| Course | LDR 711A Leadership Theory and Practice (LDR/711A) |
|---|---|
| Week | 5 |
| Paper type | Doctoral critical theory review |
| Length | about 1,154 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | DBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for LDR 711A Week 5
Inspiration, Instrumental Skill and the Limits of Charisma: A Critical Review of Transformational Leadership at a Regional Airport
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
LDR/711A: Leadership Theory and Practice
Week 5 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Cascade Valley Regional Airport, its leaders and its data are composites written for a model paper.
The first four weeks used one storm night at the invented airport as a test bed. This week considers a different kind of leader. Six months after the storm, the airport authority board hired a new airport director, Grant Ellison, a former airline executive with a strong public presence. He introduced a vision of Cascade Valley as the gateway to central Washington, with new routes, an expanded terminal and a regional cargo hub. Staff responded enthusiastically to his town halls, and a survey showed high ratings of his inspiration. Yet within months, director of operations Marisol Vega saw problems: maintenance requests for runway lighting went unfunded while consultants studied terminal expansion, and operations staff felt their concerns were not heard. This paper critically reviews transformational and charismatic leadership using this case.
The Core Theories
In transformational theory, leaders lift followers' drive by serving as admired examples, painting an energizing picture of the future, pushing people to think afresh and attending to each person's growth. Charismatic leadership theories describe leaders whose vision and personal qualities lead followers to identify with them. Both have dominated leadership research for decades.
Charisma as Attribution
Conger and Kanungo (1987) proposed a behavioral theory of charismatic leadership in organizations. They argued that charisma is an attribution followers make based on observed leader behaviors, including articulating a vision that differs from the status quo while remaining within acceptable limits, taking personal risks and unconventional actions, showing sensitivity to the environment and to followers' needs and assessing the need for change. Charisma, in this view, resides in the relationship between leader behavior, followers and context, not in the leader alone.
Adding Instrumental Leadership
Antonakis and House (2014) argued that the full-range model of transformational and transactional leadership omits instrumental leadership, behaviors focused on strategy and work facilitation, such as environmental scanning, strategy formulation, path-goal facilitation and outcome monitoring. In studies of managers, instrumental leadership predicted leader effectiveness and follower satisfaction beyond transformational and transactional leadership. They concluded that inspiring followers is not enough; leaders must also help them accomplish work and set sound strategy.
Construct Overlap
Banks et al. (2016) conducted a meta-analysis comparing authentic and transformational leadership and found very high correlations between their measures, raising concerns about redundancy. Authentic leadership added little explanatory power beyond transformational leadership for most outcomes. The finding fits a broader critique that newer positive leadership constructs overlap heavily with transformational leadership, which in turn has been criticized for conceptual and measurement problems.
Evidence of Effects
Transformational leadership has well-documented relationships with follower satisfaction, motivation and performance, as earlier courses reviewed. The critique does not deny these effects but asks what exactly produces them and what is missing.
Applying the Attribution View
Grant's charisma, measured in the staff survey, followed Conger and Kanungo's pattern: he articulated a vision that broke with the airport's modest past, took a visible personal risk by proposing routes airlines had rejected before and showed sensitivity to the region's economic ambitions. Staff attributed charisma to him within weeks.
The Instrumental Gap
Instrumental leadership was weaker. Environmental scanning focused on regional economic opportunity but missed operational risks, such as aging runway lighting and a federal inspection due within the year. Work facilitation for operations staff was minimal: requests for equipment and staffing went unanswered while attention went to expansion studies. Outcome monitoring focused on route announcements rather than safety and reliability measures.
The new director gave people a reason to be proud of the airport but did not give the operations team what it needed to keep it open.
What Staff Said Six Months In
A follow-up survey six months into Grant's tenure showed a split. Staff in administration and marketing rated his inspiration as highly as before. Operations and maintenance staff rated it lower and added comments about unanswered requests and a sense that their work did not count toward the vision. One technician wrote that the director talked about a gateway airport while the runway lights flickered. The split suggests that charisma attributions depend on whether followers' daily experience matches the vision, which supports the relational, attribution-based view of charisma.
Who Filled the Gap
Marisol and her managers filled much of the instrumental gap, quietly reallocating maintenance budgets and preparing for the federal inspection. This illustrates a point often missed in leader-centered theories: organizational performance depends on many people's leadership, not only the top leader's inspiration.
The Heroic Bias
Transformational and charismatic theories have been criticized for a heroic bias, attributing outcomes to single leaders. At Cascade Valley, crediting the new director for the airport's improving image would ignore the operations leaders who kept it running.
Measurement Concerns
The staff survey used a widely used transformational leadership questionnaire. Banks et al. (2016) and others have raised concerns that such measures capture general positive regard for a leader rather than distinct behaviors. High scores early in Grant's tenure may reflect enthusiasm for a new leader more than his actual behaviors.
What the Theories Explain
Transformational and charismatic theories explain the staff's enthusiasm, the energy around the vision and the willingness of some staff to volunteer for new route marketing. They also explain how vision can align people across departments.
What They Miss
They miss the instrumental work of strategy and facilitation, the leadership of people below the top and the risk that charismatic vision can crowd out attention to operational basics.
