Servant Leadership or Transformational Leadership

The IUP Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. XV, No. 1, 201842

Transformational Leaders in Action: Theory Has Been There, But What About Practice?†

Transformational leadership is one of the most practiced and researched areas of management, and most of these studies use the questionnaire form(s) developed by Bass, who also is the father of the concept. The aim of this study is to explain the four dimensions of transformational leadership construct developed by Bass in order to increase the consistency between theoretically-defined transformational leadership behaviors and actually observed and/or expected ones. In this respect, items measuring the degree of transformational leadership capability of a leader were studied and some ambiguous items were chosen to further describe them. 47 participants from different nations were asked to evaluate the meaning of those items by asking their opinions about the “specific courses of action a leader takes to behave in that particular way”. Results display that the views of the participants were a valuable tool to make the ambiguous items more concrete. Besides the so-called fuzzy items, other items and theory are also discussed and defined as of practical usage by the authors. Doing so, our intention is to actually define what a transformation leader needs to transform his/her company and lead the change. The discussion part includes both results from the study and our decoding of the theory and literature, to help not only the practitioners imbibe lessons but also academics to comprehend what transformational leadership stands for.

M Murat Yaslioglu* and Nil SelenayErden**

* Associate Professor, Istanbul University, School of Business, Department of Management and Organization, Istanbul, Turkey; and is the corresponding author. E-mail: murat@yaslioglu.com

* * Assistant Professor, Istanbul University, School of Business, Department of Organizational Behavior, Istanbul, Turkey. E-mail: nilerden@istanbul.edu.tr

© 2018 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Introduction Leadership literature has evolved around four main domains, namely the trait approach, behavioral approach, contingency theories and inspirational theories. The trait approach studied leaders as people who had special traits making them different from others. Accordingly, someone can be born as a leader if he/she possesses those special leadership traits. Trait theorists focused on leadership traits, whereas the behavioral perspective considered specific leadership behaviors. Accordingly, leaders can perform task-oriented and/or people-oriented behaviors. According to this point of view, leadership can be learned and therefore leaders can be trained. Contingency school criticizes the behavioral perspective by highlighting the idea that leadership effectiveness depends on the correct match between the situational characteristics and leadership style. According to this view, ideal leadership behaviors are the ones that match with the situational inputs. And finally, inspirational school, which is an updated version of the trait approach, focuses on the ability of the leaders † This paper is supported by Istanbul University, Research Projects Unit, (I.U. BAP)

43Transformational Leaders in Action: Theory Has Been There, But What About Practice?

to influence a group of followers in the direction of a future vision, by highlighting the importance of the leaders’ abilities, characteristics and behaviors to satisfy the followers’ needs, increase followers’ potential and foster their contribution in creating a futuristic state. In this respect, we believe that the trait theories are still alive, however, in the form of inspiration and charisma.

Leadership in organizations has multiple facets; as such the leader uses management functions to establish order and transform for continuous improvement. One of the most popular theories of the inspirational school is “Transformational Leadership”, developed by Bernard Bass in 1990. According to him, transformation has four dimensions. “Charisma” refers to providing a vision and mission with pride and gaining followers’ respect and trust. For “inspiration”, leader communicates high expectations and with “intellectual stimulation” leader promotes the intelligence of followers. The fourth dimension, “individualized consideration” refers to giving personal attention, coaching and advising (Bass, 1990). As is evident, transformational leaders have the role of a “change agent” and this role requires establishing a future vision, gaining followers’ trust with the influence of charisma, promoting followers’ potential and giving special attention to each one as to facilitate their efforts in the direction of the desired change.

Theoretical framework seems promising. However, the practical use of transformational leadership is debatable. For instance, what are the specific leadership behaviors that define intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration? How can a leader gain followers’ trust? Are there any specific course of action to create “inspiration”? In this respect, this study aims to identify the leadership behaviors that define each facet of the transformational leadership construct. Thereby, it would be possible to increase the practical usage of transformational leadership construct.

