The importance of the leader-follower relationship is captured in the ideas of transformational and transactional leadership. In his chapter, James Burns explains that pure power can be removed from the leader-follower relationship but leadership is not. I saw this as an explanation for the difference between charismatic leaders as opposed to toxic charismatic leaders. In Bass’ piece on transformational leadership, he explains, “charisma was too much associated with dictatorship and pseudo transformational leaders such as Huey Long, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler” (19). From this we can still define these leaders as toxically charismatic but maybe a better definition is one of pure power instead of leadership. Bass goes on to explain that abusive charismatic leaders do not exhibit the same “individualized consideration” as a socially concerned leader with regard to transformational leadership. I think this is a really important point that proves leadership cannot necessarily be defined with dichotomous terms. Leadership is a continuum where leaders can be different variations of charismatic, transformational, transactional, among other traits. That is why leadership is so hard to define. In fact Bass event admits that some of the best leaders are both transactional and transformational. Overall, I think the more we read about leadership and the more qualities we learn about, the more difficult it is to define leadership but the easier it is for us to understand that leadership is truly a study of people and history in their specific context rather than a bunch of definitions and criteria.
Transactional and Translational Leadership
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I agree with you about the complexities of leadership and i think its fascinating how much more complex leadership gets the more you learn about it. leadership is not a set of checkmarks that you either check or don’t, it is a complex idea that requires more information to understand.
I really like your point that leadership must be looked at as a continuum. There is not a concrete set of traits that makes a leader effective or ineffective. So much of leadership is subjective, especially in terms of ethics, so to try to distill it down to something simple and overarching is impossible.
I liked your point about the difference between power and leadership. This is a very interesting point, because often we view people with great power as leaders but sometimes they don’t try and lead rather just gain power.
I agree with your idea that leadership is a continuum and that the definition of leadership is hard to figure out. leadership varies from person to person and often depends on the situation. it is difficult to limit it to one certain list or a certain definition.
I completely agree with your point about how learning more and more leadership theories, traits, and qualities the harder it is to define who a leader is. I am realizing now more than ever that great leaders do not fit the mold of any of these theories yet the best leaders have qualities that are found in so many of the theories. I also think that one of the most important things in leadership is the leader- follower relationship, which I think can be overlooked.
I really liked how you were able to connect transformational leadership back to charisma and charismatic leaders. I agree that with all the dictators it appears as though they did have pure power rather than leadership. Learning more and more about leadership and its theories proves to show that there is not a set of guidelines to follow or a checklist of qualities to have in order to be a successful leader.