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School systems face unprecedented local, state, and federal accountability for school performance and student achievement. School systems and schools themselves have begun to function like business organizations with management complexities and the requirement of bottom-line results. School leadership is a critical component for strong performance and student achievement. There is concern over whether school leaders have the proper management skills, leadership styles, and approaches necessary to ensure effective operational performance of schools. Education leaders may benefit from training and development in transformational leadership styles proven to enhance performance in business organizations and educational settings.
With these concerns in mind, the purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss relevant research insights about the changing environments of schools and school systems, performance and achievement accountability, and the need for exceptional school leadership to facilitate needed school change. This analysis of current research will allow readers to understand what is already known about the topic and what facets require continued study. As the quality of leadership styles is proven to facilitate change, enhance employment commitment and performance, and improve overall organizational performance and approaches in most fields, concerns over the leadership ability of education personnel has grown in importance within education research. Transformational leadership is the leadership style most researchers feel is appropriate for today's schools. Transformational leadership is characterized by a leader who works with subordinates to identify needed change, create a vision to guide the change through inspiration, and execute the change in unison with committed members of a group.1
Methodology
As the literature review is the key component of this research, identifying relevant studies had to be a systematic process. To capture as many relevant published articles as possible, this study consulted the Ebscohost and Proquest search engines, defining its parameters with the keywords Transformational leadership style, Transformational leadership behavior, Teacher perceptions of leadership, and Transformational leadership in schools. "Transformational leadership" and "transformational leadership in schools" were the main keywords and phrases that generated vast amounts of pioneering peer-reviewed studies. A review of articles published between 1990 and 2003 reveal that there have been more research studies done on transformational leadership than on all of other leadership theories combined.2 This study's analysis of transformational leadership began by examining the early and pioneering research...