It’s how you frame it: Transformational leadershipand the meaning of work

Dean J. Cleavenger a,*, Timothy P. Munyon b

aCollege of Business Administration, University of Central Florida, BA1 Office 333, Orlando,FL 32816-1400, U.S.A.bCollege of Business Administration, University of Tennessee, 408 Stokely Management Center, Knoxville,TN 37996-0545, U.S.A.

Business Horizons (2013) 56, 351—360

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor

KEYWORDSTransformationalleadership;Job and work design;Meaning of work;Performance;Framing;Social informationprocessing;Persuasion;Employee motivation;Self-determination;Leader quality

Abstract Transformational leadership has emerged as one of the most importantapproaches for understanding and influencing employee effectiveness. Inherent inthis approach is the belief that transformational leaders inspire employees to greaterlevels of motivation and performance. Recent evidence has shown that this effect isaccomplished by managing the meaning of work for employees, yet it is often unclearexactly how leaders may influence perceptions of work for their employees. Conse-quently, in this article, we present behavioral and verbal cues leaders may use toenact positive change in their employees.# 2013 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Published by Elsevier Inc. Allrights reserved.

1. Effective leadership is necessary

Companies recognize the need for effective leader-ship. The 2008 IBM Global Human Capital Study citedlack of leadership capacity among the most signifi-cant workforce-related issues facing organizations.Indeed, 75% of the firms in their study reported

* Corresponding authorE-mail addresses: dcleavenger@bus.ucf.edu

(D.J. Cleavenger), tmunyon@utk.edu (T.P. Munyon)

0007-6813/$ — see front matter # 2013 Kelley School of Business, Ihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2013.01.002

building leadership talent as the most significantchallenge facing organizations today. These findingsare not unique. The 2009 annual Corporate IssuesSurvey of Ken Blanchard and Associates reportedthat the development of potential leaders isconsistently among the top challenges organizationsface. Not surprisingly, these organizations reportedleadership development as the most likely area oftraining investment in future years.

At the same time, scholars have actively pursuedresearch on the most effective leadership ap-proaches, and transformational leadership has

ndiana University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

352 D.J. Cleavenger, T.P. Munyon

emerged as perhaps the most important and influ-ential framework for leadership (Avolio & Bass,1988; Bass, 1985). Transformational leadership oc-curs when leaders inspire and motivate employeestoward new ways of working and thinking. However,the logistics of this process are often unclear, andleaders continue to struggle with the notion ofbecoming transformational.

Notably, some leadership approaches tend toemphasize developing oneself and inspiring otherswith a vision of the organization’s destiny. It is clearlyimportant to understand and transmit a missionof where the organization is going. Nevertheless,most leaders are not in the upper echelons of anorganization but rather in the trenches. They suffernot from lack of vision but a lack of resources and aninability to effectively motivate employees underever-increasing demands for productivity. Thus,leaders need tangible advice on navigating the grittyreality of modern work and positively influencingworker outcomes, including performance.

Rather than focusing on leader or employeecharacteristics, recent research has highlightedthe role of work itself as a critical mechanismthrough which transformational leaders enactpositive change (Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006). Theliterature points to the concept of framing, whichinvolves influencing and managing employee per-ceptions of the work they perform. Thus, in thisarticle, we explore the process through whichtransformational leaders frame work to enactpositive change. We begin by introducing an ap-proach to transformational leadership rooted inwork itself followed by a discussion on the pathsa leader may take to positively influence his/heremployees. It is our hope that readers will find thisnew perspective useful as they design or enhancetheir leadership development programs and striveto become transformational in their own right.

2. How transformational leadersmanage meaning

‘‘The first responsibility of a leader is to definereality.’’

—Max De Pree (n.d.)

The traditional view of transformational leadershipsuggests a social influence process between aleader and an employee. This premise is widelysupported by empirical research, showing transfor-mational leaders are able to inspire and motivateemployees to greater levels of performance.Transformational leaders realize heightenedperformance by exerting personal power overemployees to share a vision of the organization,

encouraging them to work harder at tasks, andpersuading them to search for new and innovativeways of doing their work. However, how do trans-formational leaders exert personal power, encour-age others, and persuade employees to workharder? The evidence has shown that transforma-tional leaders shape the meaning of work throughframing.

