TERM PAPER ON TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP AS A TEACHER.

Though building a society takes time, its effect is long-running. In order to execute advancement
in a school environment, creating a common vision is of prime importance. The biggest
challenge for school leadership is handling different kinds of people, with various goals and
interests. A school leader has to ensure that students are following curricula, outshining
academically, and becoming outstanding members of society. In comparison, teachers’ are
focused on meeting curricula deadlines and ensuring that students keep pace with class work.
Transformational school leader ensures students focus on their studies by being considerate of
singularity, being charming in influencing them, and inspiring them. Instead of using set
problem-solving techniques, he or she involves students and teachers to come up with solutions
to problems as they arise. Therefore, a key element of leadership in education is the ability to
predict the future. Looking at Peretomode's (1991) understanding of the essence of leadership in
education it boils down to the leader's exemplary and verbal inspiration of the system, through
effective influence on behavior, thoughts and feelings of those who work within the education
system and thus providing a strategic vision of creating alignment through the entire system. No
matter how effective, every leader of complex institution such as academic institution is facing
numerous obstacles that must be managed and "moderated" in order to succeed in his/her efforts.

For describing different leadership types in the functioning of educational institutions various
adjectives are used in scientific literature (such as instructional, moral, democratic, participatory,
transactional, transformative, distributed, strategic...). Among the many authors, Leithwood et al
(2004) have pointed out that these designations primarily include various stylistic and
methodological approaches in the implementation of two main goals that are crucial for the
effectiveness of any organization: to help establishing a set of "reasonable" guidelines and thus
influencing members to act according to these guidelines. According to them, the leadership in
educational institutions is both simple and complex process. Of course, the effectiveness of
leadership is perceived through the organization’s success. Without diminishing the importance
and benefits of other types of leadership for the adequate functioning of educational institutions
and educational groups in it, in this paper, special attention is given to the advantages and
benefits of transformational leadership in education, especially when it comes to directing the
students within the school conditions.
Burns’ (1978) understanding of transformational leadership has shown that this theory is
fundamentally different from other theories of leadership by its orientation to long-term vision,
by its focus on personal followers' development and thus transformation of the followers into
leaders and moral agents. By observing the literature review related to the leadership outcomes
on the performance of educational institutions, it can be concluded about the high productivity of
transformational leadership, which entails a change in the culture of the organization for the sake
of its effectiveness and efficiency. This multidimensional construct has its theoretical foundation
in the relationship theories that have been known as transformational theories, which focus on
the relationship that is established between the leader and the follower. According to these
theories, leadership is seen as a process through which a person engages with others and is able
to connect with others, resulting in enlargement of morale and motivation of both, leaders and
followers. Unlike the earlier theories of leadership, which did not include the ethical component,
Burns (1978) connecting transformational leadership with higher-order values perceives morality
as a crucial component. According to him, during the mutual interaction between
transformational leaders and followers the level of morale and motivation of both is raised.
According to this concept, during the interaction of leaders and followers their ethical aspirations
are improved which is a sign that a true leadership occurs. By describing the characteristics of
transformational leadership using moral concepts, Burns actually defines this style of leadership
as a moral leadership. Yukl (2002) stated that only those who appeal to the high ideals, moral
values and higher-order needs of followers can be called transformational leaders. Through
charisma or idealized influence the leader expresses his/her beliefs, takes up attitudes and
appeals to followers on an emotional level through a clear system of values that is presented in
any action as soon as he/she becomes a model for followers. Trust between leaders and follower
is built in that way that stands on solid moral and ethical grounds. Simola et al. (2012) define
transformational leadership as a type of leadership in which interactions among interested parties
are organized "around a collective purpose" in such a way that "transform, motivate and enhance
the actions and ethical aspirations of followers." It can concluded that our behavior is directed by
the inherent system of moral values so that transformational leadership can be seen as a
leadership style that leads to positive transformations and changes of the followers through the
impact on the structure and strategy of the organization.
Bass (1985) argues that the reason for naming this type of leadership by this name is that it
indicates the ability of the leader to transfer subordinates to high levels of performance and to
achieve organizational outputs. Kark et al. (2003) suggests that transformational leadership
means, in one form, the transformation of a staff member into a leader by providing them with
opportunities for career empowerment and independence. Avey et al. (2008) in this regard
assured that transformational leadership means stimulating the employee in three areas:
increasing the level of autonomy and personal confidence of the employee, and achieving social
cohesion between the employee and the work group or organization, as well as by linking the
organization values with employee values. This leadership style is defined by a clear future
vision of the future organizational objectives which have to be achieved. This model is based on
several factors, the most important of which are encouraging employees to build a long-term
shared vision, seeking change and organizational development required by adopting a flexible
leadership style that enables Adapting to all external variables, in light of the interest in team
work, providing a healthy working environment, and encouraging dialogue between different
managerial levels (Negussie and Demissie, 2013).

