TOWARD A CHRISTIAN TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP

: Transformational leadership is a theory of leadership that has gained profound interest among scholars for decades. Compared to transactional leadership that emphasizes reward and punishment, transformational leadership style has focused more on the inner development of the followers. A leader with transformational leadership style would seek to stimulate his or her followers intellectually, so the transformation of the organization would start with the change of perception of the people. This article argues further that a Christian perspective could enrich the prominent theory of transformational leadership by placing Christ as the center of inspiration and God’s transformative power as the primary motivation to contribute toward the broader society. A Christian transformational leadership emphasizes God as the source of transformation and perceive the ability of the Christian leader to transforms the people as a horizontal expression of God’s transformative power experienced by the Christian leader. In other words, inner transformation leads toward the transformation of the world outside.


INTRODUCTION
Christianity has demonstrated its vital role throughout human history. Since the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the course of the world has been influenced by those people who experienced life transformation in Christ. The transformation has been impactful toward the society and culture, as displayed in their works for the society. Unfortunately, the Christian influence in the society is now fading. Christians in the present time are becoming strangers to the biblical values, reducing their influence in history to the shift of values toward a non-biblical direction. Christians become less influential in the society, having nothing to offer to the world around them. The understanding of Christian faith as a mere private matter and restricting its implication only to personal piety make the condition even worse. Many Christians only seek to obtain salvation and live in personal piety without feeling responsible to the societal transformation. 1 They lose the biblical message that Christ who redeem is the one who will re-create the whole cosmos into the new heaven and the new earth.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought significant change to the people's life both in international and national context. The people's behaviors are changed, the way they work, study, shop, eat, and so on are in done in accordance to the health protocols applied under their context. Social distancing policy has played a very 1 David Kristanto 3 When applied to different context, each leadership model should adapt to its context accordingly, in order to work effectively. In the plural context of Indonesia, 4 it is important for leaders to be innovative in caring cultural differences among their plural members. 5 Cultural differences are the things inward that would determine how a leader apply transformation. The transformational leadership model is relevant to that extent for its focus on things inward such as character, perception, and motivation, rather than things outward.
Compared to other theories of leadership, transformational leadership focuses on how the leader could 2 Daniel R. Bare Christians should seek to understand the Word of God and how to practice it in the society in a transformative spirit. In the world that changes rapidly, Christians should not be ashamed of their faith, they rather should seek to re-articulate their faith in the relevant way in the society. Christian leaders are expected to practice biblical values, not just in his or her personal life, but also in the family, marketplace, job, and in other possible public spheres. 6

METHOD
This article is a library research article using Christian leadership as the main theological perspective. Library research is research conducted by gathering information and data from sources such as library, reference book and previous research. 7 It is conducted systematically to gather, analyze and conclude the data to get the result. Thomas  actions and agenda to promote the kingdom of God by intentionally influencing others. While secular leadership also includes the intentional act to influence others, Christian leadership seeks to do so through reflecting in the person and work of Jesus Christ. 8 For that purpose, this article will be written under this sequence: first, definition of transformational leadership; second, the concept of Christian transformational leadership; and third, transforming social media and education.

RESULT
Transformational leadership is needed even more in the present time. The rapid change of technology and many hindrances emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic could be both an opportunity or a challenge for personal growth. While other leadership theories might focus more on things external to the self, transformational leadership focuses on how the leaders could transform the followers in a personal way. Christianity faith could enrich the profound transformational leadership theory by placing Christ as the center role model for transformational leadership. Furthermore, a Christian transformational leadership will acknowledge that the source of transformative power does not lie in the leader himself or herself but in God alone. The ability of the leader to transform followers is a horizontal expression of the leader's experience on being transformed by God. attention and continues to be one of the most active research paradigms. It has been forty years since James McGregor Burns introduced the transforming leader as a concept, yet his ideas continue to impact others substantially on how to think and apply the theory of leadership. Simply put, his main argument was that a leader is considered transformational if they could act as an independent force that change the motive base of their followers. 9 Decades afterward, scholars of leadership theories attempted to expand, refine, and in an empirical way validate the theory of transformational leadership into one of the widest researched leadership paradigms. 10 Bernard Bass's works, including his collaborative works with some others, has helped to clarify the behaviors of the transformational leader to engage in his or her work, ways of transformation, and the connection between outcomes resulted from the interactions between the leader and the follower. 11 Defining transformational leadership is a challenging task, due to the various goals of those who practice it. Some practice it to help the poor, foster tolerance among the people, creating more jobs in a particular area, making an organization more productive, and many other legitimate reasons. However, one distinction that makes a way of leadership as transformative is that if the leader could successfully transform the follower in a way that leads toward better work performance. The follower here could be an individual, a group, or even an organization. A leadership could not be transformational unless the followers are transformed. 12 Transformational leadership is a leadership style that seeks to widen the boundaries and to make progress beyond the status quo. Therefore, such a great transformation is not understood as an instant result but a constant progress.

