“Transactional leadership stems from more traditional view of workers and organizations, and it involves the position power of the leader to use followers for task completion” (Burns, 1978). “Transformational leadership, however, searches for ways to help motivate followers by satisfying higher-order needs and more fully engaging them in the process of the work” (Bass, 1985).
“Transformational leaders can initiate and cope with change, and they create something new out of old. They build strong relationships with others while supporting and encouraging each individual’s development” (Horner, https://www.emeraldinsight.com).
A very interesting theory of “Super Leadership is offered by Manz and Sims (1991). They challenge the traditional paradigm of leadership as one person doing something to other people (Manz and Sims, 1991). Instead, they suggest, “the most appropriate leader is one who can lead others to lead themselves” (Manz and Sims, 1991, p.18). They suggest that leaders become great by unleashing the potential and abilities of followers, consequently having the knowledge of many people instead of relying solely on their own skills and abilities (Horner, https://www.emeraldinsight.com).
To understand better what is transforming leadership lets look at it as at the “body”, which consists of the heart, and head and hands. There are three aspects of leadership: supervisory, strategic and inspirational. They are going to be discussed more detailed further down.
The heart
“The most universally encountered aspect of leadership is the “inspirational” leadership of the heart. The essential, distinguishing the feature of inspirational leadership is that it never resorts to the use of coercive power or authority” (Nicholls, https://www.emeraldinsight.com). To energize enthusiastic followers, inspirational leaders create a compelling “vision”, which changes peoples view at the world around them. Another change that “vision” creates is that people change way they relate to one another.
There are two ways of affecting people minds by creating a “vision”. First one is that it clarifies understanding, and the second one is that it encourages alignment. So we can see that by its impact on the people’s personal beliefs, the leader’s vision builds the psychological ground for common action
(Nicholls, https://www.emeraldinsight.com).
Nichols defines it as “that activity which stimulates purposeful activity in others by changing the way they look at the world around them and relate one another”.
The head
A strategic leadership can be called a “nominal” head of the organization. The leader’s responsibility in this kind of leadership is the creation of an effective organization (Nicholls, https://www.emeraldinsight.com).
There are two principal components of the strategic leadership: path-finding and culture-building. First relates an organization to the business environment and the second one helps to people into membership of an organization. The role of the organizational leadership is to identify what organization it will be and where it is going. A very important thing to say is that managers must look beyond the routine daily operations in order “to find a better way” (Nicholls, https://www.emeraldinsight.com). In strategic leadership managers must use their head to ensure the effectiveness of the organization.
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The hands
A supervisory leadership is the job of the mangers hands. Every manager is familiar with this kind of leadership in his or her particular situation. In other they are familiar with the job that has to be done and the people that will do that job.
Charisma
The concept of charisma comes to us from Romans. Also in the New Testament it refers to gift from the Holy Spirit. Max Weber used this term for theological use. He viewed charisma as “a pure form of authority based on of the gift of diving grace” (Weber, 1968).
Contemporary conceptualization of charismatic leadership have become inclusive of more leaders as the concept changed over the time (https://www.emeraldinsight.com/0025-1747.htm).
“The concept of charisma has fertilized the study of leadership. The term has taken on a number of different, but over planning meanings: leaders’ magical qualities; emotional bond between leader and led etc.” (Paul et al, https://www.emeraldinsight.com/0025-1747.htm).
A lot of theories of charismatic leadership appeared. These theories did not emphasise the role of charisma, instead they take a look at leader’s vision and values. For example, “Berlew (1974) suggested that leaders who attempt to bring change in organizations were similar to charismatic leaders trying to effect changes in society” (https://www.emeraldinsight.com/0025-1747.htm).
House (1977) defined charismatic leadership as “a leader who has a high degree of charismatic effects on followers. According to House, followers of charismatic leader become more self-confident and can set and accept higher goals.
All of the contemporary charismatic leadership theories include elements related to a leader’s emphasis on a purpose, vision, or mission (House and Shamir, 1993).