Literature Review Managers used to depend on their legitimate or coercive power in traditional times. Today, managers mostly engage in transactions with their employees. However, one must consider that the promise of rewards or the avoidance of penalties mostly depend on organizational policies, resources and politics (Bass, 1990). As such, transactional leadership could be highly questionable when organizational regulations tie managers’ hands. However, still there is a transactional side in management. For instance, managers give contingent reward or promising rewards for employee effort, engage in active management by exception which refers to taking corrective action if standards are not met, engage in passive management by exception refers to taking corrective action when problems arise, it is passive because the leader waits for actual deviances, or laissez-faire, avoiding to take any action (Bass, 1999). Basically, laissez- faire is the absence of leadership. Contrary to transactional point of view, it implies nontransaction (Bass, 1996). Servant Leadership or Transformational Leadership

In his work, Bass addresses several questions with regard to leadership research and application. For example, why is stress among followers greater under transactional leadership? Leadership could be a cause of stress, leaders who rely on monitoring others to

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take corrective action may increase followers’ stress. Especially, during turbulent times, followers would expect their leaders to revise missions, define common objectives, restructure situations, and suggest solutions to deal with the source of stress and conflict. However, the leader would be incapable of taking the necessary action if he/she solely relies on the transactional side of management. As such, transactional leadership would be ineffective if it is not supported by additional leadership actions, such as ability to transform the followers. Built upon transactional leadership, transformational leadership consists of four domains.

1. Charismatic leadership or idealized influence: The leader acts as a role model, respected, liked and admired by followers. Leaders’ actions demonstrate ethical conduct. Power cannot be used for personal gain.

2. Inspirational motivation: Team spirit, enthusiasm, optimism displayed; leader gets followers involved in a desirable vision. Commitment to goals and shared vision characterizes this domain.

3. Intellectual stimulation: Followers are encouraged to speak up, address problems, find solutions and try new ways. Different ideas are not criticized. Instead, creativity is fostered.

4. Individualized consideration: Leader builds individualized relationships with each of the followers. Individual differences in terms of needs and abilities are recognized. Listening to followers, delegating tasks, developing followers’ potential is crucial. Followers progress is checked to see whether they need additional guidance (Bass, 1996).

Transformational leadership can be either directive or supportive (Avolio and Bass, 1991). In the directive form of idealized influence, leader persuades followers to trust in his/her direction to succeed. This means that the decision has been made and followers must conform, whereas in the participative form, leader would ask for followers’ support to achieve the mission. In directive, inspirational motivation, the leader would suggest followers to track and see their own progress, whereas in the supportive form, leader would establish a collective team climate to work together. Directive intellectual stimulation could be asking followers to revise the problems and look for solutions on their own, and the supportive form could invite them to discuss and solve the issues collectively. Directive individualized consideration means directly providing the support followers need, supportive form invites all followers to think what they can do to develop their capabilities. As can be seen, directive form is shaped as the leader establishes one-to-one relationship with his followers and inspires them through the vision. Supportive form shapes a more collective sense of mission, shared vision, interactional motivation among followers and development of followers’ potential through collaborative efforts to support each other. Servant Leadership or Transformational Leadership

The first Multifactor Leadership Scale was developed by Bass in 1985. The scale consists of seven dimensions for three leadership styles, namely transactional, transformational and laissez faire. Later, Hater and Bass (1988) established the transformational component in four dimensions—charisma, inspiration, stimulation, consideration. MLQ 6S, 1992, by Bass and Avolio contains 21 items for seven dimensions. And the final version by Bass (1999), namely MLQ 5X contains 36 items for the transactional, transformational and laissez faire

45Transformational Leaders in Action: Theory Has Been There, But What About Practice?

leadership. Items of MLQ 5X are displayed below. Transformational leadership dimensions are idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration.

• Idealized Influence: I make others feel good to be around me, others have complete faith in me, others are proud to be associated with me.

• Inspirational Motivation: I express with a few simple words what we could and should do, I provide appealing images about what we can do, I help others find meaning in their work.

