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Module Catalog →
Leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.
James MacGregor Burns (1918–2014), Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer of Franklin Roosevelt and professor of government at Williams College, wrote Leadership (1978) as a political scientist's grand synthesis. His distinction between transactional and transforming leadership — and his insistence that leadership is inseparable from followers' motives and morals — reoriented the entire field. Bernard Bass operationalized the theory for organizations.
Burns distinguished transactional leadership (exchange) from transforming leadership, in which leaders and followers elevate each other's motivation and morality. Bass later operationalized it into the most-researched leadership theory of the late 20th century.
The era: Situation & Contingency — Situational variables are considered; behavior is moderated by obstacles along the path between subordinates and goals.
Leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.
Where this work feeds the Open Sky frameworks.
Fellow travelers on these threads:
Lead from purpose: connect daily work to ends people find morally worthy.
Move beyond exchange — measure yourself by the leaders you develop.