DISCUSSION
Beside of its transformative effects, transformational leadership has shown its ability to increase job satisfaction among the employees. Leaders applying this way of leadership tend to be able to motivate their employees toward a better productivity. While leadership usually involves activities such as supervising, organizing, controlling, monitoring, and assigning tasks; transformational leadership will focus on intellectually stimulate the employees with the new perspectives, so the transformative spirit could be imparted to them. Transformational leadership is quite different in its approach with the transactional leadership. While the latter emphasizes rewarding outstanding employees and warning less productive ones, the first focuses more on caring the employees by inspiring and motivating them through the leader's charismatic character. 13 Given the nature of this leadership style, it could not be done in through a formal relationship alone; it rather need a more personal relationship 12 Nathapon Siangchokyoo, Ryan L. Klinger, and Emily D. between the leader and the followers. Those leaders who are willing to practice this should be willing to spend more time on building relationship with the people that they are working with, so the transformation would come as a natural result of that organic relationship.

Christian Transformational
Leadership While transformational leadership might aim at thousands of different goals; from the Christian perspective, the ideal goal of transformational leadership is the new creation through the work of Christ Jesus (Rev. 21:5a). As noted above, the distinction between secular theory of leadership and Christian leadership is that the latter places Jesus as the source of the transformation, and his truth is the power that transforms the world. This understanding evokes Christian eschatological imagination, that Christ will one day return to the earth, re-creating the whole cosmos into the new heaven and earth. A place where death and tears could be found no more, for there would only be joy and peace in Jesus Christ.
The principle of Christian leadership is based on most fundamental Christian values founded in Christ. Every Christian leader is expected to understand life as created by God, living out the life of gratitude toward the Creator God, thus understand that he or she is responsible to live for God's glory. Christian leaders are also expected to be see oneself as the image of God with dignity that comes from God. This understanding implies both humility and confidence. Humility because one's dignity does not come from money nor job reputation, but comes from God alone who created humans in His image; and confidence, because failure and human flaws do not deduct the dignity that is given by God to every human being. Toward the fellow humans, Christian leaders are expected to be merciful and actively serving each other in affective spirit. 14 Because Christ is the sole source of transformation, before talking about how to influence others, a Christian perspective of transformational leadership would start with the transformation of life of the leader. The leader should first experience change that comes from the Triune-God, leading toward the character of Christ and sanctification in the Holy Spirit. In short, before seeking the transformation of others, the Christian leaders should seek to be transformed by God holistically: spiritual, social, behavioral, and moral. Before a Christian seeks to transform what is outside, he or she should seek God's transformation for what is inside. Inward transformation always precedes outward transformation.
From the Christian perspective, the transformation experienced by believers has never come from the life of the believers themselves. Sin disables human to generate transformation from his or her own life. In Christian faith, there is no other source of transformation rather than the power of the God. One prominent example in the Bible is how the Spirit of God transformed the life of the apostles in the book of Acts. Before the Holy Spirit is poured upon the apostles at the Pentecost, Peter betrayed Jesus due to his cowardice. But after the Pentecost, the transformative power of the Holy Spirit enabled the apostles to preach the Gospel with courage; without shame and without fear. The Spirit's power is their deepest motivation for them to go from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth to spread the Gospel. Thus, the ability of such a leader to transform others does not come from himself or herself, but it is the horizontal expression of the leader's experience of God's transforming power. In that way, the 14 Elmar Nass and Ellen Kreuer, Manna Rafflesia, 9/1 (Oktober2022)  power of transformation in Christ could be realized in the society where the Christian leader lives. 15 Every Christians is called to be the agent of transformation. Paul also exhorts Christians to not conforming to the world but to be transformed according to the will of God (Rom. 12:2), and those who are in Christ are the new creation through the power of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 5:17).
To be a Christian leader is to lead in a Christian way that is both faithful and impactful. Zonnefeld understands Christian leadership as a call to "lead redemptively." This "redemptive leadership" acts as a living embodiment of the goodness that God has intended from the beginning since the human creation. This means that the focus of leadership should deal with Christian values such as deep commitment to work, understanding, love, belief, and humility. To lead redemptively, a Christian leader should focus on the heart before focusing on the head (knowledge) and the hands (talent and skills).
Understanding redemptive leadership means trying to understand how the heart and the head could drive the hands of the leaders. 16 The spiritual renewal that happens inside the leader could be expressed outward as the transformative power that changes the followers. This position calls Christian leaders to attend to the heart, since every direction of life starts there. Without daily renewal through the power of the Holy Spirit, even the most impactful Christian leader would lose his or her transformative power.
Christian transformational leadership is holistic in its goal. short, it refers to the renewal of all things. The Christian faith clearly shows that Christ is the Savior who will renew the cosmos into the new heaven and the new earth. Though the creation is stained by sin, God never intends to destroy it. The plan of God the Father for the creation is to restore and renew it in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Christian leadership should not be understood as limited to those who lead at the Church as a pastor, but it should be understood as extending to every Christians who serve in a leadership role. The transformative power of God is not just for the Church, but for all creation to be transformed according to God's will.

