Transformational Leadership Theories

Transformational leadership theory suggests that leaders transform their followers' values, priorities, [Page 934]and goals and inspire followers to perform beyond expectations and to transcend their narrow self-interests for the good of the larger group, organization, and mission. Transformational leaders articulate compelling visions that stress the meaning, importance, and value of goals, as well as of the strategies designed to achieve them. Transformational leaders thus build followers' confidence and broaden their needs to assist them in achieving higher potential, ultimately developing followers into leaders. Research suggests that transformational leadership is positively associated with trust, job attitudes, and a broad range of individual performance outcomes.

Although 20 years of research suggests that transformational leadership is strongly related to followers' attitudes and performance, this research also indicates that such ...