2. ARTICLE - Advancing the democratization
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ArticleLeadership2024, Vol. 20(3) 125–143© The Author(s) 2024Article reuse guidelines:sagepub.com/journals-permissionsDOI: 10.1177/17427150241232705journals.sagepub.com/home/leaAdvancing the democratizationof work: A new intellectualhistory of transformationalleadership theoryLauren Eaton, Todd Bridgman, and StephenCummingsSchool of Management, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington,New ZealandAbstractAmidst growing demands for more democratic forms of organizing, we argue that better un-derstanding the origins of transformational leadership theory offers a way forward. Trans-formational leadership theory, originally developed by American political scientist James MacGregorBurns in the late 1970s, is the best-known and most influential leadership theory in managementstudies. Transformational leaders are visionaries who engage with followers’higher-level needs andinspire them to deliver extraordinary outcomes for their organizations. Democracy was at the coreof Burns’conception of transformational leadership: voters selected their leaders and voted themout if they failed to deliver on their visions. However, this was overlooked by those who introducedthe theory to management studies. Using intellectual history, we contrast the conventional rep-resentation of transformational leadership theory in business with Burns’original conception. Weexplore how and why the democratic foundation of the theory was lost, why this matters, and whatcan be done to recover it.KeywordsLeadership, transformational leadership, management and organizational history, managementeducationCalls for more democratic forms of organizing have grown louder in recent years to address en-vironmental destruction and social inequalities, which corporations have contributed to through theirCorresponding author:Lauren Eaton, School of Management, Victoria University of Wellington, 23 Lambton Quay, Pipitea, Wellington 6011, NewZealand.Email:lauren.eaton@vuw.ac.nz
single-minded pursuit of profits (Amis et al., 2020;Battliana et al., 2022;Tomaskovic-Devey andAvent-Holt, 2019;Wright and Nyberg, 2017). Drawing on lessons learnt from the Covid-19pandemic about the vital role played by essential (and largely low-wage) workers, Harvard BusinessSchool professor Julie Battilana and colleagues Isabelle Ferreras and Dominique M´eda launched aninitiative to reorganize the economy on three dimensions: democratizingfirms, decommodifyinglabor, and decarbonizing the environment (Ferreras et al., 2020). Democratizingfirms means in-volving employees in decisions.Ferreras et al. (2020)call for work councils, which have existed inEurope since the 1940s, to be granted similar rights to boards of directors, with chief executivesrequiring the approval of both for major decisions including strategic direction, profit distribution,and even the selection of CEOs:“A personal investment of labor–that is, of one’s mind and body,one’s health, one’s very life–ought to come with the collective right to validate or veto thesedecisions”.Even before Covid-19, pressures for a stronger voice for employees were building. The USBusiness Roundtable’s redefinition of the purpose of a corporation to promote“an economy thatserves all Americans”(Business Roundtable, 2019) was heralded as the end of shareholder primacy,the view that maximizing shareholder value should be the primary objective of corporations.However, an analysis of corporate documents from 128 companies that joined the statementconcluded that it was“mostly for show”and the companies“did not intend it or expect it to bringabout any material changes in how they treat stakeholders”(Bebchuk and Tallarita, 2022: 1031).Rather than benefit stakeholders, the main effect of the Roundtable’s statement was to releasepressure for regulation to protect stakeholders. Consistent with this argument,Raghunandan andRajgopal (2020)found that signatories of the statement spent more on lobbying policymakers thancompanies who were not signatories. Workplace democracy advocates argued that if the Roundtablewas serious that companies exist for the benefit of all stakeholders, including employees, thenemployees must be given greater control over them (Rodgers, 2019). AsDewey (1937: 218) noted,democracy requires that“all those who are affected by social institutions must have a share inproducing and managing them”.The view that employees should elect their leaders is a significant challenge to prevailingmainstream thinking on corporate leadership. Since the 1980s, transformational leadership, orig-inally developed by American political scientist James MacGregor Burns, has been one of the moststudied areas of leadership (Spector, 2016;van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013).Burns (1978), inanalyzing American politics, concluded the nation needed‘transforming leaders’with visions ofa better future, rather than‘transactional leaders’who engaged in pork barrel politics, exchangingcampaign promises for votes. His idea was subsequently translated into management studies byBernard Bass and others as a theory that conceived of leaders as heroic, inspirationalfigures whosevisions of the future inspire and galvanize employees, resulting in employees working harder, beingmore committed to the organization and ultimately generating higher levels of performance.Bass(2008)developed four key factors to characterize transformational leadership:-Idealized influencerelates to charisma and outlines the way a leader performs that makesa follower want to identify with them-Inspirational motivationis the stimulating vision, goals, and high standards that the leadersets for the followers and the organization-Intellectual stimulationdescribes the leader’s ability to invite followers to question andchallenge assumptions-Individual considerationcharacterizes the leader’s skill in appealing to the individuality ofeach follower by treating them as special and important.126Leadership 20(3)
