Couto defines transformational leadership as being “a leader that shapes, alters, and elevates the motives and values and goals of followers” (Couto 103). There is a difference between transformational leadership and charismatic leadership. Couto brings up Burns and I find it very interesting how Burns prefers the term heroic leadership over charismatic leadership. Heroic leadership, according to him, is “the relationship between followers and persons they believe in because of reputation aside from tested capacities, experience or stands on issues” (Couto 103). This type of relationship between leaders and followers lacks the basics of leadership qualities because they do not share the same goals.
Couto also brings up Bass who came up with the idea of transformational leadership, which is different than Burns’ idea of transforming leadership. I found it interesting that Bass conducted a study in schools, the military, etc. and found that transformational leaders were more effective in leading their organization and their followers did not have to put in as much effort. Between Burns and Bass, one of the main differences is that Burns mostly focuses on historical transforming leaders, like MLK and Gandhi, while Bass looked at more general, lower level leaders, like principals and CEO’s. This creates two different scales between follower and leaders and their relationship with one another. The more we learn about leadership, the more tangled all the terms and types of leadership become. Defining leadership is not as easy as it may seem as not every leader fits one certain type of mold and each are unique in their own way.
Your point regarding the different scales of leadership examples used by the two authors was interesting to me. It is fair to wonder if the different scales of leadership, big or small groups of followers, would affect the way in which we evaluate the different types of leadership.