PhD Concept Paper

Research Topic: Delivering and Sustaining Performance through

Transformational Leadership: An Analysis of the Telecommunication Sector in
Zimbabwe
Introduction
The emerging knowledge, age environment in which organizations operate is becoming
more complex and integrated at the beginning of the 21st century (Jones, 2006;
Mintzberg, Lampel, Quinn, & Ghoshal, 2003; Scott, 2003). Forward-looking organizations,
driven by global and technological forces, understand the need for employees to work in
teams in order to create value that surpasses the summative contributions of individual
team members (Banutu-Gomez, 2004). As teams encounter and respond to the rapidly
evolving operational realities of the current business environment, organizational leaders
are continuously challenged (Bergmann, Hurson, & Russ, (1999); Bernthal & Wellins,
2007). The new leadership challenges underscore the significant role of transformational
leaders in achieving performance excellence (Krishnan, 2005). Andriole (2007) suggested
that an individual’s focus determined the individual’s overall effectiveness.
Companies are using digital technology to unlock sources of economic value, but it takes
more than technology alone as transformational leadership and emotional intelligence
come into play and senior leaders make it happen.
Transformation is an imperative for most companies today. In a fast-moving environment
characterized by digitization, organizations face threats that emerge more rapidly and
from a wider range of competitors than ever before. In this setting, some companies
need to transform their organizations to stay on top, while others face a decline in
performance and require dramatic measures to turn themselves around. In either case,
transformations are extremely tough to pull off. No wonder the Chief Executive Officer
Job is more demanding than ever.
In a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study of 40 digital transformations, companies that
focused on culture were five times more likely to achieve breakthrough performance than
neglected culture. According to BCG, a digital culture empowers people to deliver results
faster. Organizations that ignore risk transformation fail. A digital culture attracts and
retains better talent. Senior leaders, including CEO, Must create a strong digital culture.
“When it comes to creating a digital culture, the scarcest resource is not necessarily
technological know-how but leadership. The role of leaders fundamentally changes. They
need to learn new behaviors and let go of old habits. Finding the right balance between
alignment and autonomy is the ultimate test of leadership during a digital transformation”
Tom Reichert Global Leader BCG. A recent BCG study suggests that increasing the
diversity of leadership teams leads to more and better innovation and improved financial
performance

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Chief Executive Officers as the drivers of digital transformation do manage to transform
their companies, delivering a fundamental reboot that changes the direction of the
organization and dramatically improves its operational and financial performance. These
leaders seem to have captured lightning in a bottle, and this research wants to find out
how they do it.

More specifically, the objectives of the study are to:

1. Understand how transformational leadership boost innovation

2. Assess the five defining characteristics of Chief Executive Officers who succeed in
transforming their companies
3. Determine the factors that may have spurred Chief Executive Officers to adopt
transformational leadership.
4. Describe digital technology either as a challenge or an opportunity to
transformational leadership
5. Assess the impact of transformational Leadership, emotional intelligence on
performance.

