The influence of the post-apartheid context on appraisal choices in Clem Sunter's transformational leadership discourse

Abstract

Transformational leadership was first identified as a distinct leadership style in the fields of business and organizational research in the 1970s. Transformational leaders motivate followers by appealing to their higher-order needs, offering incentives for compliance such as feelings of personal empowerment, a sense of moral self-actualization, and an emphasis on the individual's contribution to the community at large (Harvey, Charismatic business leader rhetoric: From transaction to transformation, Continuum, 2004). They have been observed to emerge and thrive within contexts fraught with sociopolitical and economic turbulence, where they maximize the uncertainty of the environment to instigate change. They are also seen to be especially adept at using discourse to foster strong, persuasive interpersonal relations with their followers. This article reports on the interpersonal dimension of Clem Sunter's discourse in three of his texts written in 1996, a time conducive to the rise of a transformational leader like Sunter.

The text analyses are grounded in appraisal theory (Halliday, An introduction to functional grammar, Edward Arnold, 2004 [1994], Studies in English language, Continuum, 2005; Martin, Beyond exchange: appraisal systems in English, Oxford University Press, 2000a, Close reading: Functional linguistics as a tool for critical discourse analysis, Cassell, 2000b), with special focus on the Affect and Judgment choices. Analysis of the Judgment choices reveals that Sunter evokes high levels of Tenacity (typical in transformational leadership discourse), whereas the high frequency of Disquiet revealed in the analysis of Affect choices is completely inconsistent with this leadership paradigm. We suggest that the unique sociopolitical context of South Africa in 1996 enabled Sunter to maximize this Disquiet/Tenacity configuration in order to instigate change in his ideal reader, making Sunter a decidedly different kind transformational leader.