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worker effort in exchange for rewards and the avoidance of disciplinary actions.
Commitments remain short term and self-interests are underscored.
The partly transactional organisation is an internal marketplace of individuals whose
rewards are contingent on their performance. Additionally, management-by-exception
is often actively practiced. Employees work independently.
Cooperation depends on
the organisation’s ability to satisfy the self-interests of the employees. The employees
do not identify with the organisation, its vision, or mission,. Leaders are negotiators
and resource allocators in which the power and politics behind a request may be as
important as its merit. Innovation and risk taking are discouraged.
In the organisational transformational culture, there is a sense
of purpose and a feeling
of family. Commitments are long-term. Mutual interests are shared along with a sense
of shared fates and interdependence of leaders and followers. Leaders serve as role
models, mentors, and coaches. They work to socialise new members into the epitome
of a transformational organisation culture. Shared norms cover a wide range of
behaviour. The norms are adaptive and change with changes in the organisation’s
environment. Emphasised are organisational purposes, visions, and missions. In this
pure organisational culture, challenges
are opportunities, not threats (Bass 1998: 65-
66).
In short, the difference between a transactional and a transformational culture is that the
former is characterised by reward for performance, short-lived commitments and strong
self-interest. The latter culture is built around familial relationships where leaders and
followers share a common destiny and a strong sense of interdependence, shared norms,
including a shared organisational purpose, vision and mission.
Warren (1990) also uses Burns’ (1978) distinction in his explanation
of transactional and
transformational leadership in an academic departmental leadership context. He says,
“transforming leaders have a supportive, caring attitude, their questions have a positive
ring , they encourage other people to excel and they reflect a grasp of mission, of
common cause. They enhance the teaching role of leaders and they seek significant
38
change that represents the collective or pooled interests of teachers and
followers”(1990:31).
If transformational leadership is an appropriate leadership strategy in the context of a
changing organisational environment, this might be a useful application in the current
context of the transforming university. Heads of academic departments would therefore
do well to exercise a transformational leadership approach in dealing with the many
changes currently taking place. However, as Middlehurst(1993:36) points out, a purely
transformational approach may not work in the academic context
as the conditions that
constitute transformational leadership:
are not necessarily present in universities where dual authority exists…where loyalty
is as often to the discipline or department as to the institution; where motivation is
intrinsic to the nature of academic work, not needing to be created extrinsically
through presidential acts of leadership; and where positive responses to radical change
are unlikely to be present.
What is suggested then is that transformational leadership may work in institutions:
where direct contact with institutional leaders is possible and
where a strong
institutional identity can be formed, or in a crisis when either the financial viability or
academic quality of the institution is perceived to be in jeopardy.
According to Middlehurst (1993), a case in point concerning transformational leadership
is the current British context, where she says “changes in mission activities and
individual roles are being called for…” (p36).
Lucas(1994) characterises transformational leaders as those who:
create a shared vision, energise others by communicating that vision
at many levels,
stimulate others to think in different ways and to excel, give individual consideration
to others, and provide an organisational climate that helps others to accomplish
39
activities of value and feel appreciated… have followers who perform at a higher level
and who are more satisfied with their work than other employees… (p47)
She characterises transformational heads of academic departments as those who:
engage in an ongoing quest for quality, looking for opportunities to make things
better…know[their] organisation’s norms and culture very well but[are] also willing to
risk challenging those norms when they are negative or dysfunctional…Learn from
their mistakes…have the ability to create a shared vision…[empower others] enabling
others to act…believe in people (p50-52).
A discussion based on the above characterisation of transformational leaders will take
place later
in the chapter, in relation to women and the exercise of leadership and power.
The section below examines academic leadership in higher education with particular
reference to the roles and responsibilities of HoDs.
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