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School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
1
School leaders and transformational
leadership theory: Time to part ways?
Izhak Berkovich
Department of Education and Psychology, The Open University of Israel, Ra`anana,
Israel
Abstract
Purpose – After decades in which transformational leadership theory has prevailed as
the dominant paradigm in leadership scholarship, critical voices have started raising
serious concerns about its falsifiability, suggesting that transformational leadership
theory should be abandoned. Although transformational leadership is key to
conceptualizing ideal school leadership, the discourse did not find its way into the
education field. The present work aims to address this issue.
Design/methodology/approach – The essay combines a review of the critique of the
falsifiability of the transformational leadership theory with a discussion of the utility
and fit of the theory.
Findings – On the 25th anniversary of transformational leadership theory, I suggest to
the educational administration community not to abandon transformational leadership,
but to address its shortcomings and look toward future challenges as the community
contemplates the promises the theory holds for the field.
Originality/value – The essay examines the current status of the transformational
leadership theory in the field of educational administration and offers an interpretative
critique.
Keywords: Critique, Educational leadership, Good theory, School leadership,
Transformational leadership
Published in Journal of Educational Administration, 2016, 54(5), 609-622.
DOI: 10.1108/JEA-11-2015-0100
This article is (c) Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to
appear here (www.izhakber.com). Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be
further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald
Group Publishing Limited.
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
2
1. Introduction
Transformational leadership is one of the central and most influential leadership
models in the field of education administration (Bush, 2014; Hallinger, 2003). The
theory can be traced back to James Burns's work on political leaders. In time, the
theory was extended by Bernard Bass and Bruce Avolio to describe the behaviors of
business leaders. Transformational leaders are said to focus on inspiring followers to
“commit to a shared vision and goals for an organization or unit, challenging them to
be innovative problem solvers, and developing followers’ leadership capacity via
coaching, mentoring, and provision of both challenge and support” (Bass and Riggo,
2006, p. 4). Educational administration scholars recognized the relevance of the
theory to the contemporary challenges encountered by principals. The theory was
rapidly adapted in the field of education, and embraced as an ideal model for school
leadership (Hallinger, 1992; Leithwood, 1994). Since the early 1990s, Kenneth
Leithwood, Doris Jantzi, and their colleagues championed the adoption of
transformational leadership behaviors in school management; in their works, they
demonstrated the advantages of these behaviors, which often coincide with more
effective school leadership (e.g., Leithwood et al., 1999; Leithwood and Jantzi, 1990).
The popularization of transformational leadership theory in educational leadership
cannot be understood apart from the current, change-oriented educational policy
environment, which emphasizes restructuring and transformation to meet 21st-century
schooling requirements (Hallinger, 1992; Leithwood, 1994). Today schools are
expected to continually upgrade, and leaders play a key part in it.
The present essay explores the state of transformational leadership theory in
the field of educational administration, relying on Bacharach’s (1989) criteria for
evaluating theories, including: (a) falsifiability (i.e., scientific refutability), (b) utility
(i.e., usefulness in explaining and predicting), and (c) fit (i.e., ability to bridge gaps
between other existing theories, or to transform our understanding of them). In the
Appendix, I provide a list of literature-based criteria utilized in the present work,
which can also be used for future exploration of the "goodness" of leadership theories
in education. Although in my analysis I outline the current state of the science of
transformational leadership in the field, a complete review of all our knowledge about
transformational leadership in educational administration is beyond the scope of this
paper. I argue that transformational leadership has shortcomings in the area of
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
3
falsifiability, but these could be addressed constructively. The theory has
demonstrated its utility for the educational administration community, and if it is
reconciled with other theories in the field, it still has underdeveloped potential to
contribute to the understanding of education as a unique arena for working and
learning.
