then, during the 1970s
and into the 1980s, what had been a few dissenting voices reached a climax.
Among the more notable of these voices were those appearing in a slim volume
edited by McCall and Lombardo (1978) and in the piece from which the quote
from John Miner above, was taken (Miner, 1975). The flavor of the former is
conveyed in the introduction authored by Lombardo and McCall, where they make
three points:

• The number of unintegrated leadership models, prescriptions and the like is

mind boggling.
• Much of the research is fragmentary, unrealistic, trivial, or dull.
• The results are characterized by contradictions and Type III errors (solving
the wrong problem precisely).
134 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 10 No. 2 1999

The bright orange quote above, of course, summarizes their view quite well.
To the Lombardo and McCall introduction, add the content of half-a-dozen
prominent scholars (most not identified with the leadership literature), who ex-
pressed a large amount of disillusionment with developments in the field. This
disillusion went almost as far as that of Miner, though these scholars did not suggest
replacing the leadership concept.
Still other literature raised additional questions about the way in which leadership
was being conceptualized and studied. Among this literature was a situational
contingency approach by Kerr and Jermier (1978), who argued that rather than
implicitly assuming the importance of leadership, as did earlier leadership ap-
proaches, there were times when leadership would have no effect. That is, these
authors argued that there were substitutes for leadership in some situations and
leadership neutralizers in others, thus raising questions about leadership’s impact.
Pfeffer (1977) went so far as to question whether leadership even mattered at
all since, in numerous cases, managers were extremely restricted by budgets and
numerous other constraints in the setting.
Similarly, in what they termed the “romance of leadership,” Meindl, Ehrlich and
Dukerich, (1985) argued that leadership was essentially based on a romantic notion
in the minds of people that leadership can explain the otherwise unexplainable.
Related to this, Calder (1977) presented an attributional approach contending
that the very concept of leadership was questionable and of dubious usefulness.
People would see leadership and its effects only because they expected to see them
(Chemers, 1997). Also, Eden and Leviatan (1975) presented evidence that subjects
used implicit theories of leadership that specified what behaviors were associated
with effective leadership, when they were asked to describe the behavior of their
own supervisor. Thus, their own supervisor’s perceived behavior was a mix of actual
behavior and implicit theories. Staw and Ross (1980) reported similar results.
Amid these pronunciations of calamity, there appeared two bright spots of espe-
cial interest here. Interestingly, the impact of these bright spots was felt only later.
The first of these seminal publications was House’s (1977) original charismatic
theory, while the second was Burn’s (1978) now classic work on transformational
leadership. Shortly, I discuss each in more detail.
Soon after these bright spots appeared, the eminent sociologist Dubin (1979)
closed out the 1970’s with a very insightful commentary. For our purposes, one key
point reiterated the importance of charisma and its general lack of treatment in the
literature. A second point emphasized the importance of leadership of organizations
(now often termed strategic leadership) as different from leadership in organizations
(the lower levels where by far the most leadership studies had been done, see Hunt,
1991). A third point emphasized the importance of close-up versus at-a-distance
leadership, recently reflected in the empirical work of Shamir (1995) on charisma.

TRANSFORMATIONAL AND CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP TAKE OFF

During the early 1980s, attacks on the field continued with Mintzberg’s (1982) biting
critique that leadership research was irrelevant to typical leadership practitioners
such as “Bill” and “Barbara” whom he had given the contents of a then recent
Transformational/Charismatic Leadership: An Historical Essay 135

scholarly leadership book to read. Their comments were almost as scathing as

Mintzberg’s. Along with this, Tosi (1982) echoed and extended previous criticism,
summed up in his opening quote.
Then in the middle 1980s, Bass’ book, Leadership beyond Expectations, emphasiz-
ing transformational leadership with charisma as a component, was published (Bass,
1985). At about the same time, other related research, consistent with Bryman’s
(1992) new leadership school, was forthcoming from those such as Bennis and
Nanus (1985), Howell and Frost (1989), Kouzes and Posner (1987), Saskin (1988),
Tichy and Devanna (1986), and, of course, House and his colleagues (e.g., House,
Spangler & Woycke, 1991). Work also appeared in an edited book by Conger,
Kanungo, and associates (1988), following an earlier article (Conger & Kanungo,
1987). Related to this, there was an article by Trice and Beyer (1986), with a heavy
sociological and Weberian emphasis. These works essentially were in the initial
introduction/elaboration stage of the Reichers and Schneider model.

