Values-Based Leadership

Leadership Background

Values-based leadership has a significant impact on the performance and the functioning of an organization. Boje,(2000) cites Burn’s (1978) theoretical work on transformational leadership basing his argument on Kohlberg’s moral development theory and Weber’s (1947) theory of leadership and authority. In his work, Boje, 2000 agrees with Burn’s that a moral value based leader, is the one who emphasizes social exchange between leader and follower in the form of the psychological and mutual needs contract driven by charisma, individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation and inspirational motivation.(Homrig, 2001)

The transcendent values of transformational leaders have great potential to promote performance beyond expectations and to effect enormous change on how the organization operates since they seek liberty, justice, equality and collective well being. It therefore appears that a transformational leadership is that kind of leadership that seeks to exploit the full potential of individuals through satisfaction of collective needs.

While Weber’s theory (1947) is cited by Boje, (2000) as having several forms of leadership like charismatic, bureaucratic and traditional aspects, all co-exist together and change from the other occurs gradually. Even though the two theorists; Weber (1947) and Burn’s (1978) approaches leadership from different perspectives, Boje acknowledges that both of them share a similarity in their work in the sense that both see moral values as an important consideration in any form of leadership.( Boje, 2000).

Transformational leaders inspire followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes by providing both meaning and understanding, questioning assumptions, refraining problems, and...

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...e vision and mission of the company in order to align their goals with of the company. When Robert Eaton became the chairman in 1993 he involved company officers to develop the vision and the mission. Consequently, better communications, continuous training became part and puzzle of doing business in a new way. (Ashley, 1997)

In conclusion, leadership is not only important to companies that operate on a global scale but to domestic firms as well. It’s clear that when a leader takes his or her rightful position as a leader change, performance and results manifest. Their values and beliefs become the guiding principles where ideas, imaginations and talents are shared by all. Such transformational leaders not only make their employees to follow them, but they help one another to grow, motivate raise the morale of achieving extraordinary outcomes with few resources.