2. Critique of transformational leadership theory
2.1 Critique of the falsifiability of transformational leadership theory
A recent review of general management scholarship indicates that transformational
leadership theory is still the most explored and discussed leadership theory in the new
millennium (Dinh et al., 2014), and its dominance has been reaffirmed. Nevertheless,
transformational leadership theory is at present strongly criticized in management
studies. This critique has not made its way into the educational administration
discourse. Although scholars of management and educational administration share
some of their theories, the two scholarly discourses are often separated (Oplatka,
2010; 2014). However, some debates warrant cross-disciplinary attention. Presently,
transformational leadership theory is under increasing attack for several reasons. The
most comprehensive and articulate of these critiques is by Van Knippenberg and
Sitkin (2013), who identified several key concerns with transformational leadership
theory and measurement. Below I describe each of the critiques and explore some of
their manifestations in educational administration.
The first criticism concerns the lack of a clear conceptual definition of
transformational leadership. Good theory includes constructs that are clearly defined
(Bacharach, 1989). The classic conceptualization of transformational leadership,
which is associated with the work Bass and Avolio, includes the following
dimensions: idealized influence (attributed and behavioral), inspirational motivation,
intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Critics suggest that the
common ground of the different transformational leadership dimensions is unclear
(Van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013). The most popular measure of transformational
leadership and of its dimensions in the general management field is the Multifactor
Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), which is also the one commonly used by
educational administration researchers (Leithwood and Jantzi, 2005). In practice,
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
4
these dimensions are often summed up to form an overall transformational leadership
index because the different dimensions demonstrate high intercorrelations. For
example, Hsiao and Chang (2011), who explored 63 secondary high-school principals
in Taiwan using MLQ and a sample of 330 teachers, reported intercorrelations of
above .75 between the five dimensions of transformational leadership, about half of
them above .80. Other works conducted exploratory factor analyses and reported not
being able to replicate the multidimensional structure of the construct (e.g., Bogler,
2001; Nir and Hameiri, 2014). An additional problem that critics identified in
transformational leadership theory is an absence of empirical distinctiveness from
other elements of leadership. An earlier meta-analysis indicates that transformational
leadership is highly correlated with contingent reward (Judge and Piccolo, 2004), an
issue that appears also in educational administration studies. For example, Menon
(2014) found that the best-fitted measurement model of the MLQ was the one in
which contingent reward was loaded on the transformational factor, not on the
transactional factor. Critics also identify a problem in the construct boundaries,
related to the fact that transformational leadership showed high correlations with other
forms of leadership such as participative leadership, ethical leadership, and leader-
member exchange—without adequate theoretical explanation (Van Knippenberg and
Sitkin, 2013). Reports of a large shared variance between transformational leadership
and other forms of leadership indicate a problem in the discriminant validity of the
theory (Bacharach, 1989). The issue has also been described in the field of
educational administration, although mostly in studies that used survey items to form
specific measures of transformational leadership. For example, Marks and Printy's
(2003) mixed method study found that principals who exhibited instructional
leadership behaviors showed also high transformational leadership behaviors. Urick
and Bowers (2014), who classified public principalship styles in the US, also found
that transformational leadership and shared instructional leadership co-vary. Note that
the use of measures constructed specifically for these studies raises questions about
interpreting the results in the context of the larger picture of transformational
leadership in educational administration.
The second critique deals with the fact that the conceptualization of
transformational leadership confounds behaviors with their effects. It has been
suggested that transformational leadership explains effective leadership and that it is
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
5
even equivalent to it (Shamir et al., 1993). But critics regard this lack of distinction
between the definition of transformational leadership and its effectiveness to be
problematic, because transformational leadership theory borders on the tautological
and as such it cannot be refuted (Bacharach, 1989). This issue is particularly
problematic when it comes to the inclusion of the attributed idealized influence
dimension (also known as charisma) in the construct (Kark et al., 2003). Van
Knippenberg and Sitkin (2013) argued that the conceptualization of transformational
leadership creates a logical deductive loop whereby "if it is not effective, by definition
it is not charismatic-transformational" (p. 14). This problem surfaces in educational
administration studies as well. For example, in meta-analytic review of unpublished
research, Leithwood and Sun (2012) found an average correlation of .82 between
aggregate and perceived leader effectiveness, rated by teachers. This result is far
above the traditional multicollinearity cutoff.
