Evers and Lakomski (1996) argue that it is difficult to discern the difference between management and leadership tasks. It is also difficult to discriminate between transactional and 19
Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, Issue #54, June 26, 2006. © 2006 by CJEAP and the author(s).
transformational leadership behaviours. Leithwood and Bass both acknowledge the difficulty they experienced in providing evidence for transformational leadership. They state, “We can really only tell the difference if we know the nature of the purposes and their effects which, of course, now depend on how people interpret what they see” (p. 77). Evers and Lakomski add, “If there is no principled way of telling one leader behaviour from another, then any claim to have empirically identified transformational leadership effects is not justified. In the absence of justification, however, claims to leadership are nothing more than personal belief or opinion, which does not carry any empirical status, no matter how many empirical studies are conducted” (p. 79). Evers and Lakomski (2000) further state, “Leadership is massively disconnected from causation” (p. 58) Although the argument presented by Evers and Lakomski holds some truth, they appear to search for “absolutes” that may never be determined in complex organizations such as schools. Instead of focusing on the shortcomings of transformational leadership, time might be better spent attempting to provide answers to questions that have already been delineated by the previous researchers.