Why do most leaders or managers elicit merely competent performance from their followers, while a select few inspire extraordinary achievement? Leadership expert Bernard Bass takes this question beyond the usual speculation, presenting original research that for the first time documents the traits of the exceptional leader.
For half a century, leadership studies have focused primarily on "transactional" leaders: those who provide well-defined rewards to their followers -- whether they be office employees, community volunteers, or infantry soldiers -- for well-defined services. Because they are harder to study and measure, "transformational" -- or charismatic -- leaders have been largely ignored. Until now.
Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations represents a major breakthrough in our understanding of who these leaders are, how they get results, and why their leadership often exceeds all expectable limits.
In its most complete summary to date, Bass reviews the theory and research on transformational leadership. He closes the gap between the work of social and organizational psychologists, whose focus has been on small groups and institutional settings, and that of political scientists and psychohistorians, who have done most of the important studies of world-class leaders.
To these previous studies Bass adds his own crucial findings. He shows that charisma is not a rare phenomenon -- many of us are blessed with it in varying degrees -- and he suggests ways to identify and encourage it in corporate, educational, governmental, and military settings.
Bass also provides an important Leadership Questionnaire for measuring both transactional and transformational traits -- a tool that is sure to become heavily used for individual self-appraisal and personnel evaluations in a variety of organizations. And he presents numerous examples of real-life transformationalists, including Thomas J. Watson of IBM, Lee Iacocca of Chrysler, Steven Jobs of Apple Computer, George F. Johnson of Endicott-Johnson, and such historic nonbusiness leaders as Jane Addams of Hull House, General George S. Patton of the U.S. Third Army, and Robert Hutchins of the University of Chicago.
Not all charismatic figures are born leaders; some can be nurtured in organizational contexts. Tracing the interrelated effects of personality and environment on leadership, Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations will change ideas about what a leader is at both the personal and institutional level. It is bound to alter the course of leadership research for the next decade.