From Bass's perspective (1994), transformational leadership serves as a bridge between the
leader and staff to understand employee interests, values and levels of motivation. By helping
employees achieve work objectives and encouraging them to adapt to new organizational
practices and changes in the organizational environment. It is also known as the ability to
motivate an employee to do additional work that is not primarily reflected in the employee's job
description (Sušanj and Jakopec, 2012).

Bass and Avolio (1994) identified four dimensions of transformational leadership: Idealized
Influence, inspirational motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, and Individualized consideration.
The present study adopts these dimensions as the agreed dimensions of transformational
leadership in many studies. These dimensions are explained below:

Avolio, Bass & Jung (1999) defines the Idealized Influence property as the way the leader
behaves and leads to the admiration of his subordinates, which helps him to spread the
organizational vision and inspire motivation in subordinates. Since the ideal influence represents
one of the characteristics of the transformational leader, it entails certain leadership behaviors
such as sacrificing personal interests for the benefit of the group, high moral conduct, and
subordinates see the leader as role models and reference (Sušanj and Jakopec, 2012). One of the
most important leadership behaviors associated with ideal influence is the ability to gain trust
and respect for employees, to follow ethical standards and higher values, to avoid taking power
to achieve personal gain or to force others to play organizational roles (AL-Shanti, 2016).

Inspirational Motivation sets and presents the future vision, the use of emotional influences, and
show optimism and enthusiasm for action (Sušanj and Jakopec, 2012). The inspiring motivation
of the leader inspires the organization by setting the vision of the organization and encouraging
employees to adopt and pursue it by motivating employees through enthusiasm towards goals,
optimism, and trust (AL-Shanti, 2016).

Bass and Avolio (1994) stated that intellectual stimulation refers to improving an employee's
ability to think in his own way about how to carry out his work assignments. Hence, intellectual
stimulation is described as the ability of the individual to be rational, and his ability to think
intelligently when assessing the environment, which makes him able to generate new ideas.
Intellectual stimulation means checking the traditional methods of doing business, taking the
reasons before adopting certain practices, adopting creative thinking and taking care of the
organizational tasks that require facing the challenges and overcoming obstacles to achieve the
goal. The intellectual stimulation refers to the ability of the leader to enable staff to address the
problems they face by relying on new methods to arrive at logical solutions to these problems.
This is done by encouraging employees to look at problems using a new method and trying to
find new solutions to these problems. The leader pays employees to maximize their potential to
achieve this goal (Sušanj and Jakopec, 2012). Accordingly, intellectual stimulation means
encouraging the employee to accept risk tolerance in order to develop new practices and ideas
that improve organizational performance (Ghafoor et al., 2011).

Individualized consideration is one of the characteristics of the transformational leader, linking

staff priorities to the development of the organization, directing them toward organizational
goals and providing opportunities for training and career development (Bass and Avolio, 1994).
In other words, Individualized consideration refers to the leader's appreciation of the employee
and interest in his interests, interests and career needs, including training, development and
promotion. On the other hand, the transformational leader depends on his interaction with his
employees' fair treatment and gives each employee special attention, which makes the staff feel
motivated to work. The reference here is that fair treatment does not mean that the
transformational leader evaluates employees equally, regardless of performance (Sušanj and
Jakopec, 2012). The individual consideration is not limited to moral concern and employee
appreciation, but also to employee needs and desires, as well as an analysis of the employees'
abilities to work and the distribution of tasks to them in accordance with these capabilities (Al-
Shanti, 2016).

It can be concluded that the question of transformational leadership in education, exactly in

school, is the question of great importance. Transformational leadership will improve schools,
change teachers' classroom practicies, enhances quality of teaching, student learning and
achievement and student engagement as learning outcome. According to many authors,
transformational approach proved to be very useful for educational organization. Studies in the
area of school leadership point to the benefits of transformational leadership. In specific terms,
speaking of school principals, transformational principal leadership style is an important factor
that relates to the teacher acceptance, better performance and increased job satisfaction at school.
In other words, this leadership style of principals increases job satisfaction, creates positive
school climate, enhances performance at school, involves in problem solving and decision
making, develops quality at all levels, increases school members' commitment, capacity and
engagement in meeting goals and improves teachers' acceptance, motivation, commitment and
professional growth. Transformational leadership of teachers affects positively the learning
outcomes of students, and primarily relates to the development of high-quality learning and
teaching in schools. It focuses at its core on improving learning and representing a mode of
leadership based on the principles of professional cooperation, development and growth.
Teachers and leaders govern the classroom and beyond, identifying and contributing to the
community of teachers and influencing others in order to improve educational practice. The
focus should be on creating a positive school climate for all participants in educational process
which would make the school a “better place for living and learning” and that can be achieved by
the practice of transformational leadership style. Transformational leadership is very substantial
for schools to move forward.