• Intellectual Stimulation: I enable others to think about old problems in new ways, I provide others with new ways of looking at puzzling things, I get others to rethink ideas that they had never questioned before.

• Individualized Consideration: I help others develop themselves, I let others know how I think they are doing, I give personal attention to others who seem rejected.

• Contingent Reward: I tell others what to do if they want to be rewarded for their work, I provide recognition/rewards when others reach their goals, I call attention to what others can get for what they accomplish.

• Management By Exception: I am satisfied when others meet agreed upon standards, as long as things are working, I do not try to change anything, I tell others the standards they have to know to carry out their work.

• Laissez Faire Leadership: I am content to let others continue working in the same ways always. Whatever others want to do is ok with me, I ask no more of others than what is absolutely essential.

Yukl (1999) analyzes the conceptual weaknesses of transformational leadership theory. Accordingly, the conceptual weaknesses he points out are the inclusion ambiguous constructs, insufficient description of explanatory processes, a narrow focus on dyadic processes, omission of some relevant behaviors, insufficient specification of situational variables, and a bias toward heroic conceptions. This study is on the same page with the proposed ideas and focuses on the ambiguous constructs and how the heroic conceptions can be transmitted into actual and practical leadership behaviors. Servant Leadership or Transformational Leadership

Data and Methodology The study investigates the specific course of action a leader takes to be transformational. In this respect, the most recent version of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X) created by Bass was studied item by item. The questionnaire contains 36 items related to transactional leadership (contingent reward, management by exception), laissez faire leadership, transformational leadership (inspirational motivation, idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration). Researchers studied the meanings of

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the four dimensions for the transformational leadership construct and identified the blurry items as listed below.

• The leader expresses his/her confidence that we will achieve our goals.

• I have pleasure in working with him/her.

• The leader displays a sense of power and confidence.

• The leader emphasizes the importance of having a collective sense of mission.

• The leader specifies the importance of having a strong sense of purpose.

• The leader treats me as an individual rather than just a member of a group.

• The leader focuses on me to develop my strengths.

• The leader suggests new ways of looking at how we do our jobs.

Next, an online form(see Appendix 1) including demographics (age, educational status, whether participant have a transformational leader) and open-ended questions (the below listed items were translated into Turkish for Turkish participants and for each item participants were asked to state how a leader should behave) was prepared and the link was shared via LinkedIn and Facebook embedded in a video prepared by the authors. In the video, the authors talk about the definitions of transformational leadership and blurry items, ask the audience to share their opinions via the online questionnaire. A few examples of open- ended questions: “I have pleasure working with him”. Can you describe the leader with whom you would have pleasure working with? What are the course of action this leader takes? “The leader displays a sense of power and confidence”, What are the specific course of action to display power and confidence? The data gathering started in August 2017 and ended in October 2017 and a total of 47 participants were reached. Servant Leadership or Transformational Leadership

The age group ranged between 20 and 64 and the average age was 35.4. 25 participants have bachelor’s degree, 15 have master’s degree, and eight have Ph.D. degree. 20 participants were Turkish, 11 Dutch, 5 Belgian, 3 Chinese, 3 French, 5 from other nationalities. 20 of the participants think their superior is a transformational leader, 19 gave “No” as an answer, and eight participants stated that they were “not sure” whether their leader was transformational.

Results and Discussion Responses to each item summarized one by one:

Item 1: The leader expresses his/her confidence that we will achieve our goals. Three of the participants associated leaders’ behaviors of expressing confidence in goals with the “ability to apply decisions under pressure and stress”. Again, three participants stated “giving inspirational speeches, not orders”. “Consistency between body language and voice”

47Transformational Leaders in Action: Theory Has Been There, But What About Practice?

was repeated twice. “Assertive communication in transmitting ideas clearly, especially to followers who show resistance” was also mentioned two times. Persistence, not giving up during difficult times and providing concrete evidence about the difference between actual situation and goals were other ideas mentioned once.

