european journal of social sciences issn: 1450-2267 - EuroJournals

European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 5, Number 3 (2007)
1994). This style of leadership is necessary in the less bureaucratic and authoritarian organizations of
the future (Bennis, 1990).
5. Transformational leadership and ICT
Leadership is a critical factor in the initiation and implementation of the changes in organizations. This
is supported by Ely (1999), who distinguished eight conditions that are relevant to ICT
implementation. These conditions are dissatisfaction with the status quo, existence of knowledge and
skills, availability of resources, availability of time, existence of rewards or incentives, participation,
commitment, and leadership. Hence, there is a strong need for leaders who are more change-centered.
In addition, one of the most important skills that a leader should have is the ability to manage
change. Principals need to understand the capacities of the new technologies, to have a personal
proficiency in their use, and be able to promote a school culture which encourages exploration of new
techniques in teaching, learning and management. Hence, principals have a major responsibility for
initiating and implementing school change through the use of ICT and to facilitate complex decisions
about integration of ICT into learning and teaching (Schiller, 2003). Therefore, types of outstanding
leadership, such as transformational, charismatic and visionary, are becoming more and more
important to organizations, as workforces become more diverse, technology improves and international
competition heightens.
According to Bass (1997), transformational leadership may be a particularly powerful source of
leadership in a variety of contexts, including human computer interactions. In other words,
transformational leadership is a term used increasingly in relation to large-scale innovation in
education (e.g. Leithwood, 1994). This form of leadership is considered crucial for the implementation
of large-scale innovations by principals (Berg and Sleegers, 1996). In the current area of continuing
demands for innovations in school organizations, therefore it is not surprising that the concept of
transformational leadership is being applied increasingly. Hence, transformational leadership appears
to be necessary to drive principals to the higher levels of concern and motivation that are needed for
such kind of educational improvement (Berg and Sleegers, 1996; Leithwood, 1994).
Moreover, Geijsel et al. (1999) stated that the school leaders in the high innovation schools
showed more vision, more charisma, more teaching reform, more individual feedback, better
delegation, more joint responsibility, and a more collaborative culture than the school leaders in the
low innovation schools. On the other hand, Beatty and Lee (1992) conducted several case studies of the
implementation of CAD/CAM systems in numerous British and Canadian companies in an effort to
investigate the linkage between leadership and technological change in organizations. Through
semistructured interviews and using a critical incident approach to assessing leadership abilities, the
researchers tracked managerial involvement throughout the implementation process. The outcome of
their qualitative research suggests that a transformational approach to leadership, combining
pathfinding with people solving and technical problem-solving skills to introduce organizational
changes, is likely to be more effective in overcoming barriers to change than a transactional leadership
approach that concentrates on technical problem solving to the neglect of people and organizational
issues (Beatty & Lee, 1992, p. 987).
This is further supported by Jung et al. (2003) who conducted a research on the role of
transformational leadership in enhancing organizational innovation. Their findings supported a direct
and positive link between a style of leadership that has been labeled as “transformational” and
organizational innovation. Also, they indicated that transformational leadership has significant and
positive relations with both empowerment and an innovation-supporting organizational climate.
Therefore, transformational leader is noted as one of the most important factors affecting the
integration of educational technology and has input into all the essential conditions that promote the
integration of educational technology (Brooks-Young, 2002; Ross, McGraw & Burdette, 2001).
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