Pseudo-transformational leadership, a manipulative counterpart to authentic transformational leadership, combines self-serving motives with behaviors that outwardly emulate authenticity and inspiration. Despite its potential to reveal leadership’s darker dimensions, research on pseudo-transformational leadership has stagnated, hindered by conceptual ambiguity, measurement challenges, and overlaps with constructs like authentic and ethical leadership. This paper critically explores the construct’s theoretical evolution, its marginalization within leadership studies, and its unique emphasis on deception and ethical ambiguity. We examine its limitations alongside its contributions, proposing research avenues to refine measurement capable of detecting the deception at the core of pseudo-transformational leadership and conducting longitudinal studies to assess its organizational effects. Finally, we consider whether pseudo-transformational leadership should be revitalized as an independent construct or reframed and resituated within broader leadership theories, offering lessons for the development of novel concepts in leadership theory.
