transformational leadership

Understand, I am a teacher. Or at least, I define myself as a teacher - and a learner. Somewhat confusing to me is that now that I hold a different title, others see me differently, as an administrator. What does that mean? So I am going to my learner side and doing research. This morning I found the idea of transformational leadership off of A Blueprint for Reform which led me to A Systemic View of Transformational Leadership by Russell L Ackoff.

Let me take you a step back. I am working in an organization that is attempting to be innovative by completely empowering teachers to lead their way. Yes. I adamantly believe that teachers are competent professionals who have the ability to do this, but I am struggling with believing that they can do it alone. One of the reasons I left the classroom was the create opportunity for teachers and facilitate this change - with the ultimate goal of providing a safe and inspiring space for all children to learn. My question stems around the facilitation of change.

How change feels and what it looks like is fascinating! Being able to design experiences that inspire and facilitating conversations by asking the thought-provoking questions engage people in the discovery process and create deep learning that are part of development and transformation- these experiences can be fun and uncomfortable. I am collecting evidence of this, but are there others who have philosophies to support it?

Here's what I found:

According to Jan Carlzon (1987), who provided SAS Airlines with transformational

leadership, a leader must encourage and facilitate formulation of an organizational

vision in which as many stakeholders as possible have participated. He must create

an environment in which employees can accept and execute their responsibilities with

confidence and finesse. He must communicate with his employees, imparting the

company's vision and listening to what they need to make that vision a reality. To

succeed...he must be a visionary, a strategist, an informer, a teacher, and an inspirer.

(p.5, italics mine).

My concept of a vision is a description of a state that is considered to be

significantly more desirable than the current state It is a state that cannot be

approached without a fundamental change of direction, a change of the status quo. It

takes courage to lead such a change and it requires instilling courage in others. This

involves more than persuasion; it requires the ability to inspire. Unlike persuasion,

inspiration evokes a willingness to make sacrifices in the pursuit of long-run objectives

or ideals. Therefore, visions that induce others to pursue them must be inspiring. An

inspiring vision is the product of a creative act, of design. Inspiring visions are works of

art and those who formulate them are artists.

Leadership also requires the ability to implement pursuit of the vision. Inspiration without

implementation is provocation, not leadership. Implementation without inspiration is

management or administration, not leadership. Therefore, leaders must be both

creative, in order to inspire, and courageous, in order to induce implementation.

Positive visions that can mobilize transformations can be produced by idealized design.

In this process those who formulate the vision begin by assuming that the system being

redesigned was completely destroyed last night, but its environment remains exactly as

it was. Then they try to design that system with which they would replace the existing

system right now if they were free to replace it with any system they wanted.

The basis for this process lies in the answer to two questions. First, if one does

not know what one would do if one could do whatever one wanted without constraint,

how can one possibly know what to do when there are constraints? Second, if one does

not know what one wants right now how can one possibly know what they will want in

the future?

Summarizing this much, then, a transformational leader is one who can formulate

or facilitate the formulation of an inspiring vision of something to be sought even if it is

unattainable, although it must at least be approachable without limit. The leader must

also be able to encourage and facilitate (inspire) pursuit of the vision, by invoking the

courage required to do so even when short-term sacrifices are required, by making that

pursuit satisfying, fun as well as fulfilling.