A liderança transformacional por James Macgregor Burns: revisitando a proposta original

Abstract

When Vizeu (2011) argues that the concept of Transforming Leadership proposed by Burns (1978) was distorted by managerial and quantitative researches (as, for example, those made by Bass [1985; 1990] and his followers), arises the need to recover the original meaning so that we can better understand the limits and potential of this perspective in the field of organizational studies. Thus, using the method of Depth Hermeneutics (DH) and with the main focus of its dimensions, the Socio-Historical Analysis (Thompson, 2000; Stefani; Vizeu, 2011), the intention is to analyze the thought of Burns on Transformational Leadership interpreted as a symbolic way in the field of organizations from a reference positivist still hegemonic. In this sense, the method will provide a temporal delimitation and interpretation which will reduce the anachronism that is common in loans theoretical practiced in the Administration area. Complementing the Socio-Historical Analysis, still at DH, we apply the Argumentative Analysis by Toulmin Method (1958), to investigate each of the chapters of the book Leadership, and, finally, the (re)interpretation of Argumentative Analysis based on Socio-Historical analysis . The central points of (Re)interpretation were: the work has a political-historical bias, not being focused on the organizational environment; the appropriation of the term Transformational Leadership by Burns contemporary authors, for application in an organizational context, fall into anachronism by not considering the socio-historical factors that inspired the author at the time it received its influence; the coexistence of the author with the scholars of psychology led him to devote much of his work to the influence of it to the leadership; his central argument will beyond differences between Transformational Leadership and Transactional Leadership, and proposes that both are tools that elevate people, leaders and followers, to a higher degree of morality, by Moral Leadership. Burns focuses his work on presidents and politics in general, both for having lived in the political environment, as studied biographies of great statesmen, and especially for having been the awarded biographer of Franklin D. Roosevelt , considered one of the greatest leaders of their nation.