Released 05/17/2005 From the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship WORKING PAPER SERIES Entering the Fundamental State of Leadership: A Framework for the Positive Transformation of Self and Others By

“Although learning about how the environment influences actors is important, learning more about how actors influence the environment is the first step not only to understanding the world, but changing it (Ganz: 2005: 231).” In the extensive literature on leadership there are hundreds of definitions and new ones keep coming. There is, however, a theme that runs across most of the definitions. Leadership is about influencing people (Yukl, 1998). Much of the literature assumes self-interested social exchange and focuses on the influence wielded by people in positions of hierarchical authority. A smaller segment of the literature focuses on transformational leadership. Here the emphasis is on getting people to transcend their self interests and embrace the common good (Shamir, House & Arthur, 1993). This paper will focus on positive transformational influence. More specifically, we will provide a framework that anyone might use to elevate themselves into a higher state of transformational influence. We follow Hackman (2005) who calls for theories that bridge the two worlds o