THE PARADIGM SHIFT REVISITED

To this point we have picked up the beginnings of the abrupt paradigm shift from
what is now frequently termed “traditional leadership” (e.g., Schermerhorn, Hunt, &
Osborn, 1997) to the new leadership. Given the extensiveness of this shift, I would
argue that a crucial part of the field had moved back to Reicher and Schneider’s
stage one: concept introduction/elaboration. I also have earlier contended that the
shift occurred because of general and growing dissatisfaction with the traditional
leadership research of the time. This begs the question of why specifically:

• Some of the traditional well-known leadership scholars decided to work on

the new leadership; and,
• Some of the next generation of scholars were attracted.

In terms of traditional leadership scholars, we can start with House. House (1992)
summarizes his decision as a part of his autobiography in Management Laureates,
Vol. 2, and in a conversation with me (personal communication, February 23, 1999).
To summarize, he was giving a talk on his earlier mentioned path-goal theory of
leadership (House, 1971) at the University of Calgary. As a part of the discussion,
a very thoughtful audience member and not a leadership scholar asked House why
he was studying such trivial behavior. Where were such characteristics as vision
and the like? As House thought more about it, he himself became disillusioned
with the over-abundance of 0.3 correlations in his theory. Fortunately, this was just
before he was scheduled to spend a visiting term at Florida International University
and about the time House became involved on a project with David Berlew. Berlew
was a student of McClelland’s and was working on research concerning McClelland’s
power and affiliation motives. He also had written a piece (Berlew, 1974) “Leader-
ship and Organizational Excitement,” that covered many of the ideas incorporated
in later charismatic work by House and others. Such notions as vision, self esteem,
and so forth were dealt with.
One thing lead to another, and House’s leave allowed him to immerse himself
136 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 10 No. 2 1999

in the charismatic literature from sociology and political science. Up to this point,
there was very little discussion of charisma and related topics in the management
literature. Ultimately, he developed his 1976 theory of charismatic leadership
(House, 1977), which appeared in a book edited by Hunt and Larson.
At around the same time, Bernard Bass, with a long history in leadership research,
began to develop an interest in leadership notions similar to those of House (Bass,
personal communication, March 1, 1999). He initially encountered one of his former
doctoral students, John Miller at Bucknell University, who recommended that Bass
read James McGregor Burns’ (1978) new book on transformational leadership.
Upon reading the book, Bass, for the first time, saw an opportunity to link his
interest in world-class and historical leaders with Burns’ transformational leadership
ideas. Bass felt he could begin to tie together traditional leadership laboratory and
survey work with some of Burns’ notions.
Soon, Bass began to gather data from South African managers asking if they
knew of people who showed behaviors similar to the transformational ones discussed
in Burns’ book. Their affirmative answers and his reading of House’s (1977) chapter
on charismatic leadership suggested to Bass that he was on to something. His book
(Bass, 1985) based on the work of Bass and a number of his colleagues, was the
result of these early ideas and much follow-up work. This book has served as the
basis for a substantial portion of work in the new leadership area (Yammarino, 1993).
Besides the movement of such scholars as House and Bass into the new leadership
area, there were a number of next-generation leadership researchers attracted as
well. Two of these were Jay Conger and Boas Shamir.
Conger was raised in Washington D.C. and had a fascination with high-level
leaders from his earliest days. This interest was encouraged in his doctoral work at
the Harvard Business School by John Kotter. Kotter’s work with general managers
(Kotter, 1982), was particularly reinforcing to Conger who was then especially
intrigued by the loss of competitiveness by American industry. Ultimately, he
completed a field-based dissertation (Conger, 1985) examining the role of charisma
in helping to better understand upper-level leadership and competitiveness.
Conger then began his career at McGill University in Canada and teamed up
with Rabindra Kanungo to sponsor a conference examining charismatic leadership
in organizations. This partnership lead to an anthology published by Jossey-Bass
(Conger, Kanungo, & Associates, 1988), as well as related articles (e.g., Conger &
Kanungo, 1987). All of this helped tie together Conger’s earlier leadership and
related interests with such concepts as the importance of unconventionality, personal
identification, and the like. Ultimately, these notions were reflected in his ongoing
work with charisma and the new leadership.
Boas Shamir, a second next-generation scholar studying new leadership is espe-
cially interesting since he comes from a country outside the United States—Israel.
Unlike Conger, who was encouraged in his dissertation work by Kotter, Shamir
was discouraged by scholars at the London School of Economics in the early 1970s.
Because he had a B.S. in psychology and international relations and some leadership
experience as a youth and in the army, he expressed an interest in leadership as a
topic when talking to potential Ph.D. advisors. After four or five refusals, with
Transformational/Charismatic Leadership: An Historical Essay 137

