Transformational Leadership and Karma-Yoga : Enhancing Followers’ Duty-orientation and Indifference to Rewards*

Abstract

This article attempts to validate James MacGregor Burns’s hypothesis that transformational leaders raise followers to higher levels of morality. Morality in the Indian context is conceptualised as Karma-Yoga, the Indian work ideal. Karma-Yoga is defined as a technique for performing actions such that the soul is not bound by the results of the actions and is operationalised in the form of three dimensions, viz., duty-orientation, indifference to rewards and equanimity. We hypothesised that transformational leaders move followers towards the Indian work ideal, that is, Karma-Yoga, and this relationship is moderated by the duration of the leader–follower relationship and the frequency of leader–follower interaction. We studied 329 executives across India. Regression analysis showed that transformational leadership was significantly related to two of the three dimensions of Karma-Yoga (viz., duty-orientation and indifference to rewards). Analysis of split samples of high/low duration of leader–follower relationship and high/low frequency of leader–follower interaction showed that the duration of leader–follower relationship and frequency of leader–follower inter-action moderated the relationship between transformational leadership and follower’s Karma-Yoga such that high duration of leader–follower relationship and high frequency of leader–follower interaction enhanced the impact of transformational leadership on follower’s Karma-Yoga.

Keywords

Transformational leadership Karma-Yoga moral development Indian culture

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