{"id":256,"date":"2018-10-17T20:59:44","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T03:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/?p=256"},"modified":"2018-10-17T22:43:16","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T05:43:16","slug":"learning-activity-1-transformational-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/2018\/10\/learning-activity-1-transformational-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Activity 1: Transformational Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

Transformational leadership focuses on transforming people, improving their performance and uniting them towards a shared organizational vision (Northouse, 2016). The result of this is high accomplishment of followers as they shift their values from self-interest to the organizational good (Northouse, 2016). \u201cThe term \u2026 was first coined by Downton\u201d (Northouse, 2016, p. 162) but gained popularity through Burns work Leadership (<\/em>Northouse, 2016, p. 162).<\/p>\n

Transformational leadership can be seen as similar, if not synonymous to House\u2019s theory of charismatic leadership (Northouse, 2016, p. 164) and it can be \u201cargued that charismatic leadership is the theoretical underpinning\u201d (Graham, as cited in Smith, Montagno & Kuzmenko, 2004) of transformational leadership. Bass developed a model of transformational leadership that consists of four factors: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration (Northouse, 2016; Smith et al., 2004). Further work by Bennis and Nanus, as well as Kouzes and Posner have impacted what we understand transformational leadership to be (Northouse, 2016). At its core, transformational leadership empowers followers towards a shared vision, which produces change in an organization (Northouse, 2016).<\/p>\n

While there is evidence that transformational leadership is effective (Northouse, 2016) it has been suggested that this will not be the case in static environments or during certain organizational stages (Smith et al., 2004), and that change in the form of moral development of followers only occurs over a long period of time (Mulla & Krishnan, 2011). Further criticisms of transformational leadership include: difficulty in defining its parameters; challenges to the MLQ, the primary tool used by researchers to measure transformational leadership; viewing leadership as a personality trait rather than a behaviour that can be learned; and its potential for abuse.<\/p>\n

A leader that has modelled transformational leadership well is Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With A Mission (YWAM). When he founded the organization in 1960 he united followers around a vision of sending young people into missions, which eventually resulted in the start of the first YWAM training program (YWAM, n.d.). As time went on training programs multiplied, new ministries were started, and new initiatives were established (YWAM, n.d.). From its inauguration YWAM has consistently changed, grown and transformed under the leadership of Cunningham.<\/p>\n

In lieu of learning about transformational leadership I wonder what it means to be a transformational leader in a context where one does not have the authority to establish the vision and does not morally agree with the vision?<\/p>\n

References:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mulla, Z.R. and Krishnan, V.R. (2011). Transformational leadership: Do the leader\u2019s morals matter and do the follower\u2019s morals change? Journal of Human Values 17(2), 129-143. Retrieved from https:\/\/ezproxy.student.twu.ca\/login?url=http:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1177\/097168581101700203<\/p>\n

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice, Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.<\/p>\n

Smith, B.N., Montagno, R.V. and Kuzmenko, T.N. (2004). Transformational and servant leadership: Content and contextual comparisons. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies 10(4), 80-92. Retrieved from https:\/\/ezproxy.student.twu.ca\/login?url=http:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1177\/107179190401000406<\/p>\n

Youth With A Mission. (n.d.). YWAM history. Retrieved from\u00a0https:\/\/www.ywam.org\/about-us\/history\/<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Transformational leadership focuses on transforming people, improving their performance and uniting them towards a shared organizational vision (Northouse, 2016). The result of this is high accomplishment of followers as they shift their values from self-interest to the organizational good (Northouse,… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ldrs500","category-unit-4"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/padnTM-48","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions\/260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}