Framing is the process of selecting and highlight-ing certain aspects of a situation while minimizing orexcluding the importance of others such that onemeaning is accepted over another (Fairhurst & Starr,1996). The effects of framing are well established.For example, the direction of comparison effectdemonstrates that the order in which objects arepresented for comparison influences how peopleperceive them. For instance, 45% of respondentsblamed traffic for pollution when asked ‘‘Who ismore to blame for pollution: traffic or industry?’’However, when the direction of comparison wasreversed (i.e., ‘‘Who is more to blame for pollution:industry or traffic?’’), only 24% of respondentsblamed traffic. Similarly, respondents reportedhigher satisfaction with their current relationshipafter they compared their actual partner with theirideal partner than vice versa. Simply switching thesubject and referent in these questions was allthat was needed to make a significant impact oncomparison ratings.

Scholars have described leadership as a languagegame (Pondy, 1978) and a process of symbolic action(Pfeffer, 1981). Indeed, evidence suggests thattransformational leadership does involve redefiningthe nature and quality of work for employees.Transformational leaders use words, actions, and/or symbols when talking about work to enhance itssignificance and meaning.

All jobs require at least some activities that areroutine, monotonous, and seemingly unimportantto the mission of the organization. Employees’perceptions regarding the nature of their jobs areshaped by what they see, hear, and experience atwork. Through acts of framing, leaders have theopportunity to highlight the particular aspects ofwork that enhance its meaning and minimize thosethat do not.

In their book The Art of Framing: Managing theLanguage of Leadership, Fairhurst and Starr (1996)discuss how leaders may use framing to shape themeaning of work. They discuss metaphors, jargon,contrasts, spins, and stories as potential tools forframing as well as high impact opportunities inwhich potentially talented framers might capitalizeon special framing opportunities.

When a leader is successful in reframing a fol-lower’s view of his/her job, the follower gains a

It’s how you frame it: Transformational leadership and the meaning of work 353

better understanding of how his/her work contrib-utes to meaningful outcomes for the organization.This new view (frame) is instrumental in helping theemployee understand the value of even the smallestand seemingly trivial tasks toward accomplishingimportant organizational goals.

Consider the story of a janitor who worked forNASA in the mid-1960s. One day, as he was sweepingthe floor late in the afternoon, someone asked himwhat he was doing. Without hesitation he replied,‘‘Putting a man on the moon.’’ Someone, somewherealong the line, had turned his attention away fromthe mop closet and toward the launch pad. He sawthe big picture and knew that he played a role inachieving it. A frame is just one particular perspec-tive, and sometimes, perspective is everything!Transformational leaders know this and capitalizeon opportunities to manage the meaning of work.

Much of the remainder of this article is dedicat-ed to exploring a new perspective on how manag-ers can frame the nature of work to enhance itsmeaningfulness. However, before we proceed, weneed to take a new look at an old but still relevanttheory of work: the Job Characteristics Model(JCM). The JCM (Hackman & Oldham, 1976) iswidely used as a framework to categorize andclassify dimensions of work. The model proposesthat dimensions of work (known as job character-istics) impact how employees conduct work,including the level of effort they exert to achievework objectives. There are five core job character-istics (i.e., skill variety, task identity, task signifi-cance, autonomy, and feedback), which impactimportant work outcomes (i.e., job performanceand satisfaction, absenteeism, worker motivation,and turnover). In its most fundamental form, theJCM is a way of understanding how the nature ofwork impacts an employee’s intrinsic motivationto perform. Table 1 highlights the five core jobcharacteristics and their definitions.

Several hundred empirical studies have verifiedthe basic tenets of the JCM (see Fried & Ferris, 1987and Humphrey, Nahrgang, & Morgeson, 2007 forcumulative evidence). When jobs are characterizedas high on core work characteristics, employees

Table 1. Job characteristics

Job Characteristic Definition

Autonomy The freedom an individual h

Skill Variety The extent to which an indi

Task Identity The extent to which an indi

Task Significance The extent to which a job im

Feedback from the Job The extent to which a job im

Source: Hackman and Oldham (1976)

generally respond with heightened levels of moti-vation and performance. In addition, employeesgenerally engage in higher levels of helping behaviorwhen core work characteristics are high. Examplesof helping behaviors include voluntarily helpingcoworkers with tasks, participating in organization-al programs that benefit others, staying late to meetcustomer needs, or orienting new coworkers.