One such‘transformational leader’celebrated in business is Facebook creator and CEO MarkZuckerberg. Zuckerberg’s leadership is regarded as a key contributor to his phenomenal success asan entrepreneur: his passion, sense of purpose, fostering a culture of empowerment, and hiscommitment to innovation (Walter, 2013). Stephen Robbins, the world’s best-selling managementtextbook author describes Zuckerberg as an example of a transformational leader who has“im-measurable influence on shaping the culture of their organization”(Robbins et al., 2015: 98).Robbins et al. note that in his early days Zuckerberg“would end employee meetings by pumping hisfist in the air and leading employees in a chant of‘domination’”(p. 100).The glow surrounding Zuckerberg’s transformational leadership has faded dramatically in recentyears. Facebook has been caught up in numerous controversies over the privacy of the data it collectson users. The highest profile case, in 2018, involved Cambridge Analytica, a political consultingwhich collected data and used it to advise candidates running for office, including Donald Trump.Cambridge Analytica got hold of the personal data of 87 million Facebook users via a quiz appdeveloped by Aleksandr Kogan, a data scientist at University of Cambridge. Kogan’s app,This isYour Digital Life, collected data not just from those who agreed to take the quiz but all the people intheir Facebook network. Facebook was criticized for acting too slowly when they became aware ofthe breach and for not taking data privacy more seriously.Recently, Facebook’s biggest shareholders expressed anger at Zuckerberg’s pledge to continueinvesting heavily in his vision of an embodied internet, the metaverse, reflected in the rebranding ofhis social media company as Meta. Despite a 75% fall in Facebook’s share price, Zuckerbergdoubled down on the vision, projecting even bigger losses in the year ahead (Waters and Agnew,2022). Shareholders were upset but were powerless to stop him since he owns 13% of the equity ofthe company, and controls 54% of the votes through a special class of shares (Waters and Agnew,2022). According toNaughton (2021),“Facebook is a dictatorship entirely controlled by its founder,Mark Zuckerberg”.The capture of a corporation by a transformational leader who ignores criticism and doggedlypursues their vision at enormous cost confirms the worst fears of critics of transformationalleadership theory. Dennis Tourish has been writing about this‘dark side’of transformationalleadership for more than 20 years (Tourish, 2013;Tourish and Pinnington, 2002). Tourish’s targethas not so much been leaders themselves, but business schools for their uncritical promotion oftransformational leadership theory and slavish worship of celebrity CEOs, starting with GeneralElectric’s Jack Welch in the 1980s.We share Tourish’s concerns about the dangers of transformational leadership theory. And weagree with him that one“cannot separate the practice of leadership from how it is taught”(2013: 97),making it important to reflect on how leadership is taught in business schools. However, unlikeTourish, who sees transformational leadership theory as incompatible with more democratic or-ganizations, we suggest that it can be part of the solution. To make this argument, we return to theorigins of the theory, developed by Burns. Democratic mechanisms and institutions were crucial forBurns, but when the theory was brought into management studies by Bass and others, thisdemocratic foundation was lost.We are not thefirst to have spotted differences between Burns’and Bass’conceptualizations oftransformational leadership theory (Burnes and By, 2012;Carey, 1992;Denhardt and Campbell,2006;Khanin, 2007;Simola et al., 2010;Yukl, 1999). While the democratic component is generallyoverlooked, it has been noted by some (Allix, 2000;Burnes et al., 2016;Wilson, 2016). Wilson seesthe potential of transformational leadership theory to enhance workplace democracy, noting that“perhaps now is a good time to recapture this [democratic] ideal and try to put it to work properly”(2016: 217). We concur, and seek to advance this agenda by exploring this forgotten past ofEaton et al.127
transformational leadership. Drawing on Burns’original conception, we develop an alternative tothe dominant understanding of the theory within management studies, including within managementtextbooks. Our alternative representation has implications for how leadership is taught and practiced.If students can see that transformational leadership theory, in its original form, can be a means fordemocratizing work, there is hope that leadership might be practiced differently in the future.We begin in the next section with a brief review of intellectual history, the methodologicalapproach we employ to look more deeply and more critically at the origins of transformationalleadership theory.MethodologyOur methodological approach in this study is intellectual history, defined byGordon (2012: 1) as“the study of intellectuals, ideas, and intellectual patterns over time”. In intellectual history, un-derstanding the social, economic, cultural, and political context in which an idea arises is critical(Higham, 1961).The deployment of intellectual history within the study of leadership has been led by BertSpector. His bookDiscourse on Leadership: A Critical Appraisal(2016) is a wide-ranging criticalanalysis of how the concept of leadership has developed over time. The central premise of Spector’swork is that ideas have consequences. By understanding that ideas are powerful and subjectiveforces that can either change or reinforce the status quo, researchers explore how and why ideasoccur when they do (Higham, 1961;Spector, 2014,2016). In studying leadership, Spector examineshow the idea has been“articulated, studied, and debated by academics as well as practitioners,journalists, and those who sought to influence the thoughts of others”(Spector, 2016: 1). To ef-fectively engage in a critical historical examination using intellectual history, the researcher shouldfollow the literature trail wherever it takes them (Spector, 2016).Spector’s work in this regard builds on a growing body of research aimed at the critical in-vestigation of the origins of management and organization ideas, a body that has been termeda‘historic turn’(Clark and Rowlinson, 2004), or an increased‘sensitivity to history’(Suddaby,2016), that recognizes the importance of historical context and processes (Coraiola et al., 2021;Millset al., 2014;Rowlinson et al., 2014). One stream of this body, termed the‘uses of the past’, focuseson how organizational actors produce and use history in the present (Lubinski, 2018;Paludi et al.,2021). A second stream focuses on how management studies uses the past to project pathways intothe future, and it is this stream that we seek to contribute to.Central to both streams is the distinction between the past and history. AsJenkins (1991: 14)notes, the production of history is always a subjective process, and“no matter how verifiable, howwidely acceptable or checkable, history remains inevitably a personal construct, a manifestation ofthe historian’s perspective as a‘narrator’”. This challenges the objectivist view of the historian as animpartial observer who conveys the‘facts’of the past (Munslow, 1997). For Jenkins, the writing ofhistory always has a purpose, it is always for someone, or something.A recurring feature of the second stream of work in management studies’historical turn has beenshining a light on the crafting of a sanitized, ideologically conservative narrative of thefield’s past(Cooke, 1999). Cooke’s historiographical review of the subfield of change management highlightedthat its“very construction has been a political process which has written the left out and shaped anunderstanding of thefield as technocratic and ideologically neutral”(Cooke, 1999: 81). In a similarvein,Cummings et al. (2016)concluded that Kurt Lewin’s foundational‘change as three steps’model (unfreeze-change-refreeze) is a later construction by others rather than by Lewin himself, andlegitimizes a top-down, managerialist conception of planned change within organizations. Others128Leadership 20(3)
