Criticisms of Transformational Leadership

Описание: Transformational leadership has several weaknesses. One criticism is that it lacks conceptual clarity. Transformational leadership covers a wide range of activities and characteristics—including creating a vision, motivating, being a change agent, building trust, giving nurturance, and acting as a social architect, to name a few. Because of this range, is difficult to define exactly the parameters of transformational leadership.

Another criticism revolves around how transformational leadership is measured. Researchers typically have used some version of the MLQ to measure transformational leadership. However, some studies have challenged the validity of the MLQ. A third criticism is that transformational leadership treats leadership as a personality trait or personal predisposition rather than a behavior that people can learn. If it is a trait, training people in this approach becomes more problematic because it is difficult to teach people how to change their traits.

Transformational leadership stresses that it is the leader who moves followers to do exceptional things. Another criticism of transformational leadership is that it has the potential to be abused. Transformational leadership is concerned with changing people’s values and moving them to a new vision. By focusing primarily on the leader, researchers have failed to give attention to shared leadership or reciprocal influence.

A final potential weakness of transformational leadership is the fact that it may not be well received by millennials. As millennials continue to replace baby boomers, organizations are recognizing that they are having to modify previous ways of doing things to meet millennials’ needs. Transformational leadership is one such example. Drawing from the individualistic orientation of many millennials, transformational leaders may be less effective because this cohort may be less willing to collaborate with others to achieve common goals.