TRANSFORMATIONAL

LEADERSHIP
Reporter: Joelien C. Elibado
BSED 3-ENG
 What is transformational leadership?

• Pioneers: Burns (1978), Bass (1985)

• According to Burns, transformational

leadership is a process in which “leaders and
followers help each other to advance to a
higher level of morale and motivation”.
• Transformational leadership is a model that
principals and teachers can use to lead
by example. It places a high value on
creating community bonds, which encourage
both students and teachers to greater levels
of achievement.
Bass' work established that transformational
leaders demonstrate four factors:

Idealized influence
Inspirational motivation
Intellectual motivation
Individualized consideration
 Idealized influence

o Idealized influence: Having transformational leaders who

behave in such ways that result in their being role models
for their followers. Thus, followers identify with the
leaders and want to emulate them.

Idealized Influence
• Attributed idealized influence: followers perceive leader
as being charismatic, confident, powerful, and focused on
higher-order ideals.

• Idealized influence as a behavior: charismatic actions of

leaders that focus on values, beliefs, and sense of
mission
 Inspirational Motivation
• Inspirational motivation: the leader has the
ability to inspire confidence, motivation and
a sense of purpose in his followers.

• Develops appealing vision to guide

development of organizational goals and
operating procedures
• Leader behaviors provide meaning,
challenge for followers
 Project attractive and optimistic future
 Emphasize ambitious goals
 Create idealized visions for organizations
 Clearly communicate that vision is obtainable
 Results: team spirit, enthusiasm, optimism, goal commitment,
shared vision within the work group
Intellectual Motivation

• Intellectual motivation: encourage

followers’ creativity- question old
assumption, traditions and beliefs,
reframe problems
 Individualized
Consideration
• Individualized consideration: leaders pay
particular attention to each individual’s
need to growth and achievement
Leaders act as mentors- help followers
and colleagues develop potential and take
responsibility for own development
 Research findings

• Research on transformational leadership clarifies three

generalizations:

 Idealized influence and inspirational leadership most

satisfying and effective (Avolio, 1999, Bass, 1990)

 Transformational leaders receive higher ratings, are

perceived to lead more effective organizations, and have
subordinates that exert greater effort than transactional
leaders (Yuki, 1998; Bass, 1998)
Transformational leadership in schools, directly influences
teacher perceptions of student goal achievement and student
grades (Leithwood, 1994)

• Influences three psychological characteristics of staff:

perception of school characteristics, commitment to change,
and organizational learning

• Depends upon attending to all four “I’s”, with individualized

consideration as a base.

• Support for Leithwood’s claims from other studies: Silins

(1992), Marks & Printy (2003)
• Researcher Kenneth Leithwood emphasizes the need
to have transformational policies in place, too, such as:

• 1.Helping staff develop and maintain a collaborative,

professional school culture. This means staff members
often talk, observe, critique, and plan together. Norms of
collective responsibility and continuous improvement
encourage them to teach each other how to teach better.
Transformational leaders involve staff in collaborative goal
setting, reduce teacher isolation, use bureaucratic
mechanisms to support cultural changes, share leadership
with others by delegating power, and actively communicate
the school's norms and beliefs.
• 2. Fostering teacher development. One of
Leithwood's studies suggests that teachers'
motivation for development is enhanced when they
internalize goals for professional growth. This
process, Leithwood found, is facilitated when they
are strongly committed to a school mission. When
leaders give staff a role in solving non-routine
school improvement problems, they should make
sure goals are explicit and ambitious but not
unrealistic.
Thank you for listening!
God blessed!