have highlighted how past events–slavery, African American, Latino, and other‘minorities’contributions, the role of female thought-leaders–have been forgotten or absented from man-agement history (Cooke, 2003;Desmond, 2019;O’Connor, 2000;Prieto and Phipps, 2019;Rosenthal, 2018;Wanderley et al., 2021;Williams and Mills, 2017).Highlighting the misrepresentations of foundational theories in management studies, and im-portant omissions from ourfield’s history in this way, is not an end-in-itself.Cavanagh et al. (2023:9) advocate‘historical sensibility’, defined as“sensitivity to and appreciation of possible pasts infuture, action-oriented decision-making”, as a means of stimulating critical and innovative thinking.As Bridgman & Cummings argue,“if we can think about theory differently, there is a possibility wecan act differently too”(2021: 122).Our research investigations began with an analysis of Burns’development of trans-formational leadership theory in the bookLeadership(1978). Monographs are helpful becausethey are lengthy and detailed, and because they provide insight into the author’s state of mind.We then focused on the scholars who brought Burns’ideas into management studies andargued that powerful transformational leaders would rescue organizations from economicdecline by establishing compelling visions to inspire their workforces (Bennis and Nanus,1985;Tichy and Devanna, 1986;Tichy and Ulrich, 1984). In particular, we focused on thework of Bernard Bass, the researcher most associated with transformational leadership theoryin management studies. A founding editor-in-chief ofLeadership Quarterly, Bass is the mostcited leadership scholar.From here, we dug deeper into the context around transformational leadership theory’s adaptationby paying attention to those Bass was citing and acknowledging for their intellectual contributions.These were primarily books, monographs, and journal articles–the typical outputs of academicstudy. We supplemented this academic literature with interviews, news articles, obituaries, andorganization websites.Finally, we drew on management textbooks as cultural artefacts that both mirror and shapeorganizational practices, reflecting the practical concerns of both scholars and current and futureorganizational participants (Cal´as and Smircich, 1989). Textbooks are“intrinsically important to theconstitution and maintenance of a discipline”(Lynch and Bogen, 1997: 663) and the primaryinstrument for students engaging in management studies (Stambaugh and Trank, 2010). By con-structing an understanding of what management is, textbooks reinforce and legitimize establisheddominant logics, socializing students as to how they will be managed and what is expected of themas future managers (Cameron et al., 2003;Cavanagh et al., 2023;Cummings et al., 2017;Williamsand Mills, 2019). In addition to analyzing transformational leadership theory’s representation ina variety of leading management textbooks, we analyze 18 editions of Robbins’OrganizationalBehavior. Notably, Robbins published thefirst edition only 1 year after Burns publishedLeadership(1978), but transformational leadership theory was not included until the fourth edition published in1989, shortly after Tichy, Ulrich, Bass, and Devanna introduced the theory to management studies.Following the editions of this same textbook, allowed us to analyze how the theory’s representationwas altered by changing contexts over time.Through this approach, our paper offers an alternative history of transformational leadershiptheory. We explore how the theory has come to be represented in management studies, contrast thisrepresentation with the origins of the theory in political science, and provide explanations for whatmight explain the differences. Instead of dismissing transformational leadership, as many now do,rethinking its history in this way can make it possible to practice leadership differently too. Indeed,rather than being the enemy of greater workplace democracy, we argue that recovering the origins ofthe theory can help us advance it in practice.Eaton et al.129
James Macgregor Burns’transforming leadership theory“Ultimately the moral legitimacy of transformational leadership, and to a lesser degree transactionalleadership, is grounded inconscious choice among real alternatives”(Burns, 1978: 36, emphasis in original)Burns’Leadership(1978) is regarded as a seminal text, gained a Pulitzer Prize, boasts more than40,000 citations on Google Scholar, and changed how people thought about leadership theory. Burnsdistinguished between transactional and transforming leadership. In transactional leadership“leaders approach followers with an eye to exchanging one thing for another: jobs for votes, orsubsidies for campaign contributions”(p. 4). Transforming leadership, he argued, is more complexand more potent:“the transforming leader looks for potential motives in followers, seeks to satisfyhigher needs, and engages the full person of the follower”(p. 4). Transforming leadership hasa transformative effect on both leaders and followers:“it raises the level of human conduct andethical aspiration of both leader and led”(p. 20). Burns’exemplar was Mahatma Gandhi,“whoaroused and elevated the hopes and demands of millions of Indians and whose life and personalitywere enhanced in the process”(p. 20).Transforming leadership was, for Burns, moral leadership, that resulted not just in higher levels ofmotivation, but higher levels of morality too. Burns explained in three distinct points what moralleadership meant to him (Burns, 1978). First, leaders and followers need to have a relationship builton mutual needs, aspirations, and values beyond brute power. For Burns, brute power is comparableto a dictatorship where leaders use a title or force to lead or‘rule’. Second, followers must be awareof different leaders and programs and be able to choose amongst these alternatives, as reflected bythe quotation at the head of this section. For Burns, a political scientist, the capacity to chooseamongst alternative leaders and programs meant voting for a democratically elected politicalrepresentative. In election campaigns, followers must be“exposed to the competing diagnoses,claims and values of would-be leaders”(1978: 36) so that followers can determine their own trueneeds. These true needs are defined by their motives, values, and goals.Burns (1978)believed thatleaders should be opposed and contested by followers and other leaders and that competition andconflict are central to leadership. This process is what makes leadership moral. The third aspect ofmoral leadership is that leaders must take responsibility for their promises and commitments.Thus, for Burns, for leadership to be moral, there needed to be democratic institutions andmechanisms. He wanted to create distance between his theory of leadership and the leadership ofdictators and tyrants. In 2001, when asked whether his thinking on leadership had evolved since his1978 book, Burns was even“more impressed by the role of conflict, which tends to be downplayedin much of the literature by people who are more interested in consensus”(Bailey and Axelrod,2001: 115). Burns highlighted and dismissed the tendency of leadership scholars to favour con-sensus over conflict, identifying“the notions of competition and conflict, leaders and followers, thereciprocal process, mobilization”as crucial elements of leadership (Bailey and Axelrod, 2001: 115).Burns reiterated the connection between leadership and democracy in his 2003 bookTransformingLeadership: A Pursuit of Happiness. When leaders empower followers, there is a chance thatfollowers’beliefs and confidence might sow the seeds of conflict:“Followers might outstrip leaders.They might become leaders themselves. That is what makes transforming leadership participatoryand democratic”(Burns, 2003: 26). Burns’belief in the importance of conflict in the leader-followerrelationship made him wary of charismatic leaders. Charisma disrupts the empowerment process130Leadership 20(3)
