Transformational leadership encourages employees to accept change by nurturing a workplace culture of accountability, ownership, and independence. In this dynamic business landscape, transformational leadership is more important than ever to accommodate changes quickly and support business transformation. This article, thus, explores everything about this leadership and its practical implications.
What is Transformational Leadership?
Transformational leadership is a type of leadership that seeks to encourage, motivate, and drive employees to innovate and create the change needed to adapt to the current situation and ensure future success. The leaders are considered as change agents within the organisation who can find innovative and recurring trends in technology and then contribute to the change management.
Transformational leaders motivate and encourage employees without micromanaging. It is a management style that allows employees to become more creative, focus on the future, and identify new solutions to traditional issues. Employees under such leadership will also be prepared to become effective leaders with proper training and coaching.
Theory of Transformational Leadership
Researcher Bernard M.Bass expanded the concept to include approaches to measure the success of transformational leadership in 1985. This approach enables leaders to show genuine, robust leadership with the principle that employees will be inspired to follow suit.
Although theory of transformational leadership dates back to 1970s, it is still being practiced in contemporary business. It is considered authentic leadership that never changes. It is being used across different industries, but it is mainly important for the rapidly evolving tech industry, where agility and innovation can encourage or discourage business.
Transformational Leadership Model
Transformational leadership is comprised of four key elements.
Ideliased Influence
Transformational leaders can practice effective leadership by leading as a role model. Team members will observe you as a role model for workplace behaviour. Hence, if you show authenticity, the employees will likely follow that behaviour and feel motivated to maintain that high performance standard. It is not about manipulating the personnel into working hard, but is about leading by example and positively driving people to get things done. This requires trust, transparency, and respect.
Intellectual Stimulation
To facilitate change in the workplace, it is crucial to challenge the traditional beliefs in the company and challenge the status quo by embracing innovation, critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. These leaders should ensure their employees are good at exploring new ideas and opportunities that can fuel innovation within the organisation. You wish to develop an environment that fosters growth and engages everyone in the digital transformation.
Inspirational Motivation
As a transformational leader, you must motivate the team to feel engaged and dedicated to the organisational vision. You must ensure that the employees are devoted to the goals as you are as a leader by creating a powerful sense of purpose among the employees, instead of trying to inspire them through fear.
Individual Consideration
As a transformational leader, it is crucial to consider that every employee is an individual within the organisation and will have particular needs, mentorship styles, and their roles in the company. Transformational leaders will alter their mentorship and coaching approaches to the individual and help them accomplish the goals internally and externally in the company.
Characteristics of Transformational Leaders
Organisations need transformational leadership that showcases an ‘executive presence’. The most important characteristic of these leaders is their ability to understand and communicate their vision and get support from the primary stakeholders.
According to Bass’ model, transformational leaders distinguish themselves from other leaders by:
- Inspiring and motivating the positive development of the team members
- Setting moral standards within the workplace and inspiring the same in others
- Developing company culture by motivating team members to shift their attitude of self-interest to a mindset where they are working for the common good
- Place importance on authenticity, cooperation, and open communication
- Offering coaching and mentoring opportunities while enabling team members to make decisions and take accountability
Transformational Leadership Real-Life Cases
Harvard Business Review analysed the businesses listed on S&P and Fortune 500 to finalise the best case examples of transformational leadership. The companies were evaluated based on new products, services, and business models.
Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos, the father of Amazon, is regarded as ‘insider, outsider’ by Harvard Business Review which makes him a pioneer in transformational leadership. As someone who belongs to the finance world, bringing a fresh perspective to e-commerce through expertise in a different industry is commendable.
Reed Hastings
Hastings is recognised together with Bezos for the same reasons. Belonging to the software industry, he was unfamiliar with the pre-determined process and procedure in the entertainment industry.
Jeff Boyd and Glenn Fogel
Boyd and Fogel reimagined travel reservations by including minimal commission fees on reservations. However, it focused on the smaller niche markets, which led to the emergence of Booking.com.
Steve Jobs and Tim Cook
HBR finds Apple as a prominent example of ‘dual transformation’. Jobs converted the real Microsoft products while creating a software ecosystem. Whereas, Cook extended the vision of Jobs, focusing on innovation, brand loyalty and software.
Mark Bertolini
Bertolini is recognised for his realistic management approach in the healthcare segment. He states that his objective is to set strategies based on a realistic vision of the future.
Satya Nadella
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, is another prominent example of this leadership. The leadership helps climb the corporate ladder and become the chief executive officer.
Wrapping Up
Transformational leadership is not just getting this done, but also about motivating and inspiring people to push their boundaries and embrace change. It creates a company culture where innovation and creativity are prioritized. Some of the practical uses of the this leadership are listed in this article. Hence, if you want to become a transformational leader, practice now. Else, you can enrol in training and certification programs.
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