It does appear that intrinsically motivated work-ers engage in an ‘‘ongoing process of seeking andconquering challenges’’ (Deci, 1976, p. 131). Thisintrinsic motivation has been described as a ‘‘self-perpetuating cycle of positive work motivation driv-en by self-generated (rather than external) rewardsfor good work’’ (Hackman & Oldham, 1980, p. 72).Clearly, intrinsically motivated workers are a highlyvalued asset for the organization.

However, like many things, there can be too muchof a good thing with regard to core work character-istics. At least some empirical evidence (e.g., Xie &Johns, 1995) supports the notion that high core workcharacteristics result in employee stress and strainwhen the employee is a poor fit for the job. Despitethese potential negative effects, recent evidencesuggests that transformational leaders may play aninfluential role in shaping the meaning of work fortheir employees. For example, in two field studies(Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006; Piccolo, Greenbaum, DenHartog, & Folger, 2010), researchers found that trans-formational and ethical leaders changed the wayemployees viewed core work characteristics, whichresulted in higher motivation and performance. Theauthors noted the integral role of leadership asan important influence on employee perceptionsof work with resultant effects on motivation andperformance. Figure 1 highlights this process.

Transformational leaders know that employeeperceptions of work do not depend exclusively onthe objective characteristics of one’s work but alsoon the social construction of the work experience.Indeed, interpersonal exchanges between a leaderand an employee become transformational whenthe leader is able to frame the employee’s workexperience to create a new point of reference forunderstanding the meaning of his/her work. More

as in carrying out work

vidual must use different skills to perform his/her job

vidual can complete a whole piece of work

pacts others’ lives

parts information about the individual’s performance

354 D.J. Cleavenger, T.P. Munyon

Figure 1. Leadership and the meaning of work

Transformational

Leader Influence

Employee Work

Perceptions

Heightened

Motivation and

Understanding

Positive

Perceptions

of Leader

Quality

Improved

Performance

specifically, transformational leaders promote (i.e.,shape) subordinates’ perceptions of work by influ-encing their perceptions of key job characteristics.The ultimate result of the process is that workersfeel more intrinsically motivated by their work, andas described earlier, this intrinsic motivation createsa somewhat self-fulfilling cycle in which successin achieving a meaningful task creates intrinsicrewards of its own.

For example, in a series of field experiments,Grant (2008) found strong evidence concerningthe positive effects of managing the meaning ofemployee work. In the first of three experiments,university fundraisers who read accounts concern-ing the importance of the job to others raisedsignificantly more money than fundraisers in thecontrol condition. In a second experiment, life-guards who read stories about heroic lifesavingencounters were significantly more likely to helpothers and exhibited more positive perceptions ofthe social impact and worth of their jobs. Finally,fundraisers who received task significance cuesfrom supervisors performed significantly betterduring their first week on the job than those whodid not receive such cues.

Two inferences may be drawn from this series ofexperimental studies. First, the meaning of work ismalleable, which suggests that leaders can shapethe meaning and significance of work for theiremployees. Second, employees respond morepositively to work that benefits others. Hence,there is reason to believe that leaders can influ-ence follower perceptions of the meaning of work,and such perceptions may positively impact

performance. It also seems likely that high satis-faction with work will be more consistent withperceptions of transformational leadership.

2.1. Examples of transformationalleadership and framing

Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, isknown for her deep passion for eliciting the bestfrom her female sales force by providing opportu-nities to excel in a workplace that had little room forwomen at the time. She was often heard makingstatements like the following:

God didn’t have time to make a nobody, only asomebody. I believe that each of us has Godgiven talents within us waiting to be brought tofruition. (Fowler, 2009, p. 42)

An average person with average talents andaverage ambition can outstrip the most brilliantgenius in our society; if that person has clearfocused goals. (Nippard, 2011, p. 194)

Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn’t beable to fly, but the bumblebee doesn’t know thatso it goes on flying anyway. (Stone, 2001, p. 3)

In her unique way, Mary Kay changed the way hersales force viewed the meaning and significance oftheir work. She often spoke about the potential ineach person, highlighting the value of their work tothe organization but even more so to other salesagents who were searching for their own inspirationthough the success of others. More than anythingelse, her mantra was ‘‘You matter and your workmatters.’’ The structure of her sales organizationalso allowed for a great deal of autonomy for herconsultants, something that she often emphasized asa key component of the company’s success. Conse-quently, she redefined what it meant to sell cosmet-ics. No longer was this a second-rate hobby for thestay-at-home mother. Rather, the job was a viable,respectable, valuable, and profitable opportunity tojoin the ranks of professional women in the work-force. She enabled this change by not only creating anorganization uniquely designed to fulfill her consul-tants’ needs but also by talking about and celebratingthe unique skills that each employee possessed.

