Workshop Activity
We are going to study an academic article that deals with the topic of transformational leadership. Much of the literature on leadership focuses on the idea of the transformational leader. In the article by Williams et al. (2018), citing Conger (1999), states that “transformational leaders consider followers as full-persons, seek to motivate followers to view group interests above self-interests and emphasize high-values ideals”.
On this course we want you to critically evaluate the content of academic literature. Some of the skills we want you to develop on the course relate to asking ‘why’ questions about the way that an argument was constructed and written. Your first task in an activity such as this is to understand the article and its main argument. Secondly, you need to question why the authors have chosen to have written it as they have.
The article we are considering is:
Williams, R., Raffo, D. and Clark, L., (2018), ‘Charisma as an attribute of transformational leaders: what about credibility’ in the Journal of Management Development, 37:6, pp.512-524
The Task
Please read the article by Williams et al. – use the reactionnaire as a guide to help write down your ideas. Academic English can be difficult even for British students – we recommend that you read the article at least twice, once to get an understanding of the sense of the article, and, second, to read and make notes.
As you may be daunted by the densely written text of an academic article, we have provided page numbers to help you address some of the issues.
Please identify the two concepts or ideas which the article will use to understand the attributes of the transformational leader (page 512)
How do the authors define each of the two concepts? (pages 514 to 516, and pages 516 to 517)
The authors use these two ideas to explore whether there is a link between transformational leadership and what other concept? (page 518)
The article contains a literature review. A literature review is a detailed analysis of academic writing within a specific area where the authors critically evaluate a research topic. Why do you think it is important for an academic to write a literature review?
What does the article say about implications for organisations who are exploring the area of transformational study? (pages 520)
What advantages and disadvantages are there to this style of academic article where the authors do not use either primary or secondary data?