between leader and followers, resulting in obedient followers with no mechanism or desire to givefeedback to their leader. Burns regarded charismatic leadership as confusing and undemocratic atbest and tyranny at worst.There can be no doubt, therefore, that democratic processes were central to Burns’theorizing oftransforming leadership. The view that followers should vote for their leaders, judge them on theirability to deliver their promises, and remove them from office when they fail to do so is un-remarkable, given that Burns’theory is developed in the context of democratic politics of a nation-state. In the next section, we explore what happened when Burns’theory of transforming leadershipwas picked up by management writers.The transformation of transforming leadership theoryThis section proceeds in three stages: the state of management studies before Burns’publication ofLeadership; the social, economic, and political context during the translation of the theory thatshaped its evolution within management studies; and what happened (and did not happen), after thetranslation that obscured important elements of Burns’theorizing, especially those related todemocratic processes.Before: Management studies in the 1970sThe 1970s were a difficult time for the American people. In 1971 President Richard Nixon re-sponded to increasing inflation by implementing wage and price freezes. Two years later, the price ofoil increased dramatically and tipped the economy into a recession. It was a turbulent time in USlabor history, with militant picket lines and industry-wide strikes a response to employer attempts toerode gains won by unions.The intellectual ideas circulating at the time reflected what was happening on the ground. Onerepresentation of this is the Google Ngram inFigure 1, which shows phrases that have occurred ina corpus of books over different timeframes. Interest in industrial democracy was high during the1970s, just as it had been in the tumultuous period of employer-labor relations from 1910 to 1930.A related idea, also reaching new heights in the 1970s, was participation in management. Onescholar at the forefront of this idea was Bernard Bass (Bass et al., 1979;Bass and Shackleton, 1979).Bass and Shackleton (1979)compared and synthesised American and European representations ofparticipative management and industrial relations. Industrial democracy was more formal and hada legal element, while participative management was more informal. Industrial democracy wassuited to organized worker representation, and participative management was a more face-to-facecollaborative approach between managers and employees. Bass & Shackleton were enthusiasticabout the future of shared decision-making in organizations, concluding“it is unlikely that the trendtoward industrial democracy and participative management is a passing fad”(1979: 402) and that“inthe coming years, we expect increasing attention to be paid to industrial democracy and participativemanagement”(1979: 403).These predictions did not prove to be correct, because the context shifted in ways that wereunfavourable for greater involvement by employees in decision-making. Neoliberalism, which hadfallen out of favour following the Second World War, began regaining popular support, culminatingin the election of Ronald Reagan as US President in 1981 following a period of stagflation. Itsintellectual leader, Milton Friedman who served as an advisor to Reagan, advocated a free marketeconomic system with minimal government intervention.Friedman’s 1962book,Capitalism andFreedom,was a best-seller, but his most well-known contribution is his1970article inThe New YorkEaton et al.131
Times, where he stated that‘the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits’. With therole of business within neoliberalism being maximizing shareholder value, the push for industrialdemocracy and participative management subsided.The poor performance of the US economy was also of great concern to management writers.Hayes and Abernathy’s 1980article inHarvard Business Reviewwarned readers that corporateAmerica was managing its way to economic decline. American organizations lacked technicalcompetitiveness and growth compared to other countries, and they blamed management rather thanexternal forces like inflation, government regulation, and tax policy:“modern management prin-ciples may cause rather than cure sluggish economic performance”(1980: 67). Other writerswondered why the Japanese economy was performing so much better, and their search for ideas thatcould rescue the US economy led to widespread interest in Japanese management practices.Japanese companies were extolling the importance of having shared values, moving away frommechanistic views of organizations, and focusing on shared beliefs, behavior, knowledge, values,and goals (Ouchi, 1981;Pascale and Athos, 1982).Another link in the chain was psychoanalyst Abraham Zaleznik’sHarvard Business Reviewarticlepublished in 1977, which introduced the idea that leaders and managers were different. Managers wereimpersonal, passive, risk-averse, anxious people who could tolerate mundane work, and whose work isprimarily an enabling process that conserves and regulates the existing order. In contrast, leaders werepersonable, active, risk seekers and takers, who developed fresh approaches to problems. Zalezniklamented that conditions of society, including business organizations, favoured the development ofmanagers and were stifling to leaders who exhibited creativity and imagination (Zaleznik, 1977).This was a clarion call for leadership, but within management studies, research on leadership hadstagnated. In Robbins’first three editions of hisOrganizational Behaviortextbook (1979,1983,1986), before thefirst inclusion of transformational leadership theory, Robbins described the state ofleadership research as voluminous, confusing, and contradictory. Leadership research was primarilyfocused on individual and group behavior, and scholars lacked a grand idea to establish the study ofleadership (Spector, 2016).A struggling US economy, the rise of neoliberalism, and the inability of existing leadership ideasto provide a compelling solution to the problems of the day, was fertile ground for the seeding ofBurns’theory of transforming leadership within management studies. The publication ofLeadership(1978) turned attention to“the statesmen who moved and shook the world”(Bass, 1993: 375). Byconnecting leadership theory to leaders at the top, Burns unknowingly created an exciting andseemingly much-needed shift for management scholars to refresh their focus.Figure 1.Google Ngram.132Leadership 20(3)