Similarly, Jack Welch, the past chairman andchief executive officer of General Electric, is oftencited as one of the great American corporate leadersof the last century. Though many have criticizedhis cut-throat practice of firing the bottom 10% of hismanagement ranks each year through a processsometimes referred to as ‘‘rank and yank,’’ heremains an iconic figure in corporate leadership.Welch’s leadership philosophy seemed to imbibe a

It’s how you frame it: Transformational leadership and the meaning of work 355

value for all workers’ autonomy. As these notewor-thy quotes point out, one consistent and overarchingmessage he expressed to the members of his orga-nization was that every individual could make asignificant impact on the corporation’s performanceand that a good corporate culture should capitalizeon this reality:

If you pick the right people and give them theopportunity to spread their wings and put com-pensation as a carrier behind it you almost don’thave to manage them. (Maxwell, 2007, p. 267)

Giving people self-confidence is by far the mostimportant thing that I can do. Because then theywill act. (Levy, Parco, & Blass, 2010, p. 103)

A manager should make them (employees) feelgood about whatever they are doing, give themthe confidence and make them feel that theyare contributing in a big way to the company.(Slater, 2001, p. 4)

Listen to the people who actually do the workand nurture the employees who share the com-pany’s values. Managing less is managing bet-ter; create a vision and get out of the way.(Slater, 2001, p. 4)

Inherent is these statement about the responsibili-ties of a leader is an emphasis on autonomy and richfeedback for every worker, which are seldom pres-ent in the corporate governance of a large, mecha-nistic, multinational corporation. Welch alsoinsisted that his managers express the significanceof contributions of all employees to the company, ineffect linking the individual contributions of everymember of the organization to a larger purpose–—namely, achieving organizational goals.

2.2. Want to be transformational? Startwith work!

The process of social influence, which we call trans-formation, is generally defined by the subsequentoutcome–—employees’ perceptions. However, fol-lowers’ attributions are based on perceivable be-haviors, and such behaviors are seldom the focusof transformational leadership studies. Dimensionsof transformational leadership (i.e., intellectualstimulation, inspiration, idealized influence, andindividual needs) emphasize the end state ofemployees’ perceptions of a leader but do notprescribe the specific leader behaviors that shapethe meaning of work (and the subsequent attribu-tions that employees make for the transformationalnature of a leader). Accordingly, a primary waythrough which leaders earn the status of being

transformational is by talking about the natureand meaning of work. Hence, the value of thisprescriptive approach is that it is possible to identifyactual behaviors (i.e., words and actions) shaping anemployee’s attribution that a leader is transforma-tional rather than describe the perceptual outcomesthat follow. Since behaviors are controllable (andtrainable), this approach is a more direct and usefulfocus for leadership training.

2.3. Five ways leaders transform themeaning of work

According to the JCM already discussed, skill variety,task identity, and task significance contribute to themeaningfulness individuals experience from work.To experience meaningfulness, the employee mustperceive that his/her work is worthwhile or impor-tant by some accepted system of values. Sinceleaders are responsible for establishing and support-ing the values of the organization, they are in anideal position to influence employees’ perceptionsof their work through this mechanism.

