
Sinergias educativas
October - December Vol. 9 – 4 - 2024
http://sinergiaseducativas.mx/index.php/revista/
individual needs of followers, empowering them and aligning the
goals and objectives of the followers, the leader, the group and the
organisation.
Empirical evidence has shown that transformational leadership can
exceed follower performance expectations and group and
organisational commitment (Bass, 1985; Ahmad Saifuddin, 2020;
Alwali & Alwali, 2022). Transformational leadership involves
inspiring followers to achieve organisational goals by challenging
them to be innovative problem solvers and to exceed their own
expectations.
A criticism concerning these transformational and charismatic
leadership theories implies that many refer to the dark side of
charisma, charismatic leaders used their skills to motivate their
followers to perform activities that cause harm to humanity (Chen,
Song, Wei, & Wang, 2024), such as Adolf Hitler, Osama Bin Laden,
but these leaders are called pseudo-transformational, they exhibit
many elements of transformational leadership, but have personal
motives of exploitation and self-aggrandisement.
For Burns (1978), transformational leadership is the opposite of
transactional leadership. In this sense, Bass (1985) states that leaders
exhibit both transformational and transactional leadership
behaviours, both types of leadership can manifest in the same
individual, but in different intensities. In his initial research with US
military personnel, Bass conducted an exploratory factor analysis of
the data obtained, resulting in three components or factors of
transformational leadership: inspirational charisma, intellectual
stimulation and individual consideration.
The sociologist Max Weber conceptualised charisma as a certain
quality in the personality of an individual, which sets him apart from
ordinary people and causes him to be considered as a being endowed
with extraordinary powers or qualities. The individual who has these
qualities is considered a leader. Weber argued that charismatic
leadership was one of several ideal types of authority (Weber, 1947).
In later transformational leadership research, Bass subdivided the
inspirational charisma factor into three factors: idealised attribute
influence, idealised behavioural influence and inspirational
motivation. Transformational leadership is a construct-type variable
as it is measured through indicators or factors.
The total rank model of transformational-transactional leadership,
measured with the multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ),