In education, transformational leaders go beyond the implementation of change. They become driving forces, empowering people and generating enthusiasm for a vision and a process that fuels transformation. This course module presents the specific knowledge, skills and dispositions needed by educational leaders to transform schools and improve outcomes for the students in their care.
While the research may still not yet be definitive in identifying all of the required traits of a transformational leader in education, it is ongoing and necessary.
Legislation and educational reforms have affected structures and processes within schools and school systems… and parents and teachers also come to the principal with increasingly high expectations and complex problems, compounding an already difficult situation.”
Casavant and Cherkowski (2001)
School principals need guidance and support in both academic press and productive culture as they try to lead a culture of change for continuous school improvement.
The central purpose of transformational leadership (is)… the enhancement of the individual and collective problem-solving capacities of organizational members …in the identification of goals to be achieved and practices to be used in their achievement.”
Leithwood, Begley and Cousins (1994)
Bass (1998) asserts that transformational leaders are judged by their impact on followers in the areas of trust, admiration, and respect.