the last person calling leadership “an over-researched subject,” Shamir did his
dissertation in a different area.
Shamir did not seriously consider the leadership area again, except for a few
low-level, introductory lectures, until 1987 when he met Bob House at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. He was intrigued by House’s presentation of his charismatic
theory, along with some initial support. For Shamir, House’s seminar had a charis-
matic effect and connected with his earlier intuitive attraction to the area.
Later he and House spent sabbaticals at Suffolk University in Boston. Shamir
was strongly influenced by that, as well as Conger and Kanungo’s book and Bass
and his colleagues’ early work. For Shamir, all of these addressed such areas as
symbolic leadership, deeper effects than superficial compliance and an emphasis on
leadership rather than supervision. Ultimately, he and House, together with Michael
Arthur, collaborated on an article focusing on a self-concept based motivational
theory of charismatic leadership (Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993). This collabora-
tive effort lead to later work, both separately and together, by House and Shamir.

NEW LEADERSHIP’S LINKS WITH OTHER APPROACHES

Here the focus briefly is on comparing and contrasting transformational/charismatic
or new leadership with earlier approaches and assessing its direct and indirect
impact on the field. First, primarily through its visionary aspects, new leadership
has extended the traditional leader’s role into that of a manager of meaning (Bry-
man, 1996) and this has served as a strong link with the organizational culture
literature and the symbolic aspects of organizations (cf. Hunt, 1991; Pfeffer, 1977).
Second, it emphasizes the importance of emotional reactions of followers in response
to a transcendent vision (cf. Chemers, 1997; Yukl, 1998). Third, it has tended to
emphasize the study of upper-level leaders or Dubin’s (1979) leaders of organiza-
tions as opposed to the earlier leadership’s predominant interest in lower-level,
face-to-face leadership or leadership in organizations, (Bryman, 1996; Hunt, 1991).
Fourth, often it has stressed collective processes in motivation, such as social conta-
gion or social identification (cf. Yukl, 1998). Indeed, this emphasis has led to some
interest in the earlier-mentioned at-a-distance notion (Dubin, 1979; Shamir, 1995).
Finally, it has tended to use more qualitatively-oriented research, that is, research
emphasizing observation, interviews, intensive case studies, and so forth than did
the earlier approaches (Bryman, 1996).
Besides the differences just indicated, Chemers (1997) summarizes some similari-
ties. First, the leader’s “gift of grace” role (Weber, 1924/1974) and clearly articulated
vision is related to Hollander’s (1958) idiosyncratic credit notion, where followers
bestow legitimacy on a leader because of their leader’s competency in accomplishing
group goals and loyalty to those goals. Second, the transformational/charismatic
leader’s ability to show confidence in self and followers tends to be similar to some
of the earlier work by Chemers and associates (Chemers, Hays, Rhodewald, &
Wysoski, 1985). Finally, the leader’s emphasis on intellectual stimulation is not
unlike some aspects of path-goal theory (House, 1996) and Graen’s leader-member
exchange theory focusing on exchanges between leaders and individual followers
(Graen & Scandura, 1987).
138 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 10 No. 2 1999

Accompanying Chemer’s indicated similarities, it is important to point out that

new leadership has linkages with some of the earlier-mentioned approaches that
emphasized attribution and implicit leadership theories, and leadership prototypes,
now so alive and well in the GLOBE project of House and his colleagues (House,
Hanges, Ruiz-Quintanella, Dorfman, Javidan, Dickson, Gupta, & Associates, in
press, 1999). This is an ambitious project that, among other things, looks at proto-
types in 60 countries around the world.

CONCLUDING COMMENTARY
In concluding this essay, I focus on: the leadership field’s forces for change; where
the field is now; and the future of the field accompanied by some caveats.

