1.2 Problems with transformational leadership
Some significant problems exist with transformational leadership, and these can be understood from a racialised perspective. As Ladkin and Bridges Patrick (2022) have shown, the fourth edition of the Bass Handbook of leadership (Bass and Bass, 2008) demonstrates a worrying attitude with regards to race, referencing incorrect research on the apparent inferior cognitive ability of Black people in relation to white people as an explanation for why there are so few Black people in senior leadership roles in the US. As demonstrated by Ladkin and Bridges Patrick, the evidential basis of this claim is, of course, nonsense.
This raises the question of whether the racial issues in Bass’ work should invalidate the entire theory of transformational leadership for anyone interested in leadership that enhances equity and racial justice. The problem for anyone seeking to rescue transformational leadership is that the whole theory seems to be built upon unquestioned assumptions of whiteness (Ladkin and Bridges Park, 2022).
Firstly, the theory overly privileges the role of individual leaders. They are viewed as the source of inspiration and energy, with followers made into passive recipients. As Ladkin and Bridges Park (2022, p. 221) state, viewing leadership as a process in which ‘followers are diminished and leaders exalted, is deeply embedded in White assumptions about the nature of human relations as hierarchical and disconnected’. Healthy organisations, in contrast, seek inspiration and vision from all quarters, not only from the most senior levels. Deferring to the vision and inspiration of people in senior positions can even be disempowering and dangerous, generating dynamics closer to those of religious adoration or even cults, where the priority is pleasing the executives and celebrating their accomplishments rather than meeting the needs of the organisation as a whole (Delaney and Spoelstra, 2019; Tourish and Pinnington, 2002). When issues of race and whiteness are layered on top of these dangers, a more sinister picture emerges of a deferral to white authority.
Secondly, because transformational leadership studies focus on senior people within organisations in the US and Europe, by definition these studies will overrepresent white leaders. This is because white people are overrepresented in senior roles and Black people are underrepresented. The theory is shaped far too strongly by the characteristics of white leaders based in the US.
Thirdly, you will notice that issues connected with material reward (e.g. money, but other material benefits include holiday entitlement, length of the working day, etc.) are labelled as ‘transactional’. Such labelling gives the impression that a transactional approach is less valuable than a transformational one. However, we all need material security to live and prosper, so relegating its importance seems careless at best, and harmful at worst. There is nothing at all wrong with insisting on fair transactions at work and for this to be a primary focus of leadership and organising – after all, such is the main purpose of trade unions. This discussion adopts racialised significance when you take into consideration the fact that white people in general tend to be wealthier than Black people in UK, European and US contexts. Diminishing considerations of material inequality therefore also means failing to confront racial inequality in a substantial way.
Finally, when transitioning to a business school context, notions of morality are also relegated within the theory, whereas they were more important in Burns’ (1978) original approach. Racial justice, however, is clearly a moral issue.