The powerful and the transformational leaders

In 1978, a biographer, with the name of James McGregor Burns wrote a book titled "Leadership", in which described the lives of people who he felt were world-class leaders — Gandhi, Mao, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Stalin and Hitler. An important conclusion of the book is the distinction between two types of leaders, those who wield power and the transformational ones. The criterion used by Burns to make that distinction was the leader's concern for the wishes and needs of their followers. According to Burns, which simply wield the power impose an external control over their followers. These are leaders who see their own ends as more important than those of others. In fact, they see others as objects that are desirable because the others are instruments to help them gain what they want, or so undesirable, because they can make others’ lives or interfere with what they want. Although these leaders are able to achieve results in the short term, they do so at a high price. At best, their tactics result in followers that do not reflect, they learn to keep their heads down and do as little as possible to avoid problems. At worst, they create an atmosphere of ill-will or latent malicious compliance. At the base of a toxic environment is fear. For its part, transformational leaders are concerned about the needs and interests of their followers as well as their own. They create an environment that induces the motivation and commitment. They see people as human beings capable with their own needs, feelings and opinions. They seek mutually beneficial goals and lead their followers to higher levels of motivation, behavior and even morality. These leaders, according to Burns, judge its effectiveness not by their press clippings, but for real social change or transformation of individual attitudes and organizational behaviour.