The third critique concerns the inadequate causal models describing how
transformational leadership affects outcomes and how the effects of transformational
leadership are contingent upon moderators (Van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013).
Currently only one theory, the self-concept model of Shamir et al. (1993), describes
an overall process with a coherent set of mediators. This issue is also noted in the
educational administration literature. For example, Sun and Leithwood (2012) argued
that the manner in which "different leadership practices travel" and affect student
outcomes requires further theorizing and research (p. 441). Many of the mediators
explored appear to overlap or be connected with each other in causal associations, so
that "there may be fewer unique mediators than the current proliferation of concepts
suggests" (Van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013, p. 29). Critics also suggest that a
conceptual theory is lacking regarding the moderating influences of the relationship
between transformational leadership and outcomes (Van Knippenberg and Sitkin,
2013). This shortcoming is manifest in the field of educational administration, where
works synthetizing findings about transformational school leadership indicate that
moderators are seldom theorized or explored directly (Leithwood and Jantzi, 2005;
Sun and Leithwood, 2012).
In light of the conceptual and methodological problems outlined above, Van
Knippenberg and Sitkin (2013) recommend that leadership researchers abandon the
concept of transformational leadership. In contrast to such a purist approach, I
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
6
propose a more pragmatic one, in the spirit of Poole and Van de Ven’s (1989)
argument that tensions and contradictions within theories are inevitable, and that they
can be coped with if we address them constructively. Some educational administration
scholars (e.g., Bogler, 2001; Eyal and Kark, 2004; Eyal and Roth, 2011; Kurland et
al., 2010) already made notable decisions that make it possible to live with
transformational leadership despite its shortcomings. These include: (a) adopting a
unified index of transformational leadership; (b) omitting the attributed idealized
influence dimension from the scale; (c) omitting the contingent reward dimension
when exploring both transactional leadership and transformational leadership. I
suggest taking two additional steps to avoid confusion in the field: (a) sticking to one
of the two most popular measures of transformational leadership in quantitative
explorations (i.e., the MLQ or the School Leadership survey), and (b) omitting the
instructional dimension in transformational leadership measures.
Why make this effort? What is the benefit in adhering to a problematic theory?
Two other criteria of a good theory, utility and fit, can help answer these questions.
2.2 Reflections on the utility of transformational leadership theory
Scholars tend to stand firm by concepts and theories in which they have been trained
and socialized (Van de Ven, 1989). But this is not the only reason that I stand by
transformational leadership despite the criticism presented above; the other is that I
see value in keeping transformational leadership as a conceptual framework in
educational administration. Conceptual distinctions may be valuable if two conditions
are met (Gross et al., 2011): (a) the concept is widely adopted by the community, and
(b) empirical evidence supports the incremental validity of the concept above other
related constructs. Below I will explore the contributions of transformational
leadership to these areas.
A key indicator of the utility of a theory is whether people adopt and use it.
The contribution of transformational leadership to the research community in the field
of educational administration has been commonly acknowledged, but I wish to attach
numbers to the effect of the theory in the field using data I mined with the ERIC
search engine. Historically, from the early to the late 1980s, the number of documents
published every year in English that contained the term "school leadership" was
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
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below 50. For example, in 1988, an ERIC search found only 42 documents containing
the term. Since the early 1990s, however, there has been a dramatic increase in
documents containing the phrase. For example, in 1992 the number of documents
stood at 113. This increase coincided with transformational leadership finding its way
into the discourse in the field.1 ERIC search yields a dramatic increase also in
documents containing the term "transformational leadership" starting with the
beginning of the new millennium, with the number of published documents doubling
every 3-4 years. To better reflect the supplementary or complementary (depending on
one's point of view) relationship of transformational leadership with school
leadership, I calculated the ratio of published documents on transformational
leadership to published documents on school leadership. Since the mid-2000s,
transformational leadership makes up approximately 30%-45% of documents
published containing the term "school leadership" (Figure I). During this period, when
the frequency of the term “school leadership” remained constant, the increase in
documents containing the term "transformational leadership" reflects the remarkable
interest in the concept and the theoretical and empirical work driven by it.