Forces for Change

I have argued that the increasing disillusionment with leadership research’s value
added provided a strong impetus for the paradigm shift to new leadership in the
1980’s. And that was reinforced by the personal experiences of preeminent leader-
ship scholars such as Bass and House and next-generation scholars, for example
Conger and Shamir, accompanied by a host of others.
My contention throughout has been that this change in world views created
such a sense of excitement that new researchers were brought into the field and
management practitioners became convinced that scholars were now beginning to
capture the real essence of leadership. This whole movement then sharply acceler-
ated the development of the field and indeed, as I elaborate on below, brought
into play an increasing range of topics from other areas and other fields to enrich
the study of leadership.
These kinds of forces have helped move leadership away from a field with
research interests that waxed and waned as fashions dictated; that many people
considered unrealistically rigorous and so narrow and boring as to be out of touch
with reality; that some argued had outlived its usefulness; and that many scholars
outside the United States saw as a virtual U.S. hegemony. The field has moved to
one that many, if not most, would consider vibrant and thriving. This is in no small
measure due to the paradigm shift’s attraction of a widening group of first-rate
scholars from various disciplines and from throughout much of the world.
Further insight is provided on these forces for change when I extend my earlier
discussion with House and Bass. I asked House, in effect, what did he think would
have happened if he had not come out with his work when he did, or if Bass or
Burns had not introduced their work when they did. I asked Bass the same question
but, of course, with House and Burns as the other parties.
House answers that his 1976 theory provides a range of variables including
personality traits and situational variables. The situational variables are stress expe-
rienced by followers and the assertion that charismatic leaders arouse follower
motives relevant to their role demands. Burns and Bass do not address these. House
also indicates that Bass used House’s 1976 theory to help formulate the charisma
component of his transformational theory. Additionally, House sees the theory as
influencing later extensions such as Shamir’s (1995) close-up and at-a-distance
Transformational/Charismatic Leadership: An Historical Essay 139

charismatic notions and Jane Howell’s (1988) treatment of differences between

personalized and socialized charismatics, among other extensions.
For House, the bottom line is that the transformational/charismatic paradigm
would have emerged eventually without the 1976 theory, but the paradigm would
have been less complete. However, ultimately, continued scientific investigations
would likely have led to more complete specification of the approach.
Bass answers the above question by speculating that Burns’ approach might not
have been developed much beyond its treatment in Burns’ book. That treatment
is at a purely conceptual level and Bass’ book operationalized it in questionnaire
terms. Bass also speculates that House’s theory ultimately would have impacted
the field, but perhaps with less of a global emphasis than Bass’ work reflects. This
is a byproduct of his strong international activities. Now, of course, House’s earlier
mentioned GLOBE project has moved his own work into the international arena.
Finally, Bass speculates that even without the influence of Burns and House, the new
leadership school might have developed anyway based on the impact of Zaleznik at
Harvard. Bass tells of attending a conference on the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of
the Harvard Business School in 1984. At this conference there was a whole set of
meetings on leadership, and Zaleznik championed the study of charisma in his
discussions of charisma and inspiration with Bass.
What I conclude, then, is that ultimately some form of the new leadership school
would have emerged. The pressures were simply too great for this development not
to occur. However, the shape and details of the paradigm would have been different.
By emerging when it did, it moved along the process of attracting a new generation
of scholars from a variety of fields and helped forward the field as a whole.

Where the Field is Now

I have traced the development of the leadership field through Reichers and
Schneider’s evolution of concepts framework. That framework has shown the earli-
est movement from the concept introduction/elaboration of stage one to stage two’s
concept evaluation/augmentation, and a recycling back again as I moved from trait
approaches to approaches from the new leadership school. I also briefly touched on
how this recycling can occur in the life of a single scholar as I looked at Fiedler’s work.
Currently, by my assessment, the field in general is in stage two, heavily influenced
by the new leadership school, although we are seeing numerous other specific
approaches, many in stage 1 of the model. I touched on some of these in the earlier
section on linkages and further elaborate, here.
For me, some key approaches, all in stage one, involve strategic leadership (e.g.,
Cannella & Monroe, 1997; Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1996; Hunt, 1991), leadership
of self-directing work teams (Cohen & Bailey, 1997), collective, distributive, dispersed
or relational leadership (e.g., Dachler, 1992; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995; Hunt & Ropo,
1998; Shamir, 1999), leader cognitive, behavioral and social complexity or flexibility
(e.g., Hooijberg, Hunt & Dodge, 1997; Zacarro, 1999), and what Shamir and Ben-
Arie (1999) term “teleleadership,” or leadership in the middle of an information
center giving and receiving information primarily through electronic networks.
More detailed discussion of various approaches including new leadership is in-
cluded in House and Aditya (1997) and with an international emphasis in House,
140 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 10 No. 2 1999