Item 2: I have pleasure working with the leader. Mentioned four times are the behaviors related to guiding followers, asking for their opinions and showing consideration. Mentioned thrice are controlling followers in variable time intervals, being fair, trustworthy and job-oriented. It appears followers are happy working with a job-oriented but participative and directive leader who is trustworthy, fair and considerate.

Item 3: The leader displays a sense of power and confidence.

What are the specific leadership behaviors that signal power and confidence? According to participants, the leader does not judge his/her own decisions, decides based on objective information rather than office gossip, protects followers from outside threats and signals confidence as well as power with the tone of his/her voice. Those factors were mentioned twice and one participant wrote that the leader must stay calm that will display power and confidence.

Item 4: The leader emphasizes the importance of having a collective sense of mission.

Mentioned thrice are the behaviors that refer to communication with the followers, leaders should not only point out the mistakes but also talk about the corrective actions and their link to the mission and vision. Mentioned twice, leaders should evaluate the followers’ effort towards the company targets. Mentioned twice, leader should focus on their voice and gesture quality. One participant wrote that the leader should talk about past failures and successes to emphasize the importance of the mission. As can be seen, this item refers to verbal and nonverbal communication skills of the leader. Servant Leadership or Transformational Leadership

Item 5: The leader specifies the importance of having a strong sense of purpose. Overall, answers were irrelevant. One participant wrote “You wrote and academic definition” and another participant “This is difficult to do, it is mostly theoretical”. Indeed, the question appears theoretical and blurry to be associated with the leaders actions.

Item 6: The leader treats me as an individual rather than just a member of a group. Participants responses included “The leader knows my name”, “Asks specific questions about my social life”, and “offers help for non-work related problems”. Mentioned four times is the helping behavior to develop followers’ weaknesses, giving appraisals and maintaining eye contact were repeated three times.

Item 7: The leader focuses on me to develop my strengths. Mentioned four times are behaviors such as observing followers and detecting their strengths, using direct communication, giving inspirational speeches and providing training

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opportunities. Assigning new tasks to develop followers’ strengths and providing opportunity to the followers to work in other units to develop their strengths were mentioned two times.

Item 8: The leader suggests new ways of looking at how we do our jobs. Mentioned three times are leadership behaviors related to using appropriate body language, simplifying the process and persuading others to improve performance. Asking questions that lead followers to find answers, showing cause and effect relations were repeated two times. One participant wrote “Leader suggests ways so that mistakes are not repeated”. Another opinion by a participant “leader knows about the tasks, can break them into smaller components and can make detailed explanations about each”.

“Transformational Leadership is not letting followers do what they want, or it is not merely “management by exceptions”. It is more like defining a storied vision and making others internalize and engage with it. So, Bass puts forward that it begins with idealized influence, followed by inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation achieved by individualized consideration. What we basically tried to do in this study is a practical definition to all the above mentioned traits by Bass and others. Our beginning point was to read the literature and do a follow up with the questionnaires for transformational leadership which are used perhaps hundreds of times in the literature. Then we began defining the core terms into real life actions, however, what we came up as academicians were debatable. As we went through the questionnaires, there were concepts those were hard to agree upon. So, how would non-academics come to a consensus of what they read, even as academics of management we could not agree upon? Thus, we designed an open-ended survey to find out what people understood from the various questionnaires that are available. Servant Leadership or Transformational Leadership

After a focus group research with eight professionals from various backgrounds, we figured out that some items were “vague” since their “meaning” varied between people we talked with. We then formed another open-ended questionnaire to ask what others understand from those items. We got 47 detailed responses from various professionals with different backgrounds and nationalities.

Our aim is not to criticize any questionnaire, but to figure out what really is expected from transformational leaders. In order to do so, best practice according to our point of view was to put theory, common sense and practical expectations together to outline the concept.

Eventually, we came up with the following actions that transformational leaders are expected to conduct themselves.

