1 Transformational Leadership: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is a prime example of a collective appeal for the nation to adapt to transformational leadership principles. Transformational leadership is a leadership when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality. The term was first coined by J.V. Downton in 1973 in Rebel Leadership: Commitment and Charisma in a Revolutionary Process.

James MacGregor Burns (1978) first introduced the concepts of transformational and transactional leadership in his treatment of political leadership, but this term is now used in organizational psychology as well. According to Burns, the difference between transformational and transactional leadership is what leaders and followers offer one another. "Transforming leadership... occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality. Their purposes, which might have started out as separate but related, as in the case of transactional leadership, become fused. Power bases are linked not as counterweights but as mutual support for common purpose. Various names are used for such leadership, some of them derisory: elevating, mobilizing, inspiring, exalting, uplifting, preaching, exhorting, evangelizing. The relationship can be moralistic, of course. But transforming leadership ultimately becomes moral in that it raises the level of human conduct and ethical aspiration of both leader and led, and thus it has a transforming effect on both." (p. 20)

Transformational leaders offer a purpose that transcends short-term goals and focuses on higher order intrinsic needs. This results in followers identifying with the needs of the leader. The four dimensions of transformational leadership are idealized influence (or charisma), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individual consideration.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Transformational
• Leadership
• Lincoln
• Gettysburg
• System
• Inc
• Rob
• McKenna
• Agency
• Business
• Consulting
• Employee
• management