2.3.1. Skill varietySkill variety requires employees to use more thanone skill in their work. Leaders often choose toassign more challenging tasks to an employee whenthis will enhance the organization’s performance. Inother cases, an employee is most valuable to theorganization doing work that is relatively routineand well within his/her skill set. However, wheneven a single skill is involved, there is at least a seedof potential meaningfulness in the work. This seed iswhat the leader should focus on. When changing thejob scope is not prudent, the leader can use his/herinfluence to shape the employee’s perceptions ofskill variety by focusing on the complexities of a taskthat the employee may take for granted. For exam-ple, a bricklayer might perceive that his/her jobrequires relatively few skills, is repetitive in nature,and demands little more than rudimentary motions.However, a leader can redefine this job by notingthat there are actually many skills required for thiswork (i.e., mixing mortar, troweling, laying brick,edging, leveling, and pointing) and that the com-plexity of this work is much greater than it mightappear. All jobs require a set of skills that must beutilized effectively. Transformational leaders talkabout and redefine work by emphasizing the broaderscope and complexity of skills for employees.

2.3.2. Task identityTask identity is the degree to which an employeeperceives that his/her tasks represents a whole andidentifiable piece of work. For example, a master

356 D.J. Cleavenger, T.P. Munyon

carpenter would have a high level of task identitybecause he/she is involved throughout the processof crafting lumber to creating a saleable good. Intoday’s complex and highly competitive businessclimate, specialization of work is common. As aconsequence, it is challenging for employees toidentify how their work contributes to broader or-ganizational goals. This means that many workersstruggle to find the meaningfulness of their workbecause they cannot see the scope of their contri-butions. This is the classic paradox of not seeing theforest through the trees.

Like skill variety, a leader could choose to broad-en the scope of employees’ work by enlarging theirjobs. However, expanding a job can lead to perfor-mance deficits as the number of tasks involved inwork increases beyond that which can be masteredby one employee. Therefore, a leader may insteadredefine the meaningfulness of work by emphasizingthe relationships between the work that an employ-ee does and the important organizational outcomesthat depend on this work. There are many ways ofdoing this, but perhaps the most fundamental meansof enhancing task identity (except changing theactual scope of work) is to simply show employeesthe consummation of their work efforts and howthey have contributed to the completion of a wholeand identifiable product or service. For the manproducing microprocessors at an electronics firm,this might be as simple as showing him how thecomponents he produces are a necessary part of theconsumer products they are created for.

2.3.3. Task significanceWhile task identity concerns the ability to relatetasks to a meaningful whole, task significance con-cerns an employee’s perception that a job has asubstantial and perceivable impact on the lives ofother people whether this is in the immediate or-ganization or the world at large. All too often,employees fail to see the full implications of theirwork. Of all the job characteristics dimensions, aleader’s influence over employee perceptions oftask significance is arguably the simplest, mostdirect, and most powerful way to influence themeaningfulness of work. Employees rely on leadersto provide direction and assign meaning to theirwork. The antithesis of being told by a leader ‘‘Be-cause I told you to’’ is ‘‘Because it is criticalthat....’’ Enhancing the task significance of employ-ees’ work should be a central focus of redefining themeaning of work because it addresses the mostcritical question: ‘‘Does my work matter?’’

Fortunately, redefining work by enhancing em-ployees’ perceptions of task significance is quitesimple. Leaders only need to identify how a worker’s

tasks add value to the important outcomes of theorganization or some larger context. Most organiza-tional tasks have a relatively immediate and con-spicuous value that the employee can easilyidentify. However, a leader can enhance the mean-ing of work by stressing how these task outcomescontribute to other farther reaching, less discern-ible outcomes. Leaders are often privy to contextualinformation about the nature of tasks of whichemployees are not aware. For instance, a salesmanager may see greater value in his/her staffingefficiency if he/she knows that payroll expenses arethe strongest predictor of store profitability and theprimary means of sustaining a competitive advan-tage over rival firms. Likewise, a teacher or a policeofficer can easily identify the value of their work ineducating youth and enforcing laws. While our soci-ety does recognize and celebrate the work of theseindividuals, the deeper, more far-reaching socialvalue of this work is less apparent to employeeswhen their leaders do not use social influence tocontinually shape the greater meaning of thesejobs. Many who choose careers of public serviceare motivated by a sense of benevolence towardsociety and the greater good. However, even thenoblest of motives to serve others can be thwartedby the daily routine of grading papers or writingtraffic citations. Transformational leaders recognizethis and know that their employees need ongoingreinforcement about the significance of their work.Such leaders respond with frequent and sincereentreaties regarding the deep and meaningful im-pact employees have on other people and importantsocietal or organizational outcomes.