Main Action: Diffusing Transformation People can follow the leader for extraordinary lengths for things they believe in. Transformation is not only the leaders’ ideal, it gets roots from a necessity. This idea or so-called vision of the transformational leader gets its power from the bottom. It is not merely a belief in the vision, but dedicating oneself to it and this dedication for change requires exceptional amount of energy and persistence because employees must essentially reconsider and reconfigure the business as they carry on their day-to-day duties. Transformation must have a strong and supporting story clearing any doubts and answering all the questions of the followers including, but not

49Transformational Leaders in Action: Theory Has Been There, But What About Practice?

limited to how this transformation will affect the company and how it will impact their positions. This aforementioned story is the vision itself and the strength of the storied vision depends on how concise and challenging it is and also the leaders’ capacity and alacrity to base and engage others. Engagement involves adopting a personal attention to others and their needs.

Vision is not a keynote presentation allegedly prepared by the followers, it is a collective sense. Leader’s emphasis on the importance of transformation is a delicate subject. Everything must be put forward as is, without deception or manipulation. Talks must include past failures as well as successes to highlight the importance of the mission mentioning how mistakes and corrective actions will result in specific tasks and duties. Target points should be addressed by making continuous evaluations. On the other hand, the way it is presented is also crucial, the tone and gestures should be reassuring. All questions such as “Why do we need to transform?”, “How do we get there”, “What is in it for me?”, “What is my part in it?” should be answered.

Personalized approach, however, is about answering questions such as “How and what should I change?”, “What are my strengths and weaknesses?”. In order to answer these, leaders should focus on individuals and help them develop on their weaknesses, giving appraisals, maintaining personal contact, recognizing employees personally, asking about their social life, offering help for non-work-related problems. Since the leaders are asking for extra effort, he/she also should put in extra effort. Servant Leadership or Transformational Leadership

Transformations require renewed, empowered and developed followers. Therefore, leader should also observe people individually and detect their strengths, establish a direct way of communication, provide training opportunities if necessary, rotate and reassign employees to other work units where one can develop on strengths, give inspirational speeches from time to time to keep the vision alive. It is always better to humanize the transformation by using personal stories from experience that underline and illustrate the obstacles and how to overcome them.

Individual consideration is key to engagement which implies convincing people of the need for the transformation. First responsibility of the transformational leaders is to prepare the people mentally so that they can devote themselves to the process of transformation. Since employees have various duties as part of their daily job schedule, they may not have time to pause and think to internalize the vision, thus, reinforcing, repetition and motivation on the success of the vision should not be ignored. Leaders must also suggest new ways of looking at how people carry out their jobs. Doing so with appropriate verbal and body language, convincing talks to improve performance, simplification of the processes, asking questions so that followers can find their own answers, showing cause-effect relation, suggesting ways so that the mistakes are not repeated are the key elements.

A Supportive Action: Role-Modeling Leaders are the role models, whether they realize it or not, and are the public figures within a company whom everyone looks up to. Therefore, one of their obligation is to set an example for others. For any transformation to be successful, mindset transformation is a must. However, a leader expecting change from others and not showing any sign of change in himself/herself is an unsuccessful transformation agent. Followers await the leader to live up to “For things to

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change, first I must change”. Eventually, employees will evaluate the leader, according to his/her actions to see whether he/she believes in his/her own vision. Everything is for diffusing transformation and taking on another in this process for change. This transformation should cover a holistic approach on a behavior pattern such as dedicating certain measured amount of time for transformation and not leaving it as second priority, follow up other executives’ commitment to their transformation priorities, encourage them to pursue their individual journeys of transformation while making sure those journeys are towards a collective and engaged vision. Servant Leadership or Transformational Leadership

Leaders’ confidence to be able to achieve the goals throughout the process will also be observed by their followers. Hence, some key characteristic actions will also be observed. Confidence is a key element for personal transformation which supports the whole process. The ability to implement decisions under pressure, consistency between body language and words, providing concrete evidence about the vision for transformation and actual situation, not giving up during difficult times and communicating ideas clearly and repeatedly, giving inspirational speeches but not orders, and ability to break the resistance are some actions that augment confidence and perception of leaders’ persistence. We can also add, appearing calm, not judging one’s own decisions, deciding based on objective norms and not relying on gossip, protecting people from outside threats are other signs of power-wielding to support confidence.