Proposed Methodology
In this study, I propose to use a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to gather
data.
Participants. The participants for this study will be Chief Executive Officers in the
telecommunication sector in Zimbabwe.
Instruments. An interview instrument will be developed for the Chief Executive Officers,
piloted and used
Data Analysis. The data will be analyzed by statistical packages, interviews transcribed,
and coded to obtain the outcomes.
Limitations and delimitations. Issues with the study include the validity of
generalization given that a particular topic is used. Further, the novelty effect may make
the material easier to recall.
Literature Review
Transformational leadership is a well-researched theory with 300 studies (Bass & Avolio,
2004), including the purported relationships among transformational leadership and
personality type, organizational culture, effectiveness, gender differences, wisdom, and
emotional intelligence, among others. However, one pairing with mixed results is the
relationship between transformational leadership and emotional intelligence (Barling et
al., 2000; Palmer et al., 2001).
In order to navigate successfully , leaders must apply an appropriate mix of strategic
visioning, changes in organizational structure, technological innovations (both
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organizational and product), and human resources support systems. Additionally,
executive transformational leaders provide a higher-order cultural change within an
organization by facilitating changes in the attitudes, beliefs, values, and needs of the
followers (Bass & Avolio, 2004).
“Leadership is one of the world’s oldest preoccupations” (Bass, 1990). Many authors have
concurred that the effective and efficient leadership strategies of the past might not be
effective in the present or future because of continuous and rapid change (Leslie, Loch,
& Schaninger, 2006; Mockler, 2006; Porterfield & Kleiner, 2005; Schreiber & Carley,
2006). The realities of continuous environmental change have altered the perspectives
on leadership and the leader’s role (Fisher, Kent, Nottingham, & Field, 2005). Leadership
is a complex phenomenon involving an influential relationship between leaders and
followers, leading to a transcendence of expectations (Hirtz, Murray, & Riordan, 2007;
Kark & van Dijk, 2007). One of the most significant tasks of successful leaders is to
transform followers into future leaders (Taylor, 2003). In the germinal work Leadership,
Burns (1978) introduced the innovative concept of transformational leadership, a
paradigm that emphasized the transformation of followers into future leaders.
The theory of transformational leadership posited that transformational leaders and
transactional leaders saw reality differently (Kuhnert & Lewis, 1987). Leaders’ personal
standards and transcendental values reflect their cognitive and emotional perspectives.
The effectiveness of the transformational style of leadership might be attributed to the
importance given to emotional factors and to cognitive abilities. The goal of the current
research study was to establish whether emotional intelligence and critical thinking skills
were associated with transformational leadership. If business leaders seeking to become
leaders of transformational organizations could predict the potential for transformational
leadership of leader candidates by assessing levels of emotional intelligence and critical
thinking skills, business leaders might optimize transformational intelligence and critical
thinking skills, business leaders might optimize transformational leadership success
(Barbuto, 2005).

Time Table for Completing the Thesis

Activity 2019 2020 2023

Jan- April-Jun July- Oct- Jan- April- July- Oct- Jan- April- July- Oct-
March Sept Dec March Jun Sept Dec March Jun Sept Dec
Literature
Review
Research
Proposal
Developme
nt of Tools
Data
Collection
Data
Analysis
Thesis
Write up

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 Submission
of thesis

References
Avolio, B. J., & Bass, B. M. (2004). Multifactor leadership questionnaire: Third edition
manual and sampler set. Menlo Park, CA: Mind Garden.
Banutu-Gomez, M. B. (2004). Great leaders teach exemplary followership and serve as
servant leaders. Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge.
Barbuto, J. E. (2005). Motivation and transactional, charismatic, and transformational
leadership: A test of antecedents. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies.
Bass, B. M. (1990). Two decades of research and development in transformational
leadership. European Journal of Work & Organizational Psychology.
Bass, B. M., Avolio, B. J., Jung, D. I., & Benson, Y. (2004). Predicting unit performance
by assessing transformational and transactional leadership. Journal of Applied
Psychology, accessed 18 September 2018.
Hirtz, P. D., Murray, S. L., & Riordan, C. A. (2007). The effects of leadership on quality.
Engineering Management Journal.
Jones, G. R. (2006). Organizational theory, design, and change (5th Ed.). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Kuhnert, K. W., & Lewis, P. (1987). Transactional and transformational leadership: A
constructive/developmental analysis. Academy of Management Review.
Kuhnert, K. W., & Lewis, P. (1987). Transactional and transformational leadership: A
constructive/developmental analysis. Academy of Management Review.
Leslie, K., Loch, M. A., & Schaninger, W. (2006). Managing your organization by the
evidence. McKinsey Quarterly.
Mintzberg, H., Lampel, J., Quinn, J. B., & Ghoshal, S. (2003). The strategy process:
Concepts, contexts, cases (4th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall
Scott, W. R. (2003). Organizations: Rational, natural, and open systems (5th Ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Taylor, R. B. (2003). Leadership is a learned skill. Family Practice Management.

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