During: Translating transforming leadership theoryTichy and Ulrich (1984), writing inSloan Management Review, were thefirst to make the connectionto Burns and express enthusiasm for the potential of transformational leaders. They laid the blamefor the continued decline of American corporations on“transactional managers”(p. 59) who lackeda compelling vision of the future and clung to the status quo. The key to revitalising large cor-porations like General Motors, AT&T, and General Electric was a“new brand of leadership”(p. 59),a“solid corporate example of what Burns referred to as a transforming leader”(p. 60).Tichy and Ulrich’s personification of transformational leadership in action was Lee Iacocca,chairperson of Chrysler Corporation, who“provided the leadership to transform a company from thebrink of bankruptcy to profitability”(1984: 59).Tichy and Ulrich (1984: 63) outlined“threeidentifiable programs of activity associated with transformational leadership”: create a vision,mobilize commitment, institutionalize change. Creation of the vision is the responsibility of thetransformational leader, not something to be delegated to others. Iacocca“developed a visionwithout committee work or heavy staff involvement”, relying instead on his“intuitive and directiveleadership, philosophy, and style”(p. 64). Mobilizing commitment occurs when“the organization,or at least a critical mass of it, accepts the new mission and vision and makes it happen (p. 64).Iacocca mobilized large factors of employees to his vision“while simultaneously downsizing theworkforce by 60,000 employees”(p. 59). The institutionalization of change requires trans-formational leaders to“transmit their vision into reality”through changes in communication,decision-making, and corporate culture. Iacocca used internal communication to signal his vision,appeared in Chrysler’s ads to be the face of change, and transformed the internal culture“to that ofa lean and hungry team looking for victory”(p. 60).Spector (2014)concluded that Iacocca was little more than a‘macho bully’and Tichy andUlrich’s use of him as the“embodiment of the transformational leadership construct”was,“at best,highly romanticized”and at worst“misleading and disingenuous”(2014: 361). However, it is easyto see elements of Burns’theory that were appealing to management scholars. It could be moulded toa narrative that the decline of corporate America could only be reversed by heroic, daring CEOs withvisions of a more prosperous future. It could also be drawn on to promote the view that leadershipand organizational change are inextricably linked, thereby providing support for a new sub-field ofchange management that was taking shape at the start of the 1980s. For Tichy and Ulrich, leaderswere people who transformed organizations. Their three elements of transformational leadershipclosely resembleKotter’s (1995)eight steps for transforming organizations, and a range of othermodels developed in this period (Cummings et al., 2016). Less appealing to Tichy, Ulrich, and othermanagement writers were Burns’ideas on morality and democracy.While Bass was not thefirst to draw on Burns’theory for a management audience, he wouldbecome the person most associated with transformational leadership theory within ourfield. In hisbookLeadership and Performance Beyond Expectations(1985a), Bass listed ways his con-ceptualisation differed from Burns.Burns (1978)wanted to reserve transforming leadership for theforces of good and believed that Hitler exemplified everything he believed leadership was not. Bassdismissed Burns’argument that transformation must be‘elevating’, arguing that while Hitler was animmoral and brutal leader, he was transformational in the sense that he created change andtransformed Germany. Thus, he dismissed Burns’grounding of transforming leadership in morality,at the same time strengthening the association of the theory with transformational change.Bass’stance on the morality of leadership shifted in an articleEthics, Character, and AuthenticTransformational Leader Behavior(1999), co-authored with Paul Steidlmeier. They argued thatgenuine transformational leadership must be grounded in moral foundations (Bass and Steidlmeier,Eaton et al.133
1999). When leaders act consciously or unconsciously in bad faith, this is inauthentic or pseudo-transformational leadership. Pseudo-transformational leaders are less likely to listen to conflictingviews and are intolerant of differences of opinion between them and their followers. Bass retractedhis earlier claim that transformational leaders could be‘virtuous or villainous’by stating that he wasmistaken (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999).However, this article also makes clear Bass’thinking on worker voice and participation inbusiness decisions. Remember, in the 1970s Bass was a leading promoter of participation inmanagement and shared decision-making. In addressing critics of transformational leadership whoargued the theory“is antithetical to organizational learning and development involving sharedleadership, equality, consensus and participative decision-making”(Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999:192–3)Bass and Steidlmeier (1999: 202–3) responded:“For human relationists, the coming together of the values of the leader and followers is morally ac-ceptable only if it comes about from participative decision-making pursuing consensus between leadersand followers. Whether a leader is participative or directive, however, is not a matter of morality. It isa matter of the naivet´e or experience of the followers and many other contextual considerations. In manycases, directive leadership is more appropriate and acceptable to all concerned”.What is striking in reading the work of Bass and other management writers who translated Burns’theory for a management audience is that there is no consideration that Burns was writing aboutpoliticians and voters. If readers were not aware of this, it could easily be assumed that Burns waswriting about corporate America. We found no explicit critical reflection on the parallels anddifferences between the contexts of democratic politics and business. Rather, key differences areassumed–the business world does not operate according to democratic principles, employees do notvote for their leaders, the role of leaders is to drive change from the top-down to improve orga-nizational performance, and participation, dissent, and questioning of leaders’visions are welcomeonly when it strengthens