An example highlights this point well. Amanufacturing company was struggling with unac-ceptable attrition (hovering around 28% annually)and a workplace incident rate double the industryaverage. The firm brought in consultants to discussthe problems. One of the key issues was a discon-nect between the company’s mission and employeeperceptions of work. The company is a supplier forone of the most successful equipment manufac-turers in the United States and directly contributesto American industry competitiveness and exports.When questioned about how work is framed, theorganization’s managers noted that most work isfocused on extrinsic outcomes (i.e., getting paid,doing a good job, staying safe) not related to thecompany’s role and significance in society. Theconsultants provided ways of framing this impor-tance and are now helping employees realize thesignificance of the work they perform.

Although skill variety, task identity, and task sig-nificance enhance the meaningfulness of work, bothautonomy and feedback play a role in motivating

It’s how you frame it: Transformational leadership and the meaning of work 357

employees and should result in greater employeesatisfaction with leadership. Autonomy encouragespersonal responsibly for successes and failures. To theextent that autonomy is high, employees are morelikely to feel that work outcomes depend more ontheir individual efforts than on leaders’ direction oron following a set of standard procedures. For em-ployees with a high need for growth, autonomy isintrinsically satisfying and likely to result in highermotivation.

2.3.4. AutonomyIn organizations, autonomy is usually the result ofdelegating responsibility for tasks to employees. Tothe extent that employees are ready for theseresponsibilities, successful delegation is a positiveorganizational outcome and the result of mutualtrust between a leader and an employee. However,a leader may not feel that an employee is willingand/or able to take on actual decision-making au-tonomy. In such cases, though the leader may notchoose to delegate the responsibility of a task tohis/her employee, the leader can still shape themeaning of work by enhancing perceptions of whatis referred to as self-determination.

Self-determination refers to the attitudes andabilities required to act as the primary causal agentin one’s life. It encompasses concepts like free will,freedom of choice, independence, personal agency,self-direction, and individual responsibility. A self-determined person is one who sets goals, makesdecisions, sees options, solves problems, andspeaks up for him/herself. Individuals’ actionsare self-determined if they regulate their ownbehavior, initiate and respond to events in amanner indicating psychological empowerment,and behave in a manner that is self-realizing.

Self-determination theory is based on the as-sumption that people have inborn tendencies togrow and develop psychologically, to strive to mas-ter challenges in the environment, and to integrateexperiences into their self-concept. These humantendencies are fully expressed only within a sup-portive social context. Self-determination is notachieved simply because an individual has certainrequisite knowledge and skills; it is also importantthat key people and institutions in the person’s lifeprovide a context conducive to self-determination.Therefore, even when the act of delegating tasks(i.e., creating true decision-making autonomy) isnot deemed advantageous, a leader can talk aboutan employee’s work in terms that draw attention tothe self-monitored and self-regulated processes forwhich the employee is responsible.

Although delegating responsibilities to employeesis not always prudent, employees do desire some

degree of autonomy at work. Recognizing this, aleader can stress the self-regulated aspects of work.Leaders can do this by focusing on aspects ofself-determination, such as personal growth (i.e.,highlighting the extent to which an employee hasgrown professionally and personally over time), self-monitoring and self-regulating behaviors (i.e.,highlighting the extent to which an employee effec-tively identifies and responds to changes in the workenvironment), and the quality of voice (i.e., theextent to which an employee constructively speaksabout issues relating to work). Although greaterdecision-making autonomy may not be appropriateat the moment, fully delegating responsibilities ismost often a leader’s goal. Hence, leaders can en-hance the meaningfulness and reward value of workby accentuating a sense of self-determination andhighlighting the elements of the workplace that areunder employees’ control. Although employees’ en-hanced sense of self-determination is not equivalentto decision-making autonomy, it will enhance therichness of their jobs, enhance their sense of self-destiny, and produce greater intrinsic rewards. To theextent that a leader is seen as the catalyst forenhancing work, followers are likely to attributethe transformational qualities of leadership tohim/her.

2.3.5. FeedbackFinally, Hackman and Oldham’s JCM predicts thatfeedback will enhance employees’ knowledge of theactual results of their work activities and will con-sequently lead to greater work performance. Feed-back is most powerful when it comes directly fromthe work itself. However, direct communicationsfrom a leader to an employee can be a rich formof feedback as well. Since the scope of this article islimited to leader influence (notwithstanding actionstaken to change the actual nature of work), ourfocus here is limited to the ways a leader can talk toemployees about their work that will enhance therichness of feedback. However, before we prescribethese feedback behaviors, we will discuss one studyto help clarify these recommendations.

