Transformational leadership and positive organisations

Feeding the debate with autoethnography

Abstract

This article is intended as a discussion of transformational leadership and that it should exist in positive organisations (where there is a reigning meritocracy; versus negative organisations that are more governed by relationships and contacts than competence and towards the strategic goals of the organisation). The discourse is relatively informal and is based on the author's experience of over 35 years in companies and organisations of various kinds (profit and non-profit; manufacturing; services; consulting; SMEs but also multinationals). The article is thus an autoethnographic essay - 'auto' because it resembles an autobiography; 'ethnographic' because it takes cultural perspectives into account. Some examples given of how different cultures work in practice, indicate the difficulty of being a transformational leader - where employees will feel motivated, satisfied, empowered, psychologically safe and taken advantage of, leading to superior organisational performance. The issue of culture being a stable element of people is addressed and the issue of cultural blindness is referred, which assumes that one is unaware of or lacks competence towards a specific culture. It is not intended to give formulas, but to suggest that being transparent, giving clear objectives (with dates to be met), making known what is bad and what is good, which will lead as a consequence to the construction of an effective and entrepreneurial culture - where there will be room for transformational leadership. Transformational leadership will further depend on four key factors: meritocracy, cultural proficiency, the strategic goals of the organisation, and being a positive organisation.