TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP AND EMPOWERMENT Transformational leaders are those who inspire followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes and in the process develop their own leadership capacity. They help followers to grow and eventually develop into leaders by responding to their individual needs. This is also done by aligning the objectives and goals of the individual followers with those of the group, the leader and the larger organization. This is as opposed to transactional leaders who lead through contingent exchange. The leaders are empowering. Empowering leadership means providing autonomy to ones followers. The followers are as much as possible allowed and encouraged to enable, direct and control themselves in carrying out their responsibilities, aligning their goals to those of their leaders and organization. It is a product of individualized consideration but it also involves elements of intellectual stimulation. Empowerment of followers by a leader also involves delegating important tasks and responsibilities to them. This form of leadership differs from Laissez faire leadership. This is where by the leader abdicates any responsibility for his/her follower’s performance and absents himself or herself from the scenario both mentally and physically.

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TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP AND EMPOWERMENT
BY
CAXTON GITONGA KAUA
Caxtonk2008@yahoo.com
WANGARI MAATHAI INSTITUTE FOR PEACE AND ENVIRONMENT
STUDIES

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TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP AND EMPOWERMENT
Transformational leaders are those who inspire followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes and
in the process develop their own leadership capacity. They help followers to grow and eventually
develop into leaders by responding to their individual needs. This is also done by aligning the
objectives and goals of the individual followers with those of the group, the leader and the larger
organization. This is as opposed to transactional leaders who lead through contingent exchange.
The leaders are empowering.
Empowering leadership means providing autonomy to ones followers. The followers are as much
as possible allowed and encouraged to enable, direct and control themselves in carrying out their
responsibilities, aligning their goals to those of their leaders and organization. It is a product of
individualized consideration but it also involves elements of intellectual stimulation.
Empowerment of followers by a leader also involves delegating important tasks and
responsibilities to them.
This form of leadership differs from Laissez faire leadership. This is where by the leader abdicates
any responsibility for his/her follower’s performance and absents himself or herself from the
scenario both mentally and physically.
Truly empowered followers typically perform better and have better personal development. An
example of empowerment can be seen in the case of General W.L. Creech of the United States
Airforce tactical air command. The General changed from policies of centralization and
consolidation that were dehumanizing and focused on the tactical air commands end product i.e.
its aircraft and the people responsible for them.
General Creech restructured the organization by moving the authority and responsibility of the
tactical air command downward so as to meet clear and simple goals and to instill pride,
enthusiasm, a sense of belonging and psychological investment by those responsible.
Individualized consideration was emphasized in treating people needs and working conditions at
all levels as important. Small squadrons responsible for specific aircraft replaced large air wings.
The aircrafts were painted with the particular squadrons’ colors, crew chiefs name and also those
of the pilot.
This led to excellence becoming an obsession. Dramatic improvements occurred in sort rates and
aircraft mission capability. In providing a professional environment personnel developed pride and
ownership and took more responsibility through their motivation to do so. Management control
changed from management by exception towards transformational inspirational and empowering
worker motivation (Finegan, 1987).
Manz ans Sims (1995, 2001) see super leadership as the ultimate vehicle of empowerment. In this
the empowering super leader educates the followers so that each learns how to act as a self-leader.
This involves application of behavioral and cognitive focused strategies to lead one self.
A behavioral strategy for example is selecting a behavior that you want to change. It includes:

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 Self-observation: Observing and gathering information about specific behaviors that you
have targeted to change
 Self-set goals: Setting goals for your own work efforts
 Management of cues: Arranging and altering cues in the work environment to facilitate
your personal behaviors
 Rehearsal: Physical and mental practice of work activities before you actually perform
them
 Self-reward: Providing yourself with personally valued rewards for completing desirable
behaviors
 Self-punishment criticism: Administering punishments to yourself for behaving in
undesirable ways
A cognitive focused strategy is considering what is naturally rewarding about the work you do
(Sims and Lorenzi, 1992). It includes strategies such as:
 Building natural rewards into tasks: Self redesign of where and how you do your work to
increase the level of natural rewards in your job. Natural rewards include results from
activities that make you feel a sense of competence, self-control and purpose
 Focusing thinking on natural rewards: Purposively focusing your thinking on the naturally
rewarding features of your work
 Establishing effective thought patterns: Establishing constructive and effective habits or
patterns in your thinking e.g. a tendency to search for opportunities rather than obstacles
from challenges. This can be achieved by managing beliefs and assumptions, mental
imagery and internal self-talk
Although empowerment does not always lead to an effective outcome, there is considerable
evidence for pay off. According to Menon (2001), internalization of goals is an important
component for empowering followers. Cohen and Ledford (1994) in a study of
telecommunications firm found out that self-managing teams were more effective than the
traditionally managed teams. Sprietzer (1996) has observed that workers feel more empowered
when they have a sense of low role ambiguity, have important organizational information and
when they work in a more participative environment.
Transformational leaders empower follower’s enhancing a collective sense of efficacy. This in
turn leads to enhanced work team effectiveness. This has been observed by Jung and Sosik (2002)
in their study of forty seven teams in four Korean organizations. Porossoit (2000) in a study of
more than 300 employees of a United States of America Fortune 100 company also found that
transformational leadership had a direct effect on worker job satisfaction. Jung et al (2003) found
that transformative leadership led to greater employee empowerment and a more innovative
organization culture in Taiwanese companies.
The transformational leader who fosters empowered followers. In a survey of two levels of leaders
in the U.S.A. army Masi (1994) concluded that individuals felt more empowered if their leaders
were transformational leaders and less transactional. He also found out that commitment to quality

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as well as motivation to achieve and succeed were correlated with perceived cultural norms of
empowerment.
Howard and Wellins also say that transformational leaders are empowering. He describes the
transformational leaders as being: visionary, inspirational, supportive, championing, facilitative
and individually considerate. This is as opposed to transactional leaders who are controlling,
commanding, rulers, judges or guards. The transformational leaders are more likely to be asking
as opposed to telling.
These empowering leaders pay great attention to the cohesiveness of their followers. They
encourage feelings of warmth and acceptance among the followers. They display inspirational
motivation by striving to point out the importance of the assignment at hand, the positive qualities
of individual followers and how they can complement each other’s strengths. He points out the
challenge involved in the task and the great recognition that success will bring.
According to Seltzer and Miller (1990), the transformational leaders have certain behaviors that
contribute towards creating an empowering environment. These behaviors include shared decision
making, cohesive team building and encouragement of individual development. In addition to
these we have inspirational goal setting, fostering autonomy and setting of high expectations.
Empowering leaders differ from laissez faire leaders due to their ability to set the boundaries within
which their subordinates are given discretionary opportunities. They then follow up with resources,
support and caring for the follower’s. This is clearly depicted by Ulmer (1992) in his analysis of
the success of the Desert storm Iraq war. He pointed out the empowerment given to the field
commander Norman Shwarzkopf by then then American president George. H. Bush and Joint chief
of staff Colin Powell.
His superiors gave him and focused on a basic strategy and provision of resources. The field
commander then executed the strategy under a distant authority. However on a daily basis he held
lengthy phone conversation with General Colin Powell during which he was given some guidance,
had some questions answered and made requests that were either granted, denied or modified. He
operated with the value system of his profession but within the current macro political and resource
realities as defined for him by his superiors.
THE DARK SIDE OF EMPOWERMENT
Under certain situations, empowerment can have negative effects. This happens when:
 The follower’s goals are unaligned and in opposition with the goals of the organization
 When empowerment of the follower’s provide them with an opportunity to sabotage the
organization
 When empowerment generates inflexible norms that are detrimental to the organizations’
and individual follower’s creativity
 When leaders when to be highly empowered whereas they are not. The leaders will
exaggerate and give themselves a high dishonest empowerment score making the followers
feel low due to their modest scores.

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 Giving themselves high empowerment ratings makes the leaders develop the feeling that
they are empowered while in reality they are not
 The empowered managers may also heap all failures on the followers even when these are
actually system or process failures while taking back all the gift.
 By encouragement of self-actualization, empowerment may foster self-interest rather than
goals that go beyond the individual follower (Alimo-Metcalfe 1994)
 Lower rank cadres normally find more obstacles to empowerment compared to their
leaders (Howard and Wellins 1994)
 The charismatic elements and idealized influence of the transformational leader can foster
a potentially unhealthy dependence on the leader (Kark et al 2003)
 Empowered followers may employ group think whereby they uncritically conform to each
other’s opinions to redefine their goals and perpetuate their security. They avoid
introducing disturbing information or disagreeing with each other so that harmony can be
preserved. This leads to loss of critical information and creative ideas (Janis and Mann
1977)
 Empowerment may lead to social loafing when workers are encouraged to work as a team.
The loafers take advantage of the fact that no single member is responsible for the groups’
performance. This may result in some members feeling nor harboring any responsibility to
perform since they will be considered as having contributed to the groups’ achievement
 Lack of top management support can obstacle empowerment. Howard and Wellins (1994)
also note various ways in which the senior management can bar empowerment. These
include:
 Provision of little resources and time for change
 Directive leadership practices
 Insufficient leadership
 Reluctance to share information
 Unclear vision and values
 Lack of commitment and urgency for change
HOW TO MAKE EMPOWERMENT MORE EFFECTIVE
Empowerment can be made more effective in various ways. These include countering group think
by intellectually stimulating followers by questioning their thinking and assumptions, supporting
who voice unusual or provocative ideas to reduce conformity and encouraging flexibility that may
stem from empowerment
Countering social loafing by bringing in contingent rewards, active management by exception and
transformational diagnosis and action so as to restore the loafer’s commitments and involvement.
Adjustment in workloads may also be necessary
Empowerment can be made effective through self-defining leadership. Kuhnert and Lewis (1987)
note that self-defining leaders are guided by their internal values rather than personal needs or by
purely external standards. They thus can and do base their delegation on a broad context,
considering longterm goals of the organization as well those of their followers rather than being

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tied to immediate selfish short term goals. The self-defining leaders delight in accomplishing tasks
and higher order objectives.
The self-defining leaders comfortably delegate autonomy to followers to develop them in the
process helping move them to become self-defining, transformational leaders themselves. This is
as opposed to self-oriented leaders who delegate to accomplish their self-worth and relations
oriented leaders who delegate to feel appreciated by colleagues and maintain their own self-
esteem.
Empowerment can also be made effective through effective delegation process. Bass and Avolio
(1991) have come up with twenty ways that can make delegation more effective. These include:
 Share problems, offer suggestions and appropriate alternatives for completing the task
 Give information necessary to the task
 Maintain an appropriate level of personal responsibility
 Empower followers with the authority to get the job done
 Give support and encouragement as needed
 Allocate necessary resources to complete the job
 Request for progress reports
 Review effects of delegated performance
 Provide praise and rewards for successfully accomplishing objectives
 Avoid intervening unless requested to do so by followers
 Delegate the appropriate level of responsibility and authority based on needs and
capabilities
 Assume that some mistakes will occur before the follower becomes proficient in the task
 Expect that it may take longer for followers to complete the task than if you did it
 Consider how the delegation of a task to a follower may another follower, coworker or
superior
 Make sure the tasks’ objectives are clear, specific and acceptable to the follower
 Try to use delegation to manage both performance and development
 Try to delegate tasks to followers that are meaningful and of use to them
 Explain to your followers why you have chosen them to do the task
 Distinguish initially how much control to retain over the process and product of their efforts
 Try not to delegate tasks too often that you would not enjoy performing yourself
CONCLUSION
Transformative leadership leads to empowerment of followers. Empowerment is a critical process
that helps define transformational leadership. It illustrates why it is effective in building follower
commitment and inspiring better performance. Yet empowering followers entails a delicate
balance between sharing of power and relinquishing it. It is therefore for a transformative leader
to be aware of both the shortcomings of empowerment and ways in which it can be made more
effective.

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