During the 1964—1965 academic year, Harvardscholar Robert Rosenthal and his colleague con-ducted an experiment involving teachers’ expecta-tions of grade school student performance(Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). In the experiment,teachers were told that the students in their classhad been tested using an instrument called theHarvard Test of Inflected Acquisition, which purport-ed to predict future academic performance. Theteachers were given a list of a handful of studentswho would supposedly become smarter in the up-coming year. In reality, these students had been

358 D.J. Cleavenger, T.P. Munyon

randomly selected from the teachers’ rosters. Thestudents were not told by the researchers or theirteachers how they scored on the test. In the forth-coming year, those students who had been identifiedas early bloomers and whose teachers expected tobecome smarter outperformed students who werenot included in the list. Rosenthal’s research find-ings indicated that there were four factors that ledto the superior performance of those studentswhose teachers expected to do well:

1. The climate factor–—Teachers were warmer to-ward those students for whom they had higherexpectations both in terms of what they said tothem and in terms of non-verbal communications.

2. The input factor–—Teachers taught more materi-als to and had higher expectations for thosestudents for whom they had more favorableexpectations.

3. The response opportunity factor–—Teachers gavethese students greater opportunities to respond.They called on these students more often and gavethem more time to provide detailed answers toquestions.

4. The feedback factor–—Teachers offered morepositive reinforcements to these children forcorrect answers but also provided more differ-entiated information for wrong answers andled them to the correct reasoning for solvingproblems.

The lessons from this research shed light on the typeof feedback transformational leaders should striveto provide to their employees. Such feedback oughtto be characterized by (1) a warmer and saferenvironment for communicating, (2) more materialinformation about their work performance, (3) moretime to fully respond to questions about work, (4)more positive reinforcement for positive work out-comes, and (5) more highly differentiated informa-tion from the leader that allows the employee tocome up with his/her own solutions to problems.Leaders who provide this type of rich feedback willincrease employee satisfaction, enhance the intrin-sic value of work, and result in greater satisfactionwith leader behavior.

3. Putting it all together

The goal of this article was to describe how trans-formational leaders shape the meaning of workthrough the behaviors and language they use when

interacting with employees and when talkingmore broadly about work. We have tried to simplyand clearly describe both how and when a leadershould use his/ her social influence to shape themeaning of work. More specifically, we extendedthe findings of current research indicating that thedimensions of Hackman and Oldham’s JCM serve asa good foundation for understanding how thisinfluence process works (Table 2).

To be sure, the process of transforming employ-ees from obedient workers to vested partners is notsimple. The social influence process will take placeover a relatively long period of time and will be theresult of many direct and indirect interactions withthe employee. However, if the process we havedescribed here seems at all overwhelming, considerthe synergy that will likely occur when a leaderengages in any one of the many influence behaviorswe have mentioned in this article. For instance,when a leader enhances the meaningfulness of workby talking with employees about how their workcontributes to a valuable organizational outcome(i.e., enhancing perceptions of task significance),he/she is likely to do so in a way that also empha-sizes the skill that was required to make this con-tribution (i.e., enhancing perceptions of skillvariety). In this same encounter, the leader is alsolikely to provide rich feedback concerning theseimportant work outcomes.

Given the dynamic and multifaceted nature ofthe leader-member relationship, leaders need to bediligent in managing employees’ perceptions. Insome cases, leaders’ efforts to socially reconstructemployees’ work experience will be immense. Byreframing their work experiences and creating anew point of reference for understanding the mean-ing of their work, transformational leaders stimu-late the intrinsic satisfaction that work can provide.They do this by influencing employees’ perceptionsof the meaningfulness of work (through skill variety,task identity, and task significance), control over theoutcomes of their work (through autonomy or self-determination), and the quality of feedback. Thisintrinsic motivation creates a self-fulfilling cyclethrough which success at achieving a meaningfultask creates intrinsic rewards of its own. Moreover,the resulting transformational relationship betweenleader and employee will be characterized by per-ceptions that the leader is an intellectually stimu-lating, inspirational, idealized influencer who isconsiderate of each individual employee’s needs.

