Running Head: PSEUDO-TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Pseudo-Transformational Leadership
Thomas Hair
Southwestern College
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Abstract
A pseudo-transformational leader is someone who is self-consumed, power-oriented and
often displays warped moral values. This type of leader may operate under the façade of leading
the company toward the greater good; however, he or she is ultimately very self-consumed.
When leaders display this type of leadership, they are only genuinely interested in pursuing their
own interests, rather than working toward the collective good of the company (Heather
Rothbauer-Wanish 2009).
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Pseudo-Transformational Leadership
There are two distinct but interrelated ideal types of leadership: transactional and
transformational. In what follows we first clarify these concepts and then discuss ethical
problems related with each. We conclude with an examination of Bass's proposition (1998a),
which is consistent with Burns (1978), that authentic transformational leadership must rest on a
moral foundation of legitimate values. The opposite is inauthentic or pseudo-transformational
leadership, that of leaders who consciously or unconsciously act in bad faith (Bernard M Bass
1999). The corporate world is designed around getting results sometimes at the cost of
employees or customers. Pseudo-transformational leadership is used more and more to keep
results at a high level. Upper management accepts supervisors and subordinates to get the results
and most of the time do not know or want to know how these results are being produced.
In the corporate world there are two kinds of employees, employees who are content with
their current position and have no aspirations of moving up the corporate ladder and employees
who have motivation to climb the ladder. The employees who want to move up weather they are
supervisors or subordinates find themselves in difficult situations where ethics may play a part.
Managers work directly with supervisors and the results the supervisor products directly effects
weather he or she can become promoted. Supervisors are put in the middle of doing the right
thing and telling the manager who is producing the results and trying to make the subordinate
become in a position of promotion or take all the credit. Many times both occur; the supervisor
takes the credit and then tells the subordinate that the manager was aware who performed the
task. In this scenario pseudo-transformational leadership was used by manipulating the results to
take credit for something that the supervisor only passed on to the manager. Situations like these
can make what was an honest, hardworking supervisor or employee change to a pseudotransformational leader.
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The ethical dilemma is supervisors will move up faster with more success if they become
a pseudo-transformational leader. Managers enjoy the results they get from supervisors that are
able to manipulate and find the results. Managers are not looking for supervisors that have trust
with their subordinates; they are only after the results. Supervisors do not intend to make this
change it happens over time with the stress and pressure of the companies to complete tasks and
bottom line profits.
With the economy in the state it has been the aircraft industry has been suffering for the
last six years. Employees that have not been laid off or let go are not looking to make any waves
between them and their supervisors or managers. Employees are willing to put up with more
distrust, manipulation and lack of support. Supervisors that were not always manipulative
understand that employees are not looking for a career change with the job market being so low.
Many supervisors and managers are able to take advantage of the economic down turn because
they are able to manipulate and deceive their employees with very few negative repercussions.
Pseudo-transformational leadership can be found in religion as well. Because the Bible
can be interpreted several different ways, there are hundreds of beliefs available to us all.
Individuals looking for a church with the same or similar beliefs can be hard to do. Ministers
that have odd or radical beliefs may be able to manipulate or deceive followers within the
congregation. Jim Jones is a perfect example of a pseudo-transformational leader, he
manipulated thousands of people for his own personal beliefs.
Jim Jones founded his ministry in San Francisco California after years of being a
respected community leader. He was able to influence voting with the use of his large
congregation in San Francisco which led to him being a local celebrity. The scandal started
when Reverend Jim Jones was accused of abuse so he moved himself and some of his followers
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to Guyana Central America to practice his ministry without resistance from outside forces. The
abuse was detailed In late 1976 when things began to go fall apart. Reporter Marshall Kilduff
gathered information and eventually wrote a highly critical profile about Jones, which was
published by New West magazine eventually in August of 1977. It detailed Jones' faked healings
and extremely coercive fund raising that pushed members to liquidate their assets and hand over
the money to the church (Rick Ross 2002). Jones had the trust of his followers to do such acts
though the implementation of pseudo-transformational leadership. Jones may have thought that
doing these acts was for the greater good of his followers and even the community, but his
actions changed the lives of thousands of followers and their loved ones.
Jones was able to manipulate and deceive one thousand out of eight thousands of his
followers to make the move with him to Central America. Manipulation and deceit was just the
start of his leadership. Routinely he would practice with punch to do mass suicides with all the
leaders. The followers would take the punch but nothing would happen. This went on for a year
until Representative Leo Ryan traveled to what was now called Jonestown in Guyana to
investigate the abuse that was alleged. Ryan found several people that wanted to leave and go
back with him to the United States. Jones then manipulated gunman to kill everyone that
attempted to leave Jonestown. Anticipating that the end was near Jones forced his followers to
drink punch laced with cyanide, those who didn’t were killed. Nine hundred and fourteen bodies
were found in mass suicide and murder because of Jones’ manipulation and deceit.
Pseudo-transformational leadership in corporations or religion is unethical and will
eventually lead to failure of the company or the religious beliefs. Leaders with that use this style
of leadership have broken the trust between the followers which usually leads to employees not
producing to their maximum if distrust is apparent.
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References
Bass, B M, Steidlmeier, P, (1999) Leadership Quarterly; Summer99, Vol. 10 Issue 2, p181, 37p,
2 charts. Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior.
Ross, R, (2002). The rise and fall of Jim Jones. Retrieved from
http://www.rickross.com/reference/jonestown/jonestown4.html
Rothbauer-Wanish, H, (2009) Pseudotransformational leadership effects. Retrieved from
http://suite101.com/article/pseudotransformational-leadership-effects-a152148