He was the first to coin the term "Transformational leadership", a concept further developed by James MacGregor Burns, and one of the key concepts in leadership research over the past 25 years.
Subsequent validation work by John Antonakis and his colleagues provided strong evidence supporting the validity and reliability of the MLQ5X.
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Burns' work has influenced other transformational leadership theorists such as Bernard Bass, Bruce Avolio, Kenneth Leithwood, and a number of others.