In recent years, the concept of
transformational leadership has gained
important support as well as some criticisms.
The basic caveat to transformational
leadership has been called the ``Hitler
problem'' (Ciulla, 1995). Is Hitler a leader?
Can he belong to the same category as
Gandhi? Bass and Steidlmeier (1999)
summarize some of these problems and
propose a distinction between pseudotransformational
leaders and authentic
transformational leaders. Pseudotransformational
leaders are ethically
questioned because they appeal to emotions
rather than to reason, and may manipulate
followers' ignorance in order to push their
own interests. Hitler or Saddam Hussein
could be situated in such a category. On the
other hand, authentic transformational
leaders are engaged in the moral uplifting of
their followers, share mutually rewarding
visions of success, and empower them to
transform those visions into realities. Nelson
Mandela and Mother Theresa are proposed as
examples of this category.
In order to distinguish between these two
types of transformational leaders it is
necessary to refer to certain core values that
the leader shows in action. ``For
transformational leadership to be `authentic',
it must incorporate a central core of moral
values'' (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999, p. 210).
Even though Bass and Steidlmeier try to
explain how certain values are found in all
traditions and cultures, they fail to specify
which are the concrete ones that we should
look at and measure in order to distinguish
the good transformational leader from the
bad one. It is difficult to propose specific
values without analyzing the dilemma
between natural law and cultural relativism.
In this paper I propose an alternative
approach to solve this problem. This
approach is based not on specific values that
the leader must show, but rather on the
influence that the leader's values and actions
have on the relationship between leader and
collaborator. Depending on the type of
relationship the leader promotes, I will
distinguish three types of leadership:
transactional, transformational, and
trascendental leadership.