I found Couto’s piece about transformational leadership to be very intriguing. What I liked most about it was the comparison of the original definition from Burns and the way that transformational leadership has evolved throughout the years by looking at Bass and his work. The main differences of the two perspectives on transformational leadership is that they are being dealt with in different contexts. Burns is dealing with leadership in terms of politics and social movements, where Bass is using executive leaders who become transforming leaders. Bass believes that the “direction of influence is one-way, unlike Burn’s treatment in which followers could transform leaders by the interaction of leaders and followers” (104). This made me think about how subjective transformational leadership is, it depends greatly on the context that you are looking at and what you would consider to be a social change.
I also enjoyed the transactional leadership article and found it very interesting that the best examples of transactional leadership are in settings where there is a specific outcome wanted. I thought that the was very well organized in that there were so many examples of transactional leaders in so many different fields, this really made me understand what exactly a transactional leader does. This article also cleared up the benefits of transactional leadership for me because in class I was thinking that it was very negative. I see that due to its adaptability to so many organizations, its simplicity, and its effectiveness, is why it is such a sought after trait of leaders in the business world.
I also thought that transactional leadership wasn’t a positive trait to possess going into class after reading the Burns and Bass articles. Now, I see it as an important aspect in many areas of life, especially after reading about General Schwarzkopf, Bill Gates, etc. These people found transactional leadership necessary in their fields of work in order to effectively complete their goals.
I agree that Couto’s explanation of context was very beneficial. Similar to the way we view MLK as a charismatic leader because of his impact during the Civil Rights Era it would be unfair to view a transformational leader in a context that is not made for that leadership forms. Certain types of leadership skills are only evident and valued in the context of crisis.