Leadership research can be roughly organised into the four perspectives
mentioned earlier: transformational, managerial, follower-centric and
competency. By far the most popular leadership perspective today—and
arguably the most important in the domain of leadership—is transformational
leadership. Transformational leadership views leaders as change agents. They
create, communicate and model a shared vision for the team or organisation.
They encourage experimentation so employees find a better path to the future.
Through these and other activities, transformational leaders also build
commitment in followers to strive for that vision. There are several models of
transformational leadership, but four elements are common throughout most of
them and represent the core concepts of this leadership perspective: develop and
communicate a strategic vision, model the vision, encourage experimentation
and build commitment to the vision (see Exhibit 12.1).10