Transformational Leadership.Criticisms And Arguments Against Essay

Transformational Leadership.Criticisms And Arguments Against Transformational Leadership - Essay Example I will go ahead and take my stand on the matter and support my stand based on several writers and what they have written about transformational leadership. This is a paper that will extensively be a research on the topic of criticism of transformational leadership. By the time you are finished reading this paper you will have shaped your opinion on the matter of transformational leadership. Theory of Transformational leadership Cox (2001) stated that there are two primary groups of leadership. He stated them as transformational and transactional. However, Downton (1973, as cited in Barnett et al. 2001) was the first who came up with the difference between transformational and transactional leadership but the concept garnered little attention until the articles on political leaders by James McGregor Burns’ (1978) came to be published. According to Burns he made the distinction between transformational leaders as being outstanding/extraordinary leaders who engage with supporters , with their focus on higher order intrinsic needs, and brought up awareness about the value of specific results and new ways in which those results might be obtained and transactional leaders as being ordinary leaders who interchanged tangible/concrete benefits for the loyalty and work of supporters (Barnett et al. 2001; Cox 2001; Gellis 2001; Griffin 2003; Assess & Piccolo 2004). The theory of transformational leadership was further developed by Bernard Bass by questioning Burns’ perception of transformational and transactional leadership as opposites on a procession. Instead he suggested that they are individual ideas and that good leaders illustrate the features of both (Judge & Piccolo 2004, p. 755). Hitler is a good example given of a transactional leader while the best example of a transformational leader is Gandhi. The interest in transformational leadership is as a result of two tendencies (Simic 1998, p. 50). First, important international changes in the economy fro m the early 1970s meant that a lot of large companies in the west, such as AT&T and General Motors had to put into consideration extreme changes in their methods of conducting business. Some of the factors were the rapid changes in technology, an increase in the circulation of products from recently industrialized nations, increased competitiveness among the competitors, pricing strategy in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) being volatile, and changing market structures led to a strong, volatile and competitive atmosphere in which important changes in the organization were crucial. Downsizing and adopting of new types of business agreement were the most common changes carried out. Therefore these changes took their toll on employee empowerment and satisfaction. This broke the old social agreement that had long term employment and in exchange get the employee's loyalty (Griffin 2003, p. 1). Secondly, in the 1970s, we had the contingency theory on leadership. Th e theory on leadership was established in research of behaviors, character, and circumstances and did not account for several untypical features in leaders (Simic 1998, p. 50). These are the fact tendencies that led to the realization of the theory of transformation. Odom and Green (2003), based on research and the analysis of a number of legal cases, claim that when the concept of transformational leadership is used in ethical dilemmas that managers face there is less litigation and better moral results than if the transactional approach to values that is common was used. Within academic surroundings, as a result of transformation