Determinar y describir los eslabones de la cadena (Determinar los componentes) Como se había planteado la Cadena de Suministro utilizada para la producción del

Transformational leadership is perceived as a process in which the situation of one or more person connects with others and the parties assist one another to achieve a better level of motivation and morality (Burns, 1978). In other words, transformational leadership is a process whereby leaders transform the organisation that they lead by increasing the achievement and motivation of the people that they lead. Hallinger (2003) suggested that the purpose of transformational leadership was to develop an organisation’s capacity to innovate. He viewed transformational leadership as focused on developing a shared vision and shared commitment towards school change. On a similar note, Litz and Scott (2017) also found that transformational leadership was

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related to change as it promotes better relationship between leaders and followers. This relationship then leads to positive action, regardless of culture differences. Rosener (1990) stated that when it comes to leadership style, women leaders tend to describe themselves as transformational leaders. Rosener referred to transformational leadership as ‘interactive leadership’ due to the observation that the women participants in her study worked actively to make each interaction with subordinates a positive one and prioritised involving everyone. Participants in Rosener’s study encouraged participation, shared power and information, enhanced other people’s self-worth and made others excited about their work. This interactive leadership style allowed employees to contribute and to feel powerful and important which led to a win- win situation; a situation which is good for the employees as well as the organisation. This is supported by Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, and Engen (2003) who found that women in their study were also transformational leaders, scoring higher in transformational leadership as compared to men. However, the findings of that study are arguably not inclusive enough to conclude that women across the board are transformational leaders; more insight from people who work with women leaders should be explored to corroborate such findings.

Numerous studies on educational leadership have revealed different styles of principals’ leadership. In Malaysia for instance, a study conducted by Jogulu and Ferkins (2012) revealed that regardless of gender, Malaysian managers show a preference for transformational leadership. The mixture of culture or multicultural society and diversity of religions in the multi-racial society such as Malaysia creates a continuous evolving need towards the study of leadership. Multicultural ‘implies an approach or system that takes more than one culture into the system’ (Northouse,

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2010, p. 336), while ‘diversity refers to the existence of different cultures or ethnicities within a group or organisations’. According to Jogulu and Ferkin (2012, p. 544), being in a collectivist society with a ‘high-power distance’, managers related more to the condition of transformational leadership. As a similar characteristic of transformational leadership, Jones, Adams, Joo, Muniandy, Perera and Harris (2015) stated that the principals in their study were responsible for empowering subordinates. In fact, the study suggested that to ‘enable others to act’ is considered the most common factor among other principals leadership practices towards securing better schools and students’ outcome (Jones et al., 2015, p. 362).

Meanwhile, in a study based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Litz and Scott (2017) asserted that no matter how practical transformational leadership is in one culture, it will not necessarily fit other cultures. Having implemented the study in an Islamic country such as the UAE, Litz and Scott found that there could be a great deal of flexibility, both contemporary and contextualised models of transformational leadership, and that the model needs to be altered according to the Islamic nation in question. It is arguably dangerous to adopt other leadership approaches without an attempt to fit it to one’s own culture, especially when it is related to a serious matter such as religious practice. While previous studies show that transformational leadership brings a lot of benefits to and facilitates change in organisations, its universal applicability is doubtful since the concept has separately evolved in totally different contexts. Given the understanding that leadership is affected by factors such as context and culture, it is arguable that more studies should be conducted to fully address the issue based on each nation’s own context and culture. However, the study of Litz and Scott attempts a helpful contribution towards women in leadership in similar situations.

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Chin (2004) found that the women participants tend to use nurturance more often in order to engage, communicate and lead. Chin concluded that women tend to use consensus building as a way to set direction; this has been labelled by some theorists in leadership as “shared leadership” or collegial leadership (Chin, 2004, p. 4). Other than the study conducted by Chin, the collegial model of leadership presented in Bush (2011) also includes the element of ‘sharing’. According to Bush (2011, p. 72), the ‘collegial model includes all those theories which emphasise that power and decision- making should be shared among some or all members of the organisations’. Collegial approaches have some key features and one of them is that the size of the decision- making group has to be small enough to ensure everyone can be heard. Because of this small decision-making group, Bush suggested that the collegiality approach is more practical to be exercised at primary schools or sub-units as compared to secondary schools. However, if the secondary schools are just involving a small group of decision-makers, the practicality of the collegial approach still attains its purpose. Even though shared leadership and collegiality are different terms, it could be claimed that both share some similar features and concepts with transformational leadership. Based on previous studies, transformational leadership of women’s leaders has proved to have a positive influence on their staff and as such, creates a positive working environment (Rosener, 1990; Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & Engen, 2003). This positive influence can be seen in a number of areas; for example, one of the aspects of a leader’s role is that of concern for people (Murray & Simmons, 2006). According to Murray and Simmons, women leaders’ work and behaviours in schools tend to focus on relationships, teaching and learning, and a more democratic participatory style that encourages inclusiveness. This view indicates the presence of female leaders and supports the advantage female leaders could have in any

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leadership position. It also implies that the way women work in leadership broadly across different contexts likely bears similarity to the way in which effective women school leaders work. Previous studies by Rosener (1990) and Eagly et al. (2003) as well as Murray and Simmons (2006) indicated more positive effects enacted by the transformational leadership style adopted by women in leadership.

The literature clearly shows that transformational leadership enables change and brings about many positive effects in organisations (Chin, 2004; Bush, 2011; Litz & Scott, 2017). Nevertheless, the effectiveness of transformational leadership which is claimed to be culturally bounded is still being debated, and therefore an in-depth understanding about transformational leadership as practised in a particular culture is crucial in order to determine the overall efficacy of that leadership approach in school leadership.