If your organisation runs a leadership programme, there is a good chance transformational leadership is somewhere in it. It is one of the most researched ideas in the field, and one of the most quoted. It is also easy to teach as a set of inspiring words and much harder to see on an ordinary Tuesday.

This article covers what the model actually asks for, why trust sits so close to the middle of it, and what it looks like when someone does it.

What are the four I’s of transformational leadership?

Bass and Avolio’s version, measured by their Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, has four components, usually called the four I’s.

Idealised influence. The leader acts with integrity and is seen as a role model. The questionnaire splits this in two: how people see the leader, and what the leader actually does.

Inspirational motivation. The leader gives people a purpose worth working towards and encourages them to believe they can get there.

Intellectual stimulation. The leader encourages people to question assumptions, think afresh and bring their own ideas.

Individualised consideration. The leader treats each person as an individual, and coaches and develops them.

The same questionnaire also measures transactional leadership, such as agreeing what is expected and recognising it when it’s delivered, and passive or avoidant leadership, where the leader stays out of the way until something goes wrong.

Why does trust matter to transformational leadership?

Because a lot of its effect appears to run through trust.

Trust is someone’s confidence in you with something they care about. In a study of 988 employees in one company, Podsakoff and colleagues found that transformational behaviours affected the extra effort people chose to give only indirectly, through their trust in their leader. A later laboratory experiment by Jung and Avolio, with students rather than employees, found something similar: transformational leadership improved performance partly through followers’ trust in the leader, and partly through how far they shared the leader’s values.

Neither study settles the question on its own. One is a single company at a single point in time, the other a brainstorming task. But they point the same way, and they fit a wider finding: a meta-analysis of four decades of trust research found that a person’s direct leader appears to be a particularly important focus of trust.

So the practical reading is this. A leader can describe a compelling future, but people only move towards it with someone they are confident in.

What’s the difference between transformational and transactional leadership?

Less than people often assume.

Transactional leadership is usually taught as the dull alternative: agree the task, reward delivery, correct problems. But in Judge and Piccolo’s meta-analysis of 87 sources, contingent reward, the core transactional behaviour, related to outcomes almost as strongly as transformational leadership did, and for some outcomes more strongly. The two were also closely related to each other.

That matters for programmes. Agreeing clear expectations and recognising contribution aren’t the opposite of transformational leadership. They are part of what makes a leader reliable enough for the inspiring parts to land.

What do people get wrong about transformational leadership?

Three misreadings come up often.

That it’s about charisma. Inspirational motivation is one component out of four. The other three are mostly quiet, everyday conduct: being consistent, asking good questions, paying attention to each person.

That vision is enough. A purpose announced at the away day and contradicted in the next decision doesn’t inspire anyone. It teaches people to discount the next announcement.

That it’s a personality type. The components are described as behaviour, and there is field evidence that managers can be trained in them. How do you develop transformational leadership in your managers? covers what that evidence shows.

How does transformational leadership connect to purpose?

Purpose is where inspirational motivation starts. A leader can’t communicate a purpose they haven’t worked out.

Trust Leader puts it this way: purpose is the anchor, the Trust Map is the application, and practice builds the evidence. In the Trust Leader Hub, three Purpose playlists take a leader through the questions behind their Manifesto: their aim, their purpose and the values they want people to experience from them. The accidental manager: what do you stand for? explains how that works.

Jung and Avolio’s finding about shared values is a reason to take this step seriously. People can only share values a leader has made clear, and then lived consistently.

Which behaviours make transformational leadership visible?

These are the behaviours that strengthen trust which line up most closely with each component, in their exact wording.

Idealised influence

  • 7. Apply the same standards in tone, decisions and communication across people and situations.
    1. Communicate consistently with different people on the same issue.

Inspirational motivation

  • 18. Explain the reasoning behind decisions that impact others.

Intellectual stimulation

  • 15. Show openness to others’ ideas, even when you disagree.
    1. Ask questions and check your understanding before replying.

Individualised consideration

  • 12. Listen and let others finish before responding.
    1. Acknowledge how others feel before responding to the task.

And for the transactional side that keeps it all reliable:

  • 4. Set and confirm clear expectations before work begins.
    1. Give credit to others for their contribution.

Here is how one of them looks in practice. A manager has told the team their new purpose is “nobody waits for an answer”. The next week, a team member suggests changing how enquiries are triaged, and the manager can see a problem with it. Saying “that won’t work” closes the conversation. Asking what problem she is trying to solve, and staying open to the idea while disagreeing with part of it, is intellectual stimulation as she experiences it. It is also the purpose, lived.

The behaviours don’t replace the model. They are how a leader’s purpose becomes something other people can see. How do the 20 trust behaviours fit the leadership model you already teach? sets transformational leadership alongside five other models.