Kurt Lewin and James Burns remain two of the most influential voices in organizational change and leadership. Yet their ideas have often been misinterpreted, diluted, or outright distorted, leaving us with orthodoxies that emphasize control and self-interest instead of participation and morality. If we are to meet the challenges of today’s organizations, it’s time to reclaim their original intent.

Lewin is too often reduced to a caricature: the “ice cube” metaphor that frames change as unfreezing, moving, and refreezing. In reality, he described change as cyclical, participative, and never complete, what he called a “quasi-stationary equilibrium.” His planned approach rested on four interconnected pillars:

Field Theory – understanding behavior within its context.

Group Dynamics – recognizing that people change together, not in isolation.

Action Research – integrating inquiry and action into iterative cycles of learning.

Three-Step Model – emphasizing participation and co-creation, not rigid stages.

He saw change and learning as intertwined, forming a cyclical sequence of iterations that enabled participants to understand and change their situation in a self-sustaining way. Lewin also reframed “resistance to change” as a systems concept. Resistance was not about employees being difficult; it was about the interaction of forces in a field. Managers and employees alike are subject to these forces, and the way change is managed ultimately shapes outcomes.

Likewise, James Burns saw leadership as a fundamentally participatory and moral endeavor. His original vision of transformational leadership was not about motivating subordinates to meet organizational goals. It wasn’t about subordinates at all. Instead, it was about moral leadership that arises from, and returns to, the needs and values of followers, thereby transforming societies and institutions for the greater good.

This vision stands in sharp contrast to Bernard Bass’s (1985) widely adopted reinterpretation of Burns which, while influential, introduced several differences that can be seen as not fully consistent with Burns’s original conceptualization. Bass’s model tended to reduce transformational leadership to a leader/subordinate dynamic, stripping out Burns’s emphasis on morality and democratic participation, and granting leaders wide discretion that has too often encouraged self-interest and unethical practices. So, while Bass’s model expanded on Burns’s work, it paid more attention to followers’ needs.

Bass, however, acknowledged that “transformational leadership could apply to situations in which the outcomes were not positive.” To address leaders like Hitler, who were transforming but in a destructive manner, Bass coined the term “pseudotransformational leadership.” This term describes leaders who are self-consumed, exploitative, power-oriented, and possess warped moral values, focusing on their own interests rather than the collective good. This distinction was necessary for Bass to allow for transforming influence that wasn’t morally sound.

Despite working in different domains, Lewin and Burns shared a conviction: leadership and change must serve people, not just organizations. Lewin championed participative decision-making, collective problem-solving, and systemic learning. Burns argued that conflict and dissensus are healthy forces, unifying as much as they divide, and that moral leadership should anchor organizational life. Both opposed top-down imposition of change and called for approaches rooted in democracy, participation, and focused on the well-being of the broader community.

Leadership research remains equivocal and fragmented, often privileging managerial convenience over societal good. Case study-driven practitioner models and Bass’s orthodoxy have given us a narrow, leader-centric focus. And the consequences have been stark, most visibly in examples like the 2008 financial crisis, where leadership excesses fueled systemic collapse at the expense of ordinary stakeholders. Lewin and Burns offer a necessary corrective. Their work reminds us that effective leadership and change are not about consolidating power but about enabling people and institutions to flourish.

Burnes, Hughes, and By (2016), drawing on Lewin and Burns, propose a utilitarian consequentialist approach* to change leadership, one that prioritizes “the greatest good for the greatest number.” This alternative contrasts sharply with the individual consequentialism that dominates today, where guiding coalitions or executives too often reap rewards at the expense of employees, communities, or society.

Reimagining leadership through this lens means seeing resistance as a systemic signal, not an obstacle. It requires building participation and dissensus into structures. And it involves framing leadership as a moral responsibility, not a managerial toolkit.

This is not merely a nostalgic take on leadership; rather, it is a path forward. In a world where organizations are constantly shifting, the ethical, participatory vision of Lewin and Burns is not just relevant. It is essential. Indeed, the orthodoxy of change leadership is flawed, misrepresenting Lewin, diluting Burns, and leaving us with models resistant to true transformation. A return to their original intent offers a different way forward: participative, moral, and aimed at the collective good. To lead change effectively, we must reimagine leadership not as control over others, but as a collaborative process of creating better futures together.

* The utilitarian consequentialist approach is an ethical approach where the value of an action is dependent not on its intent, but its consequences for the majority of stakeholders. This perspective prioritizes achieving the “greatest good for the greatest number.” Individual consequentialism, in contrast, is an ethical theory that judges an action as right or wrong solely by the consequences it brings to the person performing it.

Sources:

Bass, B. 1985. Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations. New York: Free Press.

Burnes, B., Hughes, M., & By, R. (2016). Reimagining Organizational Change Leadership. Leadership, 14(2), 141–158.

Burns, J.M. 1978. Leadership. New York: Harper Row Publishers.

Lewin, K.(1951) Field theory in Social Science. New York: Harper & Brothers.