Wright, and Aditya (1997). Hunt and Peterson (1997) and Peterson and Hunt (1997)
also pick up this international theme in an edited two part special issue including
ten articles focusing on some 14 leadership topics. The previously mentioned work,
in addition to the breadth of topics, also reflects, to some extent, variations in
ontology, epistemology, and research methods.
Most of this work falls outside the new leadership paradigm (although it could
encompass new leadership). If we combine it with the burgeoning new leadership
literature, the field has developed into a very rich one, indeed. And my contention
throughout has been that the influx of new thinking and scholarship brought about
by the new leadership paradigm has contributed not only to development of new
leadership but numerous other leadership approaches as well.

The Future and Some Caveats

In spite of the development of new leadership and the leadership field in general,
I have some conceptual and empirical concerns. The first of these is that irrespective
of increases in qualitative emphases of various kinds (e.g., Bryman, Stephens, &
Campo, 1996; Parry, 1998; Ropo & Hunt, in press) the preponderance of new
leadership research continues to be conducted by surveys (and most of the surveys
tend to rely on Bass’ MLQ (e.g., Bass & Avolio, 1997). The work also tends to
be cross-sectional with relatively few comparative statics studies and fewer still
processual studies. I find this quite ironic, indeed, for a phenomenon that not too
many years ago was so mystical that many argued “you only know it when you see
it.” And certainly, for me, this of all forms of leadership, cries out for processual
or at least comparative statics work.
The second and related concern is Yukl’s (1989, 1999), two-factor one. He argues
that most of the well-known theories of leadership effectiveness were initially
formulated as two-factor ones (e.g., task versus relations-oriented leadership, auto-
cratic versus participative leadership, and leadership versus management). Now,
there is transformational versus transactional leadership. In discussing each of these
two-factor theories, Yukl (1999) argues that two-factor theories tend to obscure
important underlying notions included within the factors.
For present purposes, I simply want to make the point that this cross-sectional
reliance on surveys and emphasis on a two-factor theory may well push us back
to a variation of the weeping and gnashing period. How different really are the
transformational/transactional survey findings from those doom and gloom ones of
earlier decades?
I believe tenure and promotion and other pressures tend to push people in the
direction of easy publication, and then it is but a small step to get beguiled by the
esoteric statistical packages available. This temptation to over-rely on surveys and
the two-factor transformational/transactional approach forms the basis for my caveats.
Finally, I expect the other approaches to develop differentially, some will move
to stage two and perhaps even stage three. Some will die in their current stage one.
To the extent that we heed the caveats, new leadership will move forward and
maintain its credibility. To the degree that new leadership moves forward and
maintains its credibility, the field will move forward. Without this, the movement
will be slower.
Transformational/Charismatic Leadership: An Historical Essay 141

Acknowledgments: I wish to acknowledge the helpful comments of: Bernard M.

Bass, Jay A. Conger, George E. Dodge, Robert Hooijberg, Robert J. House, Greg-
ory Janicik, Benjamin Schneider, Boas Shamir, and Gary Yukl.

NOTES
1. Schneider (personal communcation, July 15, 1999) reminds us, however, that practitioners
and practitioner-oriented industrial/organizational psychologists continued to employ a
variety of assessment strategies, with an emphasis on traits and individual differences,
to identify future leaders and managers (e.g., Bray, Campbell & Grant, 1974). However,
it was only later that leadership scholars again found it fashionable to study leader traits.
2. Note that, while space preludes more than a mention, cognitive resources theory was a
later extension of Fiedler’s (1967) contingency theory and illustrates how the work of a
single scholar can move through different stages (stage one to stage two and perhaps
back to stage one) with his cognitive resources theory. House’s scholarly work goes even
further by moving from path-goal theory to reformulated path-goal theory to value-
based leadership theory. Along the way, he builds a partial bridge between traditional
and new leadership (see, House & Aditya, 1997).

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