the proposed change. Burns chose to overlook Burns’essential democraticfoundation of transforming leadership theory–despite his earlier interest in industrial democracyand participative management.After: Burns’response to transformational leadership theoryThe 1980s saw a great tidal wave of interest in transformational leadership, depicted inFigure 1. Asit grew in influence, interest in industrial democracy and participative management waned. As wehave seen, the theory of transformational leadership that emerged within management studies wasquite different to that developed by Burns in political science. In this section, we investigate Burns’response to those developments.Burns was certainly aware of how Bass and others were shaping his theory. The foreword ofTransformational Leadership,published in2006by Bass and Ronald Riggio, describes a meeting ofleadership scholars at the University of Maryland nearly a decade earlier. The topic for debate waswhether Hitler was a transformational leader. As noted earlier, Bass initially took the view thattransformational leaders were those who created transformational change, irrespective of their moralvalues. The foreword, signed off by Burns and Georgia Sorenson of the Burns Academy ofLeadership, states that“after 3 days of intense debate, Burns, the scholar, took a bold stand: from hisperspective, the term‘leadership’should be reserved for the forces of good”(2006: viii). WhileBurns staunchly defended the essence of his theory being grounded in morality, there is no mentionof the democratic underpinnings of his notion of moral leadership.134Leadership 20(3)
Why didn’t Burns defend the democratic component of transforming leadership? Perhaps Burns,a political scientist, shared Bass’view that business was an area where democratic principles did notapply. More likely, based on an interview Burns had withBailey and Axelrod (2001), he felt it wasnot his place to comment on management scholars’development of his theory. Burns was askedwhat it takes to be a great organizational leader and to comment on the challenges business leadersface. He responded:“I do not pretend to be an authority, or even deeply informed, on organizationalleadership aside from reading some of the work that has been done in this area”(Bailey and Axelrod,2001: 116). Burns was complimentary toward Bass and his associates and expected they would beremembered as great leadership theorists (Bailey and Axelrod, 2001).Another possible explanation is that Burns was grateful to Bass and other management scholarsfor popularizing his work. Political theorists have neglected the issue of leadership because ofgreater concern for democratic government and ideas of‘equality, justice, and community’(Peele,2005).Tintor´e and Güell (2015)analyzed the 100 most-cited leadership articles in politics, business,and education. They found that“transformational”was the most commonly occurring word (beyondthe words“leadership”and school”). However,“transformational”was not mentioned in any of thepolitical science articles–all the occurrences were in business and education articles. It would bemisleading to suggest Burns had no impact on political science. A Center for Political Leadershipand Participation opened in 1981 at University of Maryland and in 1997 this was renamed The JamesMacgregor Burns Academy of Leadership. However, in 2017 its official home became the MøllerCentre, an executive education provider in Cambridge, reflecting the influence of Burns’thinking inbusiness. Perhaps this made it easier for Burns to ignore the democratic deficit in the translation ofhis theory.Recovering the democratic origins of transformational leadershipWhy does it matter that Burns’democratic underpinning of transformational leadership theory wasignored by management scholars who popularised his theory? In this section, we put forward threereasons. First, it matters because transformational leadership theory remains influential, evidencedby its continued appearance in executive education programmes, management textbooks, anddiscussions of leadership in business and the popular press. Second, it matters because there is anopportunity provided by our alternative history of transformational leadership theory to change howwe teach it to business students. Third, it matters because if we teach the theory differently and ina way that is closer to Burns’original thinking, alternative approaches to leadership can emerge thatcan contribute to the democratization of work.Returning to the origins of transformational leadership theory and tracing its evolution mattersbecause the theory remains influential. The theory was included in all mainstream and criticalmanagement textbooks that we sampled (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2019;Clegg et al., 2019;Griffin, 2019;King and Lawley, 2019;McShane et al., 2019;Robbins et al., 2022;Schermerhornet al., 2020;Williams, 2022). All outline the conventional understanding, namely Bass’repre-sentation of transformational leaders as visionaries who drive organizational change by inspiringtheir followers to go beyond their own self-interest and perform above expectations. Some ac-knowledge the essential moral element of transformational leadership that Bass came to accept laterin his career (Schermerhorn et al., 2020;Williams, 2022). Moreover, some explore the‘dark side’oftransformational leadership (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2019;Clegg et al., 2019;King and Lawley,2019;McShane et al., 2019). But none deal with the democratic origins of the theory developed byBurns and therefore none explore the possibility of how the theory might be applied to promoteworkplace democracy.Eaton et al.135
The second reason why exploring the evolution of transformational leadership theory matters isbecause it reminds us that foundational theories of management are not set in stone. As histori-ography teaches us, the production of history is always a subjective process–a necessary selectionby the historian of people, places, and events as important, and others as unimportant. So it is withthe construction of management theories. We have examined how influential management writerscrafted transformational leadership theory for their audience, in response to the context they in-habited at the start of the 1980s–the decline of America as the global economic powerhouse, a lackof trust between managers and workers, and a feeling that management had become impotent. Bassand his contemporaries took from Burns the importance of individual leaders, the centrality ofa vision, the need to mobilize the commitment of followers, and the idea of transformational change.They used these ideas to craft a new management manifesto for corporate America. As we have seen,these writers also looked past important elements of Burns’theory which were not helpful for theiragenda–the essential morality of transforming leadership and, most importantly from our per-spective, that moral leadership requires followers to choose their leaders.Just as Burns’transforming leadership theory was transformed