Burns (1978) is credited with first distinguishing between transactional and transformational leadership.
Transactional leadership is characterised by setting task goals, providing resources necessary to achieve goals and rewarding performance. It is the traditional leadership concern for people and for task.
Transformational leadership involves an emphasis on the leader activity intervening in the status quo, challenging current assumptions and understanding and encouraging others to do so as well.
Whilst Burns conceived leaders to be either transformational or transactional, Bass (1985a, 1985b) proposed that transformational leadership augments the effects of transactional leadership on the efforts, satisfaction and effectiveness of subordinates. This connection by Bass is important, and is not recognised by many authors who advocate using transformational leadership alone.
Tichy and Dervanna (1986:viii) described transformational leadership as
...a behavioural process capable of being learned and managed. It’s a leadership process that is systematic, consisting of purposeful and organised search for changes, systematic analyses, and the capacity to move resources from areas of lesser to greater productivity…(to bring about) a strategic transformation…
According to Bass (1990:54):
Transformational leadership is closer to the prototype of leadership that people have in mind when they describe their ideal leader and is more likely to provide a role model with which subordinates want to identify.
In practice, this means that transformational leaders develop in their subordinates an expectation of high performance rather than merely spend time praising or reprimanding them (Gilbert, 1985). Bradford and Cohen (1984) consider that the manager must be more than a hero of technical competence and organising skills. He or she must be a developer of people and a builder of teams. Bass and Avolio (1992:21) argue that transactional leadership is merely a base for effective leadership and that on its own transformational leadership is “unconcerned with developing followers to their fullest potential”.
…transformational leadership does not detract from the transactional, rather it builds on it, broadening the effects of the leader on effort and performance. (Bass and Avolio, 1992:22)
Bass B M (1985a) Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations. New York : Free Press.
Bass B M (1985b) Leadership – Good, Better, Best. Organisational Dynamics 13(3):26-46
Bass B M (1990) Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership. Theory, Research and Managerial Applications. Third Edition. New York: The Free Press.
Bass B M and Avolio B J (1990) Developing transformational leadership: 1992 and beyond. Journal of European Industrial Training. 14(5):21-27
Bradford L P & Cohen A R (1984) The Postheroic Leader. Training and Development Journal 38(1):40-49.
Burns J M (1978) Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.
Gilbert G R (1985) Building Highly Productive Work Teams through Positive Leadership. Public Personnel Management 14:449-454.
Tichy N M and Dervanna M A (1986) The Transformational Leader. New York: John Wiley and Sons