James McGregor Burns described leadership as “one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth”. So what could an unsuccessful political candidate contribute to our understanding? Or would he just add to the vast array of books on the subject?

In fact, Burns has been tremendously influential. He described leadership as offering a “structure for action” and identified two distinct strands: transactional leadership and transformational leadership.

The former relies entirely on give and take. Leaders offer gifts and rewards as a means to motivate followers. Coming from a political background, Burns suggested a currency
of policy promises exchanged for votes. In work, we exchange recognition, reward and praise for activity, effort and contribution.

However, Burns also saw that leaders could positively influence others, to bring about change. This style of leadership – transformational leadership – boosts both leader and followers to greater motivation and higher levels of conduct. Leaders focus on the fundamentals of what their followers want and need, value, and aspire to. By thus engaging hearts as well as minds, and by committing themselves fully, leaders inspire followers to choose to act and to aspire, themselves, to become a new generation of leaders.

Many highly respected thinkers take their lead from Burns. Warren Bennis is arguably today’s most influential leadership thinker. His study of 90 contemporary leaders led him to his ideas of transformative leadership. Unsurprisingly, this has much in common with Burns’ ideas.

Bernard Bass developed Burns’ ideas directly, to identify four components of transformational leadership, which are very similar to the common factors that Bennis found among his 90 leaders.

The first component is inspirational motivation: the ability to create and communicate a vision that will engage followers in a meaningful pursuit. This is the basis of real commitment and team spirit.

Individualised consideration is the leader’s commitment to celebrating diversity and paying attention to the capabilities, personalities and needs of each follower. By acting as a coach and mentor, the leader develops each to her or his full potential.

Intellectual stimulation represents a willingness to challenge old ways and stretch followers’ thinking and imagination. By reframing situations, the leader can invoke a climate of innovation and creativity.

Finally, idealised influence is how the leader builds trust and respect by acting with total integrity, and appealing to followers on an emotional level. By setting the highest ethical standards, the leader demonstrates a willingness to serve. Other models refer to this component as charismatic leadership.

This is a powerful model for leadership behaviours. Burns was particularly clear that transformational and transactional styles of leadership are not mutually exclusive. Effective leaders apply both in appropriate proportions. For coaches and trainers, the model offers a framework within which our learners can develop their own point of view on how they can lead the people who look to them.

References

1. Leadership James McGregor Burns, Harper Perennial (1982)
2. Transformational Leadership Bernard M Bass, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; second edition (2005)

Dr Mike Clayton founded Thoughtscape to offer coaching, training and facilitation, with a focus on managing and leading in the context of change. He can be contacted at mike@thoughtscape.net.

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