by management writers in the1980s, so it can be transformed again for the very different context we face today–alarming climatechange, growing social and economic inequalities, an expectation on corporations to address them,and growing calls for the democratization of work. Nothing is stopping us from refashioningtransformational leadership for today’s challenges, in a way that is closer to Burns’original thinking.Table 1presents the conventional representation of transformational leadership theory, generatedfrom our analysis of management textbooks, and alternative representation drawn from our his-torical analysis. The table was inspired byBurnes et al. (2016)who reimagined organizationalchange leadership by revisiting the seminal work of Burns and Kurt Lewin.For Burns, democracy shaped all four elements of morality, power, conflict, and the role offollowers. Transforming leadership is only moral if followers select their leaders. Opposition andconflict between leaders and followers are essential and act as mechanisms to prevent leaders fromaccruing excessive power. After selecting their leaders, the role of followers is to hold them ac-countable for their performance.Table 1.Two representations of transformational leadership theory.Conventional representationAlternative representationMoralityTransformational leadership theory is groundedin moral foundations, and leaders must act ingood faith (Bass and Riggio, 2006;Bass andSteidlmeier, 1999).Transforming leadership theory is only moralif followers can select their leader fromseveral options (Burns, 1978).PowerPower is necessary for transformational leadersto have the ability to make changes (Bennisand Nanus, 1985).Power is not leadership, and mechanisms mustexist to reduce the power of leaders (Burns,1978,2003).ConflictTransformational leaders should listen to viewsthat conflict with theirs to benefit the vision(Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999).Opposition and contestation from otherpotential leaders and followers are essential(Bailey and Axelrod, 2001;Burns, 1978,2003).Role offollowersTo be inspired to look past their self-interest andgo above and beyond for their organization(for exampleRobbins, 1989,1991).To make informed choices about who theywant their leaders to be and hold themaccountable (Burns, 1978).136Leadership 20(3)
In contrast, the conventional representation is silent on these democratic elements. While trans-formational leaders should act with morality and in good faith, they are not accountable to followers inthe way that Burns envisaged. It is leaders’responsibility to develop a vision for the organization andto inspire employees to look past their self-interest, buy into that vision and help make that visiona reality. Transformational leaders are encouraged to listen to views that conflict with their own, butonly in ways that benefit the vision and organizational performance. In the conventional represen-tation, transformational leadership theory has an instrumental purpose–to enhance the performance ofthe organization rather than the broader social outcomes that Burns articulated.The third reason why looking again at the origins of transformational leadership and how it wastranslated for a management audience matters is that if management students were taught trans-formational leadership in a way closer to Burns’conception, the theory could contribute to democratizingwork. To be sure, there are arguments against giving employees a vote on who leads them: employeesusually do not have an ownership stake in the business and might therefore vote for leaders who will givethem pay raises or go easy on them, rather than for leaders with the best interests of the organization atheart. Or it might be argued that conducting votes on leaders and other key decisions would paralyzeorganizations and make them too unresponsive to a rapidly changing business environment. We do notpretend that the idea of more democratic structures in organizations is straightforward. But we do believethe issue warrants more serious consideration and debate given the challenges we face today. Textbookspresenting our alternative representation of transformational leadership theory, alongside the conven-tional representation, would stimulate that debate. We acknowledge that this might be a challenge forbest-selling management textbooks, which predominantly reflect a unitarist, managerialist worldview. Atthe very least, we would welcome management textbooks with a critical orientation to consider ouralternative representation for inclusion.This is not an abstract debate about how theory is represented. The practical implications are realand important. Earlier we discussed the case of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, celebrated inmanagement textbooks as a visionary and the inspiration behind the company’s extraordinarysuccess (Robbins et al., 2015), but more recently blamed for its fall from grace, the companya dictatorship controlled by its founder who cannot see past his grand vision of the metaverse(Naughton, 2021). Facebook is not an isolated example. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos was featured in thesixteenth edition ofOrganizational Behavioras an exemplar of a successful leader (Robbins andJudge, 2015). However, not mentioned is Amazon’s notorious reputation for underpayment ofworkers, extreme physical exertion in fulfilment centres, brutal corporate culture, and a series offatalities in the workplace. How we teach leadership and management theory to students socializesthem into how they should behave as employees and how they should operate as managers (Cal´asand Smircich, 1989;Cavanagh et al., 2023;Stambaugh and Trank, 2010). If we teach theorydifferently, there is the possibility that organizations will be led differently in the future.ConclusionThe case of transformational leadership is another example ofCooke’s (1999)writing the left out ofmanagement theory. An obituary of Burns mentions his politics were left-wing (Weber, 2014). Heran for Congress as a Democrat in 1958 and commented that another party’s supporters attacked himfor being an“atheistic communist, etc”(Bailey and Axelrod, 2001: 114). Burns was passionateabout democracy and concerned about the abuse of power. These concerns influenced his work andcan be identified throughout his seminal bookLeadership(1978). The moral element of trans-forming leadership is what concerned him most. This morality, he explained, is defined by whetherfollowers have“conscious choice amongst real alternatives”(Burns, 1978: 36).Eaton et al.137
