Chapter

ELEVEN

How Do We Know Leadership Matters? The Research Evidence

The fundamental principle works regardless of our wishes or preferences… . Effective leaders don’t put on a show of being great but, knowing how things work, they can achieve great things.

Tao Te Ching, Chapters 5 and 34

We have until now implicitly asked you to accept the word of James McGregor Burns, and our word, as well, about the effects of transformational leadership. Burns asserted that this sort of leadership raises leaders and followers together to new heights of achievement and moral development. In prior chapters, we’ve tried to show what he and we mean by this.

Transformational leaders create organizational conditions in which organization members can develop ...

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