Implications for Practice at Cascade Valley
Marisol presented the director with a short briefing on operational risks and proposed a joint planning process combining the expansion vision with an operations investment plan. The director agreed to include operations measures in monthly board reports, a step toward instrumental leadership.
The Board's Role
The airport authority board hired Grant partly for his vision and public presence, and its monthly reports focused on route announcements and expansion milestones. Boards, too, can be drawn to charisma. Adding operations measures to board reports, as Marisol proposed, gives the board a fuller picture and encourages the instrumental focus the critique identifies as missing.
Implications for Research
The case suggests research questions: how instrumental and transformational behaviors combine over a leader's tenure, and how middle leaders compensate when top leaders lack instrumental focus.
Implications for Marisol's Leadership
Marisol tends toward instrumental leadership, strong on facilitation and monitoring, and lighter on inspiration. The critique suggests she does not need to become charismatic, but she can learn to connect operational work to the airport's larger purpose.
Conclusion
Transformational and charismatic theories explain how leaders inspire and why followers identify with them, but critiques highlight the attribution nature of charisma, the omission of instrumental leadership, construct overlap and heroic bias. At Cascade Valley, a charismatic director inspired staff while instrumental gaps threatened operations, gaps that other leaders filled. Effective leadership requires both inspiration and the strategic, practical work that keeps an organization functioning.
References
Antonakis, J., & House, R. J. (2014). Instrumental leadership: Measurement and extension of transformational-transactional leadership theory. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(4), 746-771. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2014.04.005
Banks, G. C., McCauley, K. D., Gardner, W. L., & Guler, C. E. (2016). A meta-analytic review of authentic and transformational leadership: A test for redundancy. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(4), 634-652. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2016.02.006
Conger, J. A., & Kanungo, R. N. (1987). Toward a behavioral theory of charismatic leadership in organizational settings. Academy of Management Review, 12(4), 637-647. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1987.4306715
What the LDR 711A Week 5 instructions ask
The fifth LDR 711A assignment typically asks doctoral students to analyze transformational and charismatic leadership critically. Expect to explain the main theories, review evidence of their effects, discuss criticisms such as conceptual overlap, measurement problems, heroic bias and neglect of instrumental or strategic functions and apply the analysis to leaders in a professional setting. A strong paper treats these theories as contested rather than settled, uses recent critiques and meta-analyses, distinguishes charisma from effectiveness and draws implications for both research and practice. Use peer-reviewed scholarship in APA style, and give the critique the same rigor you would give a theory you dislike. Instructors often ask students to state what the theory would predict in their own setting and then check whether that prediction held.
How this LDR 711A Week 5 example is built
Cascade Valley's new airport director arrived with a vivid vision of a gateway airport for central Washington, strong speeches and high staff enthusiasm, but within months maintenance backlogs grew and the operations team felt overlooked. The paper uses the case to examine transformational and charismatic theories critically. A behavioral theory of charisma explains how followers attribute charisma to leaders who articulate visions, take personal risks and show sensitivity to the environment. Research on instrumental leadership argues that transformational theory neglects strategic and work-facilitation behaviors that matter for performance. A meta-analysis finds substantial overlap between authentic and transformational leadership, raising questions about construct distinctiveness. The analysis shows that the director's charisma inspired but left instrumental gaps that operations leaders filled.
LDR 711A Week 5 grading rubric: where the points go
Critical reviews of transformational and charismatic leadership are graded on depth of critique and quality of evidence. Reviewers expect the student to separate what followers report from what leaders actually do. High-scoring work explains the theories accurately, presents empirical support fairly, engages with major criticisms such as construct overlap, measurement issues and neglected instrumental functions and applies the critique to real leaders with specific evidence. Graders reward separation of charisma from effectiveness and attention to what followers and context contribute. Implications for research and practice should follow from the critique, and a balanced conclusion that credits what the theories explain avoids simple dismissal.
LDR 711A Week 5 help: mistakes to avoid
Doctoral students sometimes write either an admiring summary of transformational leadership or a dismissive critique. Present both the evidence for its effects and the serious criticisms. Another common weakness is treating charisma as a trait leaders possess rather than an attribution followers make. Explain the attribution view. Some papers ignore instrumental leadership, the strategic and task-facilitation behaviors that research shows also drive performance. Include them. Others apply the theories to famous leaders known through media. Use leaders you can observe with evidence from followers. Finally, consider what the critique means for how you will lead, since the course builds toward a personal model.
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LDR 711A Week 5 questions, answered
What does LDR 711A Week 5 usually cover?
It usually covers transformational and charismatic leadership theories, their evidence and major criticisms, applied critically to leaders in a professional setting.
Where can I find a free LDR 711A Week 5 sample paper?
The Week 5 critical review of transformational and charismatic leadership at a composite regional airport is free to read above.
What is instrumental leadership?
Instrumental leadership refers to leader behaviors focused on strategy and work facilitation, such as scanning the environment, setting strategic direction and helping followers accomplish tasks, which complement inspirational behaviors.
Are authentic and transformational leadership different?
A meta-analysis found very high overlap between measures of authentic and transformational leadership, suggesting they may not be fully distinct as currently measured.
Is charisma a trait or an attribution?
Behavioral theories treat charisma as an attribution followers make based on leaders' behaviors, such as articulating a vision and taking personal risks, in a particular context.
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