Transforming Social Media and Education
In the pandemic situation, many things have changed as new challenges emerge. Christian leaders are obliged to adapt and to exhibit the transformative power of God through their way of leadership.
Among many other important issues, this section will limit its discussion to applying transformational Christian leadership into two pressing issues: social media and education. God's transformative power that has transformed the leader personally should be expressed in the public life, especially in matters of urgency such as social media and education.
In the recent technological advancement, social media has been a global phenomenon and it has reached even the most personal aspect of life. Majority of the world's population has experienced using social media. Gregory Vial describes the phenomenon as "digital transformation," where digital technologies create disruptions that require organizations to reply strategically in order to adapt their values in the digital world through managing both "structural changes" and "organizational barriers" that might bear positive and negative outcomes. Every organization in the world, including the Church, could not avoid engagement with digital technology. 17 The Covid-19 pandemic creates even a stronger engagement between the Church and digital technology. In fact, the Church has also opted for technology in coping with the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic. 18 By so doing, the Church encounters new possibilities to serve the people and to spread the Gospel. The advancement of digital technology has created a limitless way of communication. This situation has enabled the gospel to be spread without geographical restriction, the Church could talk to the people wherever they are and at any time. The people could access the sermon easily through their cellular phone. In Indonesia, there are limitations to proclaim the gospel onsite, but the opportunities are much wider when it comes to doing it online. Christians believe that technology is God's blessing that enables the church to worship, even during the pandemic. Through the social media, the people of God could share and connect even without needing to meet on-site.
As direction that is pleasing to God. Every negative message and sinful action done in the internet are not things for Christian leaders to allow. A Christian transformational leadership would strive toward a more positive usage of the internet. While Christians understand that the ideal condition belong only to the eschaton, it is the conviction of every Christian leader that the present condition of the world could always be transformed. This is one among many cases that show how Christian leadership should not be seen as confined in the Church sphere; instead, it has to be extended to the public sphere, especially in the social media. The church should seek to influence the media in a positive and transformative way so it could reach more people. Without the awareness to fight for transforming the social media, the media will be filled with the content of the world, that does not lead to the transformation of life but to the destructive negativity such as cyberbullying, online prostitution, spreading hoaxes, and thousand other examples of irresponsible use of the social media.
The role of Christian leaders in transforming the social media is to use it for God's glory and to display God's glory in the online world. It is important for Christians to understand that technology does not belong to the devil, but part of God's good creation. Scientific development, as well as digital technology, comes from God who gives life and the ability in human beings to cultivate life. Therefore, the social media should be used to seek the glory of God and to spread God's love and goodness to the other people. Christians should not avoid using the social media, but to start using it in a transformative spirit.
Beside of sharing and connecting with others, the Church could also attempt to construct a spiritual formation program through social media. Three main things that the social media could do for spiritual formation are: to prompt people to engage in spiritual practices, to monitor the progress of the people, and to share spiritual insights with one another. This is confirmed by William's research that fifty-two percent of the social media users had joined online religious group, and some among those people began to trust the people within the community. In that online community, they got emotional support, friendship, and help in their spirituality when necessary. 19 Although online communities could not totally be equated with the community that gathers on-site, how the online community functions in a fruitful way for the people (especially in the case of spirituality), should not be neglected. The fact that many people are interested to join spiritual online community should be an encouragement for the Church to be more active in the social media. Spirituality is not an ancient and leftbehind subject of the people after the digital transformation, instead, it is still of a major importance.
Another pressing issue for Christian transformational leadership is education. In order to transform education, the teachers should see themselves as leaders acting as the agent of transformation. Teaching is not just transmitting information, but seeking to transform the students in a holistic way, and to instill in them a transformative spirit that perpetually seeks the flourishing of the society around them. Research done by Andriani et al shows how transformational leadership directly influence the teachers' work motivation in a vocational high school in Palembang. The research has also shown that transformational leadership motivates parents to guide their children at home toward a life transformation. That effect is generated through the role of the headmaster who seeks to communicate the school's educational vision to the parents and who asks them 19 Myron Williams, "Community, Discipleship, and Social Media," Christian Education Journal 12, no. 377 (2015).
to apply it within their home context. 20 Transformational education could not happen if it relies on the school alone. The role of the family in transforming the academic growth of the students is vital.
Applying Christian transformational leadership into the context of education means seeking a holistic transformation in the students. This goal cannot be achieved by the teachers alone, but should involve a more holistic environment such as the church, school, and the family. The pastor at church, teachers at school, and parents at home, should seek to bring the students toward a closer relationship with God so they could experience God's transforming power in their life. 21 A holistic transformation requires a holistic approach. Therefore, it is important for parents to communicate with the pastors and teachers on whether a life transformation occur in the life of their children.
Transforming education also requires teachers to integrate faith and learning at school. It is therefore of vital importance to understand not just what the students know but what they believe during the class interaction. Students should be motivated to take the insights of faith into their learning process, and also vice versa. While monitoring the academic growth of the students, teachers should also monitor whether their faith is growing alongside their academic skills. 22  worldview is needed toward that objective. A biblical or Christian worldview refers to the essential meanings of faith, as it is summarized in some confessions of faith such as the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed. While theological discussions sometimes focus on what distinguish a denomination from one another, Christian worldview tends to focus on the common ground among Christians. Christian worldview does not directly deal with theology but refers more to how one sees the world through the lens of the Word of God. 23 One example is that while Christians could have different Christologies, all of them believe in the biblical Christ. Without a solid Christian worldview, integration between faith and learning could not be achieved well.
Idayanti and Poroe argue that in order to transform the students through education, teachers should seek to apply variety of learning methods. The first method that they suggest is the method of learning by involvement, in which the students are expected to be involved as much as possible in order to learn something. The second is the method of learning by doing. This method shows how students can learn more by doing activities such as taking notes or reading the teacher's power point instead of just passively listening. Another creative way to apply this is through playing educational video games. The third method that they propose is the method of service learning through which the students are asked to do their own research then to practice it in an experiential way. In practice, this method will encourage the students to engage in social actions related to particular course at school. 24 Those Review of Evidence and Current Practices (London: Church of England, 2019), 21. 23 Spencer and Lucas, Christian Leadership, 22-3. 24 Esther Idayanti and Herman Poroe, "Implementasi Proses Pembelajaran Pada Milenial," Jurnal Apokalupsis 12, no. 1 (June 30, learning methods are not exhaustive but suggestive. There might be many other compatible learning methods that could be fruitful for initiating societal transformation. As the teacher seeks to transform the life of the student, it is expected that in the future, the students would have the same spirit of transformation for the society where they live.