Transformation process is delicate, but it should not take an extended time to keep the excitement alive. It should not be too hasty either. Perhaps the best way to do it is to set deadlines and some amount of pressure to keep it alive. Leaders should take symbolic actions to motivate employees that they should not cast away their priorities for change and get lost in their daily routine. These actions may include but not limited to giving bonuses and incentives to the ones who behave in an expected pattern, or even exceeds expectations. Making this a race for transformation will help employees understand the importance given to the change besides motivating them.

The reflective measure should be the trust and the pleasure working with the leader. He/She should be comprehended as a fair, considerate, job-oriented, trustworthy, accountable, transparent and a participative leader who listens, evaluates constantly and gives constructive feedback. Only by achieving these attributes can a leader be a successful transformation agent. Sometimes the leader might judge himself/herself, not to mention that we may be misleading in our self-judgment.

Another Supportive Action: Team-Building Transformational leaders’ role is to find excellent individuals and giving them individual attention, and also, followers who dedicate themselves to team play. Spreading the relevant story and discharging the right role will definitely motivate people to get on board. However, teams do not form by themselves, the leaders need to invest a great deal of time to find the right people in the appropriate teams. Each team member’s capabilities should be delicately assessed to build the right team. Sometimes, leaders may need to seek help from others to form the right team. Servant Leadership or Transformational Leadership

51Transformational Leaders in Action: Theory Has Been There, But What About Practice?

There are two main components for success in a “transformational management team”. First, the performance of individuals in the team, second, is the willingness and a role-model for the change to happen. Managers who showcase high performance and are also the role-models for change are the best members for any team. The ones with low counts on both the criteria should be removed from any team. High performing managers with unwilling behavior towards change and therefore lack role-modeling skills are the ones with great potential, these people should be taken on board. If the leader fails to motivate and improve their attitudes then removing them is the best choice. If required, the leader can get rid of any individual who is not a team player. So, what should be done to these individuals who need improvement in their behavior? First, the leader must make sure that they comprehend the need for transformation, vision and what is expected out of them. Second, the leader should be determined to serve as a role-model to these individuals. Finally, the leader has to make sure that they have enough time and opportunity to alter their behavior. Leaders’ arrogance, neglect and ignoring the strugglers are never a solution to the problem and it breaks their belief in the story of transformation. The leader should show that he/she is putting a lot of effort to get everyone on board for the journey. Vision is crucial, but shared vision is the only key for the transformation process.

Even with the right, aspiring, exceptional and able people in the team, the leader still needs to associate and align them in the right direction. This requires on the part of the leader to invest in building team spirit, since the bottom line for success is the team members to agree upon what they can succeed collaboratively, not individually. This can be strengthened through discussions and alignment of expectations. It is then the team’s vision that constitutes the story, not just the leader’s. Transformation needs resources, and resources need to be bound together and evaluated because of their natural limitations. Therefore, the main rule for discussions and allocations are openness and transparency. Lacking these, accession in team is almost impossible and the team fails, so does the process of transformation. Unanimity is always ideal, and it can only be achieved through dialogue, a dialogue that requires a formal docket. The leader plays an important part here as a facilitator and a moderator. Discussions are expected to be vivid and face-to-face rather than distant conferences, those sometimes may also lead to operational issues and problems. There is no need to avoid those types of dialogues, as aforementioned teams need investment of resources to build ties, moreover, there is no way to avoid stains while cleaning up your closet. Servant Leadership or Transformational Leadership

Final Wave: Adamantly Adhering to Influence As we have discussed the importance of diffusion, engagement, role-modeling, collaboration and team work, we also need to consider the impact of influence. Because without an impact on the bottom line, all efforts are futile. For success, the leader must leave his/her comfort zone and roll up the sleeves. It is not one person giving orders and making decisions by sacrificing participative discussions, but spending necessary time to actually make an impact. Transformation success must be visible to others as well as the executive team, this is the main motivator for carrying on. Without an assessment, it is impossible to figure out and therefore visualize any result. Original, storied vision should be put in a concrete transformation plan and should be relentlessly compared with the actual transformation process to identify any complications, failures, deviations and/or success.