Figure I. Ratio of published documents on transformational leadership to published
documents on school leadership, 1990–2014 (based on the ERIC search engine, bi-
yearly)
1 At the same time, another key school leadership theory, instructional leadership theory, was rising in
the field of educational administration. Although it is difficult to separate the influence of the two
theories on the field in a retrospective analysis, the concept of instructional leadership as ideal school
management model existed since the 1960s (e.g., Bridges, 1967), and the developed theory of
instructional leadership was introduced nearly a decade before transformational leadership, in the early
1980s (e.g., Hallinger and Murphy, 1983; Murphy, 1983).
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
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In applied areas such as education (Shavelson and Towne, 2002), theories are
often used to connect scholars with practitioners, and must serve as a common
language bridging the two groups. Therefore, theories in applied areas should be
intuitively accessible to practitioners. Policy documents and research papers indicate
that transformational leadership has become an essential component in many
principals' training programs, and a standard of comparison. I traced the mentions of
transformational leadership as a key component in training programs to the early
2000s, as the program of the California State University at Fresno offered on-the-job
training for acting assistant administrators, which included courses in transformational
leadership (Jackson and Kelley, 2003). Since then, transformational leadership has
spread as a key component in training program reforms worldwide. For example,
Steyn (2009) described the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) in South
Africa as being responsible for the accreditation of academic institutions, indicating
that their programs included transformational leadership as one of the criteria to
determine the effectiveness of school leadership preparation programs. Another
example of the popularity of transformational leadership among policy makers can be
found in Israel. The Israel Institute for School Leadership, which is the national
agency responsible for training principals, incorporates transformational leadership as
a necessary element of the role of the principal (Avney Rosha, 2008). Evidence shows
the adoption of transformational leadership in school leaders' preparation programs
not only as training content or as desired standard but also as a selection criterion.
Simmons et al. (2008) formulated a preparation program for first-time leaders for the
St. Louis Public School District in which a tendency toward transformational
leadership is one of the criteria used to identify suitable applicants. Transformational
leadership has also made its way into more radical alternative preparation programs.
For example, Black and Murtadha (2007) suggested a new signature pedagogy for
educational leadership preparation programs in which transformational leadership and
care are intertwined.
A second indicator that demonstrates the utility of a conceptual framework is
related to its explanatory added value in empirical studies, over and above other
related constructs (Bacharach, 1989). Below I present some findings illustrating the
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
9
exploratory power of transformational leadership in education.2 One such example
appears in Koh, Steers, and Terborg’s (1995) exploration of Singaporean principals'
leadership styles using the MLQ. The researchers reported that transformational
leadership adds 17%-26% above other leadership styles to the explained variance of
the school staff's organizational citizenship, organizational commitment, and
satisfaction with the leader. Another illustration can be found in Dowling’s (2007)
work, which explored the leadership styles of assistant principals in Ohio. Dowling
found that assistant principals’ transformational leadership style, as assessed using the
LQAP instrument, accounted for a significant amount of variance in school
performance based on state assessment, independent of assistant principals’
instructional leadership. Transformational leadership was also found to contribute
positively to the prediction of organizational learning above and beyond the strength
of organizational vision reported by teachers (Kurland et al., 2011), and to directly
reduce teachers' burnout even when teachers' autonomous motivation is introduced as
a mediator (Eyal and Roth, 2011).
The evidence presented above supports the claim that transformational
leadership is a useful framework for conducting research and practical activities in
educational administration, and demonstrates its explanatory power.
2.3 Reflections on the fit of transformational leadership theory
In this last section I wish to talk about the manner in which transformational
leadership theory fits the field of educational administration. Although some scholars
do not regard fit as a criterion for a solid theory (Bacharach, 1989), I do, because
successfully importing theories from other fields involves the ability to fit them within
the new environment while maintaining the distinctive identity of the field. Oplatka
(2014) suggested that educational administration draws heavily from organizational
2 One issue that should be noted in relation to the predictive value of transformational leadership theory
is that a large portion of the knowledge is the product of correlative cross-sectional research designs.
