In the piece by Richard Couto, James Burns’ definition of transforming leadership is given as “a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that… may convert leaders into moral agents.” When I read the terms, “moral agents”, I instantly considered these types of leaders to be individuals who not only follow a moral compass but hold a moral compass. He, then, goes on to say that transforming leadership allows leaders and followers to inspire and elevate each other. This reminded me of the saying that teachers often use in their classrooms, “The students do not only learn from the teacher. But, the teacher learns from the students, every day.” Sure, leaders like teachers are typically in higher positions than their followers or students. Yet, transformational leadership allows leaders to specialize in decision-making and other things, in addition to learning how their specialties branch off into several areas of thinking and various perspectives. Transformational leadership also allows for the gradual transition of a follower into one whom others follow.
I find it interesting how Burns bases morality on “human development” and “a hierarchy of human needs”. Usually, morality stems from a supernatural, transcendent, or Godly point of view. Maybe Burns was attempting to define morality from a secular standpoint so anyone could grasp the concept. But, would that not conflict with those who do not identify with secularism and instead are religiously affiliated? Who is his target audience here?
Part of the article reads that transactional leadership focuses on results, in terms of the expectation of results due to a transactional leader being one who values order and structure. With order and structure comes expectations of concrete results. This contrasts with transformational leadership because it seems that transformational leaders may have their own set values and beliefs. Yet, they do not really weigh expectations onto their followers to result in a certain way.
I agree that transformational leadership is more of an equal partnership between leaders and followers where they each learn from each other. I think teachers are a really good example of this because like you said, even though they are in a position of authority over their students, they also need to be able to learn from their students in order to become better at teaching.
I think you can attain some moral attributes over time. However, I believe those attributes are primarily learned in the vey early stages of a toddler.
The emotional relationship between leader and follower is what made me really appreciate the ideology behind transformational leadership. At the same time, I believe that while transactional leadership focuses on results, there has to be some expectations have to be put on the followers due to basic human nature.