18.6: Transformational Leadership
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To cope with a changing world any entity must develop the capability of shifting and changing, of developing new skills and attitudes: in short the capability of learning (De Gues, 1997, p. 20).
Transformational leadership provides a useful and relevant perspective from which to examine change processes involved in adoption and use of educational technologies. Research into factors affecting technology use for teaching and learning by Byrom and Bingham (2001) found that leadership was a key ingredient in the adoption and use of educational technologies. Leadership practice started with vision, leading through example, included support for followers, and shared leadership that maintained focus through evaluation of the change implemented. The International Society for Technology in Education (2001), through its National Educational Technology Standards Project, found that the core curriculum and content area skills required for school technology leaders were leadership and vision; learning and teaching; productivity and professional practice; support, management and operations; assessment and evaluation; and social, legal and ethical issues.
These characteristics of leadership are clearly described in the literature on transformational leadership, hence its applicability to understanding change in the context of implementing educational technologies. Substantial research conducted by Burns (1978), Leithwood & Jantzi (2000, 2005) indicates that complex and dynamic change, such as the implementation of educational technologies, is more likely to occur through transformational leadership. Transformational leadership “can be thought of as a set of behaviors of individuals who accomplish change” (Valdez, 2004, para. 12), and “is about change, innovation, and entrepreneurship” (Tichy & Devanna, 1990, p. xii). Transformational leadership is dynamic. It is building motivation and purpose in followers where the greater good of the organization is placed ahead of personal interests. For Burns (2003), “a leader not only speaks to immediate wants, but elevates people by vesting in them a sense of possibility, a belief that changes can be made and that they can make them” (p. 239).
Bennis and Nanus (1985) describe transformational leaders as using knowledge and engendering trust to build commitment through communication to a shared vision to support change and transformation. Transformational leadership is the development of vision within a supportive culture, and the articulation of goals to achieve a collective vision (Silins & Mulford, 2002). Transformational leadership invokes change, and is more about innovativeness than innovation, less about strategy and more about strategizing. It is shared leadership, where everyone involved in the organization are leaders. This requires participation, vision, collaboration, and reflection—all of which require a sense of community and a direct link between leading and learning (Lambert, 2002). Leithwood and Duke (1999) describe seven dimensions of transformational leadership:
- creating a shared vision
- setting goals
- providing intellectual stimulation
- supplying individual support
- modelling effective practice
- meeting high expectations
- developing a positive culture, and creating structures that support active involvement in decision-making.
Developing shared vision and setting goals is a process that engages leaders and followers to achieve something greater than if left to their own self-interests. The process helps to create new structures to support active involvement. Transformational leaders engage process, and then promote change by valuing individual difference and supporting followers. They model the practice they wish others to emulate, and keep true to the vision and goals. They instill feelings of confidence, admiration and commitment in followers. Each follower is coached, advised, and delegated some authority within the organization. The transformational leader stimulates followers intellectually, arousing them to develop new ways to think about problems, and in the case of e-learning, new ways to think about the organization of learning and delivery of instruction.
Leithwood and Jantzi (2005) shaped a set of transformational leadership behaviours (TLBs) derived from their meta-analysis of the literature in school settings (see Table 18.1, Transformational Leadership Behaviours for details). Three of the groups of behaviours— setting directions, helping people, and redesigning the organization—are based on transformational leadership theory, while the last, an aggregate of transactional and managerial leadership, is based on Bass’s (1985) transactional model and attempts to fill gaps in transformational leadership theory. In setting directions, transformational leaders identify and articulate a vision, foster acceptance of group goals, and ensure high performance expectations. The vision may be one that is developed in a community collectively, or one that the leader espouses and articulates to followers for their endorsement and engagement.
In helping people, transformational leaders motivate by modelling high expectations, or “idealized influence” as described by Bass (1985), and they encourage and support followers to do the same. Knowing your followers is key to this dimension. In the case of adoption of educational technologies, leaders embrace and use technology as part of their professional work, and encourage followers to do the same for their own professional needs as well as part of their professional practice with learners. Transformational leaders create formal structures for dialogue and discussion that build collaboration, and expand those structures to include opportunities to engage all constituents.
Transformational leadership, then, is a model that describes how to build capacity for change that can support implementation of an e-learning program. Previous models of leadership stressed centralized control within hierarchical organizational structures, leading to a “top down” approach. A decentralized model based on flatter organizational structures leads to a “bottom up” approach associated with a transformational model of leadership (see Bass, 1985, 1997; Silins & Mulford, 2002; Leithwood, 2005). For example, in a three year study of high schools in two Australia states, Silins & Mulford (2002) found that transformational leaders demonstrated active interest in teaching and learning, but more importantly they “help establish the systems and structures that support ‘bottom up’ approaches and allow ‘top down’ approaches to succeed [and] are effective because they are, above all, people-centred” (p. 31).
Transformational leaders focus on those involved in the change, their relationships, and seek to transform feelings, attitudes and beliefs in support of organizational direction, established through a clear, shared vision. In his meta-analysis of the research on transformational leadership, Leithwood (2005) concluded that “as an image of ideal practice, transformational leadership currently is challenged only by instructional leadership in both practitioner and scholarly communities” (p. 2). Leithwood cautions, however, that most research on transformational leadership in non-school contexts has been restricted to the work of Bass (1985), while he and his colleagues have done the majority of the research in school contexts.
Theory is one thing, practice yet another. Transformational leadership theory is relatively new. While more research will substantiate its usefulness, particularly as it applies to adoption and use of educational technologies, it has limitations. While the literature describes how vision, goal orientation, and progress is communicated, it does not describe how that communication is received. Too often superficial dialogue is created when transformational leadership processes are used, and while communication occurs, understanding does not. Transformational leadership theory also claims to explore equality and justice issues, yet studies reflect organizational change, not issues of equity, social justice— the “digital divide” for any e-learning program. Further research into the effects on pedagogy of the adoption of educational technologies, particularly with a view to equity issues in e-learning programs, is worth consideration.