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While influence and its impact is measured, the leader and the team should hold themselves accountable for results. Dismissing accountability for the transformation, making excuses and experiencing hindsight distorts the belief in the process. Every step is based on calculation and any shortcomings are because of lack of some aforementioned ingredient. Yet, there is no one best model for transformation that ensures success. But odds will drastically increase with leadership traits. Because the change itself causes enough ambiguity and obscurity, transformational leaders’ role here must constitute a strong foundation for openness, engagement, diffusion and a role model behavior.

Conclusion Transformational leaders transform their followers through a shared future vision, inspire with confidence and charisma, stimulation in terms of growing their strengths and individualized consideration such as being familiar with their personal lives. Results highlight specific behaviors in accordance with the previously mentioned dimensions such as giving inspirational speeches (idealized influence), guiding others when needed (inspirational motivation), observing and detecting others weaknesses (intellectual stimulation), asking questions about personal life (individualized consideration). Servant Leadership or Transformational Leadership

Diffusing transformation, being a role-model, team-building and adhering to influence are the key roles that a transformational leader needs to play.

Apart from the fact of sample size being 47, the responses to the questionnaire in the study are not plotted in an orderly manner, because of which the actions that are supposed to be carried out by a transformational leader are proposed relying more on existing theories, authors’ commonsense, and practical expectations of the employees.

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Advanced Manuals, Bass, Avolio, & Associates, Binghamton, NY. 2. Bass B M (1985), Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations, Free Press,

New York. 3. Bass B M (1990), “From Transactional to Transformational Leadership: Learning to

Share the Vision”, Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 19-31. 4. Bass B M and Avolio B J (1992), “Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire-Short Form

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Leadership”, State University of New York at Binghamton, New York. 6. Bass B M (1999), “Two Decades of Research and Development in Transformational

Leadership”, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 9-32. 7. Hater J J and Bass B M (1988), “Superiors’ Evaluations and Subordinates’ Perceptions of

Transformational and Transactional Leadership”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 73, No. 4, pp. 695-702.

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Reference # 33J-2018-03-03-01

Appendix

Questionnaire The authors prepared a video to explain the aim of the study and how participants

should write their answers. The video link was shared via online platforms. Aftter watching the video, the volunteers clicked an additional link to reach the online questionnaire and wrote their answers for the following questions.

Open-ended Questions

1. The leader expresses his/her confidence that we will achieve our goals. What course of action a leader should take to express his/her confidence in achieving goals?

2. I have pleasure working with the leader. Describe the leader you would have pleasure working with. Which actions would that leader take?

3. The leader displays a sense of power and confidence. What course of action a leader should take to display a sense of power and confidence?

4. The leader emphasizes the importance of having a collective sense of mission. What possible course of action a leader should take to emphasize the importance of having a collective sense of mission?

5. The leader specifies the importance of having a strong sense of purpose. What course of action a leader should take to specify the importance of having a strong sense of purpose?

6. The leader treats me as an individual rather than just a member of a group. What is the course of action a leader takes to treat you as an individual rather than just a member of the work group?

7. The leader focuses on me to help develop my strengths. What is the course of action a leader should take to develop your strengths?

8. The leader suggests new ways of looking at how we do our jobs. What possible course of action a leader takes to suggest new ways of looking at how you perform your tasks?

Demographics

1. Name/Surname:

2. Your Profession and Organization:

3. Your job status (if employed):

4. Would you like us to share the study results? If yes, share your e-mail:

5. Do you believe your manager is a transformational leader: Yes No

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