Prior syntheses consider this issue to be a widespread methodological challenge that the field of
educational administration must address (Heck and Hallinger, 2014), so that it does not uniquely
characterize the exploration of transformational leadership. Cross-sectional design explores between-
person variance, and it is not suitable for exploring within-person variance (i.e., change in individuals
over time), which means that it cannot be used to infer causality (Avey et al., 2008). In the future,
adopting longitudinal designs or combined designs integrating cross-sectional surveys with
experiments can greatly expand our knowledge about the explanatory value of the theory.
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
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behavior and "relocates" theories in contexts and meanings related to its arenas of
research (e.g., schools), "to better explain the educational organization" (p. 131).
Therefore, the extent to which transformational leadership fits the field of education is
important. Theoretical fit can manifest in two ways (Bacharach, 1989): (a)
connectivity, as the theory bridges the gap between different theories in the field, and
(b) transformation, as the theory motivates the reassessment and modification of prior
theories. In our case, it is important to assess theoretical contribution of
transformational leadership theory to the field of educational administration because it
directly relates to the educational qualities of the theory and to its insights regarding
education as a unique arena. Shavelson and Towne (2002) identified five
characteristics of education shaping the nature of scientific research in the field. I
suggest that these features are more than constraints to educational research, because
they can be viewed to a great extent as defining education as an arena. The features
are (a) the centrality of values, social ideals, multiple interests, and power conflicts;
(b) human volition manifesting in the fluid composition of stakeholders; (c)
variability in programs and processes as a function of site; (d) the interdependent and
multilayered organization of schools, given that a school structure reflects political,
social, and economic differences; and (d) the diversity of individuals nested within the
same unit with respect to different geographic, historical, social, ethnic, linguistic,
economic, and cultural backgrounds.
Naturally, the list is debatable, but I use it as a reference point to judge
whether or not a specific study significantly contributes to our understanding of
education. My general assessment is that currently the potential insights of
transformational leadership theory on education as a unique arena are quite limited.
At present, theories that prevail in educational administration such as critical/critical
race, feminist/queer, institutional, social-cognitive, social capital, complexity, chaos,
systems, turbulence, actor-network, adult learning, organizational learning, agency,
and personal-construct (Oplatka, 2014) seldom form the focus of transformational
leadership studies. If they are mentioned at all, it is often offhand, and they rarely
form an integral part of the research. Most educational administration scholars stand
for a different interpretation of fit in their works because they are convinced that
conducting leadership research in educational organizations fosters such a fit. The
more rigorous ones assume that including students' test scores as leadership outcome
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
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assures the education orientation of the study. Below I review most of the empirical
research focusing on transformational leadership in schools published in 2014 in
journals of education and educational administration.3 I replaced the terms
"principals" and "teachers" with "managers" and "employees" to illustrate my point.
Among the studies that explored transformational leadership in schools as a potential
predictor of dependent variables were those focusing on employees' overall job
satisfaction, managers' information-processing systems, managers' decision-making
style, perceived leadership outcomes, employees' communication satisfaction,
managers' powerbases, and employees' intention to use digital materials in their
professional practices. I identified one study that explored transformational school
leadership as an outcome of managers' emotional intelligence, and three studies that
also included students' test scores (about 19% of the relevant publications). But only
one study in 2014, about 6% of the publications identified in that year, investigated
transformational school leadership with relation to other educational administration
theories (the study explored how managers advance social justice and educational
equity).
Note that this overview is not the result of nitpicking, and to the best of my
knowledge it does not represent the year 2014 exclusively. Currently,
transformational leadership is explored mostly without deep theoretical connections to
other educational administration theories, and therefore its potential contribution to
our understanding of education as a unique arena is limited. My critique, however, is
not intended to motivate educational administration researchers to abandon the theory,
but rather to reassess the research questions they pose. I believe that transformational
leadership theory has the potential to contribute valuable insights on education at this
time and age. Transformational leadership theory deals primarily with the manner in
which leaders exert their influence on followers (Bush, 2014), and therefore in many
ways it is a descriptive-functional theory. Because educational aims and processes are
inherently ambiguous and open to multiple interpretations (Hostetler, 2005),
transformational leadership can be an ideal litmus indicator of what works, making
"reverse engineering" possible, in other words, transformational leadership can help
us use successful leadership in education in order to understand what is consistent
3 Sixteen empirical studies were identified in the search. Detailed information can be obtained by
contacting the author.