CONCLUSION
In the pandemic time, the need for transformational leadership is even more urgent than before. Generally, leadership is understood as increasing the number of followers or gaining more influence, that emphasis on quantity alone makes leaders seems to be cold, not caring, and even not beneficial for those who follow their leaders. Whether one's leadership style is selfish or selfless is attested during the pandemic.
To answer negative perceptions on leadership, leaders have to focus more on the personal or inner development of the followers that leads toward a holistic transformation of them. Through transformation of every people in an organization, the whole organization will grow, and it could further contribute toward transformation of the broader society. Transactional leadership which focuses on reward and punishment can no longer be a sustainable option. For during the pandemic, people experience many restrictions and obstacles that hinder them to grow as a person. External things such as reward and punishment could not help the people to overcome their obstacle to grow as a person, a much more attention toward inner transformation is needed. In order to regain the emphasis on personal development of the followers, the transformational leadership model is more relevant than transactional leadership.
It is the argument of this article 2021): 36-7, https://doi.org/10.52849/apokalupsis.v12i1.18. Rafflesia, 9/1 (Oktober2022)  that Christian faith could enrich the existing models of transformational leadership. The main distinction between the secular and Christian perspective on transformational leadership is the understanding of the source of transformation and the way transformation works to the people. From a Christian perspective, the leaders are not the source of transformation in themselves because they are also flawed and sinful. A sinful person cannot truly transform others. The Triune God is the sole source of real transformation. Through the fellowship with God the Father in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, a Christian leader can truly experience transformation. The leaders then are able to influence the followers with the transformative power that they have received from God. In other words, the transforming effect received by the followers comes as a horizontal expression of the experience of transformation that the leaders have received earlier. The spirituality of Christian transformational leadership is the spirituality from inward expressed outward. Without experiencing inner transformation, the leader could not transform the followers.