The democratic component of transforming leadership theory that was crucial to Burns wasunimportant to those who introduced it to management studies. His work was co-opted by man-agement theorists to further their interests in top-down, transformational change. Bass, formerly anadvocate of employee participation in management decision-making, became enamoured with theidea of powerful, heroic leaders and their grand visions for organizational transformation. Heactively dismissed critics’concerns about the lack of checks on transformational leaders and arguedthat, in most cases, directive leadership is more appropriate (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999).Looking deeper into the origins of transformational leadership theory matters because it remainsinfluential. WhileFigure 1shows interest might have peaked, its leader-centrism means it sharesa strong family resemblance to other popular approaches to leadership today, including authentic,responsible, ethical, servant, and positive leadership theories (Alvesson and Einola, 2019;Robbinsand Judge, 2018;Spector, 2014). It also remains influential outside of academic circles, including inthe popular press, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (Fox, 2022) and former NewZealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently described as transformational leaders (Grant, 2021).Thefield of transformational leadership research is not without problems. In a damning review of25 years of transformational leadership research,van Knipperberg and Sitkin (2013: 45) concluded“itis a body of research riddled with major problems”: aflawed construct, no definition of the theoryindependent of its effects, and no explanation of how the dimensions of the theory can be differentiatedfrom other aspects of leadership. While they argue that transformational leadership, as a concept,should be“dropped from scientific inquiry”, they also accept that their call“is decidedly not to say thatwe should abandon all ideas and insights from research in charismatic-transformational leadership”(van Knipperberg and Sitkin, 2013: 45–6.) We agree that although the science is deeplyflawed, there isvalue in exploring the theory in new ways, as we propose in this article.We are conscious that at present, there appears little enthusiasm amongst critical managementscholars for transformational leadership theory.Tourish (2013)worries the theory breeds cultishorganizations. Cults typically have a charismatic leader and a compelling vision. Followers arerewarded for compliance and penalized for dissent. Followers are encouraged to believe the leaderhas their best interests at heart and a common culture is seen to be necessary for the group to succeed,making dissent or critique even less likely. However, this is a criticism of the conventional rep-resentation, and in particular, Bass’conception of idealized influence which relates to followersidentifying more readily with charismatic leaders. As explained earlier, charisma was not a pre-requisite for Burns’transforming leaders. In fact, he was wary of charismatic leaders for exactly thereason that Tourish is.Tourish (2013)prefers Burns’pluralist notion of transactional leadership–the idea of leadersrecognising that followers might have different interests and objectives and therefore engaging insome‘give and take’around that. We believe this can be accommodated within Burns’conception,since he makes it clear that opposition and contestation from other followers and leaders are essentialto transforming leadership. Tourish’s other suggestion is to consider more democratic processes inorganizations. This is where we encourage Tourish and those promoting workplace democracy tolook again at the potential of transformational leadership. Remember, Burns believed that the abilityof followers to elect their leaders was a necessary safeguard against the threat of transformationalleaders going rogue. What if employees were given the right to choose who leads them, as well as thepower to replace them?We acknowledge that transformational leadership can be seen as more of the same–a theory ofindividual leadership with a binary relationship between leader and followers–which means we failto recognise the potential of collective leadership (Currie and Lockett, 2007;Raelin, 2018). Whilewe welcome the development of collective approaches, in many organizations this is not a realistic138Leadership 20(3)
alternative for now. For this to occur there needs to be greater democratization of work. Trans-formational leadership theory, in its original, democratic form, is a useful step along that path.We also acknowledge this paper only looks at a narrow aspect of transformational leadershiptheory, the lost democratic component. Some may be critical of our favoring of Burns’concep-tualization of the theory when he was silent on other aspects like gender and race, which areimportant parts of any discussion of leadership (Ladkin and Patrick, 2022). Other narratives are stillpossible, and we encourage future research in this regard.In exploring the origins of transformational leadership theory, we build on and seek to contributeto, critical historical research within management studies. We also contribute to developinga business education that is more aware of the historical origins and evolution of theories for thepurpose of cultivating critical, reflexive practitioners (Cavanagh et al., 2023;Cunliffe, 2016;Tcholakian et al., 2023). We do not claim to have the answers to the challenges facing business andsociety today. We do suggest that looking again at Burns and reflecting critically on how thedemocratic context in which he developed his ideas might be applied to the workplace isa worthwhile undertaking. The advantages of pursuing this, as well as the limitations and potentialproblems, are all issues of worthy debate in our business schools.Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/orpublication of this article.FundingThe author(s) received nofinancial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.ORCID iDLauren Eatonhttps://orcid.org/0009-0008-9151-4248ReferencesAllix N (2000) Transformational leadership: democratic or despotic?Educational Management & Adminis-tration28(1): 7–20.Alvesson M and Einola K (2019) Warning for excessive positivity: authentic leadership and other traps inleadership studies.The Leadership Quarterly30(4): 383–395.Amis JM, Mair J and Munir KA (2020) The organizational reproduction of inequality.Academy of ManagementAnnals14(1): 195–230.Bailey J and Axelrod R (2001) Leadership lessons from mount rushmore: an interview with James MacGregorBurns.The Leadership Quarterly12(1): 113–121.Bass B (1985a)Leadership and Performance beyond Expectations. New York: The Free Press.Bass B (1993) A seminal shift: the impact of James Burns’leadership.The Leadership Quarterly4(3): 375–377.Bass B (2008)The Bass Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Application. 4th edition. New York: Free Press.Bass B and Riggio R (2006)Transformational Leadership. 2nd edition. New York: Psychology Press.Bass B and Shackleton V (1979) Industrial democracy and participative management: a case for a synthesis.TheAcademy of Management Review4(3): 393–404.Bass B and Steidlmeier P (1999) Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior.TheLeadership Quarterly10(2): 181–217.Bass B, Shackleton Vand Rosenstein E (1979) Industrial democracy and participative management: what’s thedifference?Applied Psychology28(2): 81–92.Eaton et al.139
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