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
12
with effectiveness in education in various settings. Principals' transformational
leadership may thus serve as the starting point for understanding various elements
such as role demands, and the values and goals that motivate leaders. Other
educational administration theories are ideal sources for conceptualizing likely
mediators, such as teachers' sense of calling, and moderators of transformational
leadership, such as the socioeconomic context of schooling, because they fill the
theoretical gaps in the general transformational leadership literature. This creative
process requires a level of openness on the part of the research community that can
foster theoretical leaps (Bacharach, 1989). Unquestionably, researchers must beware
that in the process of re-conceptualizing transformational leadership not to distort the
concept and not to stretch it beyond reason (Van de Ven, 1989). But the potential
profits of this creative process are greater than its risks.
4. Discussion
The present paper is structured around Bacharach’s (1989) criteria of a “good” theory:
falsifiability, utility, and fit. My arguments are intended to serve as a response to the
growing critique of transformational leadership theory on the grounds of its non-
falsifiability. The suggestions in the first part of the essay address these issues. Some
scholars might object to the suggestion to set aside the differences between sub-
dimensions in favor of moving toward a simpler and less elegant model, yet it is
necessary to exchange theoretical "beauty" for empirical support. Following this path
is likely to lead us to consider alternative compact versions of transformational
leadership scales, after researching their psychometric characteristics. Other scholars
might consider the suggestion to exclude the instructional management dimension as
making the theory less relevant for education, but this step is required to maintain
distinctiveness from other educational leadership models. School administration
includes many imperatives;4 therefore the exclusion of the instructional dimension is
likely to better represent transformational principals who focus on other imperatives. I
contend that the changes proposed to address the issues of falsifiability will leave the
core of transformational leadership untouched because the theory will still describe a
4 For instance, Greenfield (1995) also mentions moral, political, managerial, and social imperatives
beside instructional.
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
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small number of leadership behaviors that aim to encourage "followers to work
toward transcendental goals instead of immediate self-interest, and also toward
achievement and self-actualization rather than simply safety and security" (Sun and
Leithwood, 2012, p. 419).
Readers might wonder if it were not better to embrace only “prefect” theories.
To judge whether a theory can be prefect, let us consider first what a theory is. Farber
defines theory as "a system of interrelations among highly abstract concepts which
serves to organize a very large number of laws that were previously unrelated" (as
cited in Bourgeois, 1979, p. 443). Theorizing is therefore the art of specificity in
asking questions and providing answers (Goodson, 2010). But as the popularity of a
theory grows and it becomes subject of multiple explorations, its specificity
decreases. Theories constantly change as a result of refinement, elaboration, or
contextualization in empirical research (e.g., Jia et al., 2011; Judge et al., 2009). In
response to such threat to their specificity, theories are adapted by their original
proponents or by other researchers.5 Theories also undergo fundamental change as a
result of the development and legitimization of a new approach in the discipline,
seemingly unrelated to the theories’ core.6 Thus, theories are never prefect in the
sense that they are never final, and theoretical adaptions are part of the scientific
dynamics. Therefore, the question rises what kind of patching is acceptable in our
theories. It may be argued that accepting patching within a theoretical framework
inhibits the coherence of the theory and the development of the field. To address this
argument, I emphasize the distinction between incompatibility that is a logical
contradiction and incomparability as a difference that disallows comparison (Slife,
2000). In my opinion, some fragmentation within a theoretical framework can be
tolerated as long as we can soundly determine whether findings are transferable and
hold across differences.