3.1. Leader effects

Thus far, we have devoted our discussion primarilyto understanding how transformational leaders may

It’s how you frame it: Transformational leadership and the meaning of work 359

Table 2. Ways to enhance the meaning of work

Job Characteristic To Enhance the Meaning of Work To Avoid Diminishing the Meaning of Work

Autonomy Accentuate responsibility and theownership of ideas by employees.Talk in terms of ‘‘we.’’ Listen more.Give credit to employees forcontributions, and celebrateteam ‘‘wins.’’

Avoid ‘‘my’’ and ‘‘I’’ statements regardingwork. Talk less and listen more. Be open to newideas even from unexpected sources. Try tomake decisions only after hearing from others,and justify the decisions you make. Make yourpresence about support rather than commandand control.

Task Significance Highlight how the organizationcontributes to others and society.Link the contribution of functionalunits to bottom-line metrics. Notethe importance of each individualand the contribution each makes.

Do not minimize the importance of work tasksthat are ‘‘small’’ or ‘‘routine.’’ Try not to focusexcessively on details but rather big pictureimplications. Reframe negative discussions toemphasize the implications of work to others,including employees.

Skill Variety Highlight complexities of a taskthat employees may take forgranted. Routinely solicit feedbackfrom employees on ways to improveprocesses in other departments.

Do not minimize the complexity or intricacy ofwork. Note when others are able to workeffectively because of the employee’scontribution. Note interdependent processeseven if jobs are simple.

Feedback Provide feedback characterizedby a warm and safe environment,material information aboutperformance, time to respond,positive reinforcement foroutcomes, and differentiatedinformation that enables creativeproblem solving.

Avoid feedback that is punitive and remedial.Do not assume that failure is a result of theemployee–—it may be caused by legitimatereasons outside his/her control. Seek inputfrom employees on processes and outcomesthat work and those that do not. Try not toanswer your own questions.

Task Identity Emphasize the contribution of anemployee’s work to theorganization’s products and services.Discuss how each functional unithelps the organization achieve itsobjectives. Broker relationshipsacross functional areas. Developexperts, not employees.

Avoid discussions of work and jobs but ratheremphasize each employee’s domain expertise.Enable employees to see how they connect withother employees’ work.

manage the meaning of employee work. However,we would be remiss if we failed to address the likelyeffects that will accrue for the leader as a result ofthis process. Indeed, there are several benefitsleaders will experience as a result of this process.

First, in addition to increasing followers’ produc-tivity, enhancing the meaningfulness of work shouldhighlight the significance of leadership. Hence,these leader behaviors, primarily for those motivat-ed by a desire to highlight the value of subordinatework, will also serve to strengthen the credibility ofleadership, contributing more toward attributionsof transformational leadership.

Second, in order to shape the nature of work,leaders must understand what their employees

actually do. Thus, the process of managing the mean-ing of work exposes the leader to the day-to-dayactivities of his/her employees, which enables theleader’s heightened responsiveness to potentialproblems. Thus, the leader gains knowledge throughthis process and is better able to manage and under-stand employee concerns and problems.

This natural process also reduces the perceiveddistance between a leader and his/her employeesby providing them with greater access to oneanother. Work is no longer an us-versus-them gamebetween employees and leaders but rather a col-laborative process in which leaders and employeescollectively discuss and take ownership over thework they perform.

360 D.J. Cleavenger, T.P. Munyon

Work relationships play an integral role in shapinghow employees adapt to work, procure and useresources, and coordinate activities (Ferris et al.,2009). Overall, we anticipate that leaders whoactively help frame employee work will experienceheightened relationship quality with employees.Therefore, it is in the interests of leaders to developand maintain high-quality connections with employ-ees, and framing the nature of work has the poten-tial to precipitate quality connections.

4. Conclusion

Leadership is critical for organizations. In a time ofscarce resources and increasing demands for pro-ductivity, it is equally important to consider waysleaders can transform and enhance the nature ofwork for their employees. This article has presentedsome tangible ways leaders can transform the mean-ing of work to better motivate and educate theiremployees. Our hope is that leaders will use thisadvice to improve the quality of work in their ownorganizations.

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