As others have noted previously, transformational leadership is a highly
relevant theory to our day and age, which is greatly change-oriented (see Bush, 2014;
Hallinger, 1992, 2003; Leithwood, 1994). School upgrade, whether as a result
5 See, for example, Karl E. Weick’s early work on loose coupling (Weick, 1976) vs. his
reconceptualization of it in his later work (Orton and Weick, 1990).
6 For instance, multilevel modeling made possible a new understating of theory and research in
organizations (Kozlowski and Klein, 2000), which is currently stimulating adaptations in multiple
leadership theories.
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
14
restructuring, performability, or local initiative, is the common agenda of most school
leaders worldwide. Many school leaders find themselves operating in a post-
bureaucratic system (Maroy, 2009), in which hierarchal power is less effective.
Leadership theory that aims to explain how leaders promote change by operating on
the emotions, motivations, and identity of followers to enlist them is extremely
pertinent. The viewpoint expressed in this essay is based on a perspective that
prioritizes the relevance of scientific work to some degree. Although this may not be
the mainstream position in the research community, it is not new. For example, Lee
Cronbach, the noted educational psychologist and statistician, argued that "The goal
of our work… is not to amass generalizations atop which a theoretical tower can
someday be erected... The special task of the social scientist in each generation is to
pin down the contemporary facts… in the effort to gain insight into contemporary
relationships, and to realign the culture's view of man with present realities"
(Cronbach, 1975, p. 126). If social scientists have a social commitment to slightly tip
the balance in favor of relevance over perfection in their work, transformational
leadership theory still has value in educational administration research, at least until
better options emerge.
5. Conclusion
After decades of consolidating its place in scholarship, transformational leadership
theory is currently an inseparable part of how educational administration scholars
consider ideal school leadership. We do not reflect on the manner in which our
theories achieve consensus. This essay, timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of
transformational leadership, offers an interpretative critique of its current status in the
field of educational administration. I contend that in the field of educational
administration, given the shortcomings of transformational leadership in the area of
falsifiability, we need to adopt a pragmatic approach and take several corrective steps
in future research. I consider these steps to have merit because of the extensive use of
the theory in educational administration, both in research and practice, and because of
its demonstrated exploratory power. Most important, I contend that most
transformational leadership researchers in educational administration do not attempt
to meaningfully fit transformational leadership theory to other theories in the field of
educational administration, thereby missing valuable contributions of this theory to
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
15
the understanding of education as a unique arena. Although some perceive this lack of
integration as yet another problem of an external theory imported into the field of
educational administration, and argue in favor of abandoning the theory, I view it
primarily as a promising, underdeveloped direction that requires improved efforts. I
hope that this essay provides a foundation on which transformational leadership
researchers can build future works, when they use the theory to increase our
understandings of education as it is situated in this time and place.
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
16
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Appendix
Criteria for examining the "goodness" of leadership theories in education
Criteria Sub-criteria
Falsifiability (a) Does the leadership construct have a clear
conceptual definition and has its validity been
demonstrated?
• Do sub-dimensions of the leadership construct
have both a common ground and distinctiveness
between themselves?
• Is the structure of the leadership construct
replicable?
• Does the leadership construct show discriminant
validity from other leadership constructs?
(b) Is there a conceptual separation between leadership
behaviors and their effects?
(c) Are relevant causal mechanisms mediating the
effects of the leadership construct being offered?
(d) Are relevant moderating conditions contingent upon
the effects of the leadership construct being offered?
Utility (a) Has the incremental validity of the leadership
construct with respect to other leadership constructs
been demonstrated?
(b) Has the leadership construct been adopted by both
researchers and practitioners?
Fit (a) Does the leadership theory bridge existing gaps
between various theories in the field of education?
School Leaders and Transformational Leadership
23
(b) Does the leadership theory lead to reassessment and
modification of earlier theories in the field of
education?
Notes: Although many criteria can be evaluated in the seminal work in which the
theory is introduced, other criteria require an accumulated knowledge base before
their evaluation. For further discussion of these criteria and examples of their
exploration, see Bacharach, 1989; Gross et al., 2011; Van de Ven, 1989; Poole and
Van de Ven, 1989; Van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013.
