Leadership Styles : Transformational Leadership

Those that follow a transformational leadership framework believe that leaders possess many of the aforementioned qualities, but the focus is on one’s ability to inspire and empower others (Ross, Fitzpatrick, Click, Krouse, & Clavelle, 2014). These leaders literally ‘transform’ their followers by inspiring enthusiasm and performance towards a

There are many models of leadership that exist across a range of fields (e.g. social work, education, psychology, business, etc.). The ability to transform an organization successfully requires a different set of attitudes and skills. Transformational leadership is an approach where a leader utilizes inspiration, charisma, individualized attention, and intellectual stimulation with their employees (Iachini, Cross, & Freedman, 2015, p. 651). Transformational leadership helps to clarify organizational vision, inspires employees to attain objectives, empowers employees, encourages employees to take risks, and advocates the seeking of alternative solutions to challenges in the workplace (Transformational Leadership, 2015). It allows the leader to engage and motivate each follower identify with the organization’s values and goals.

transformational leaders can greatly impact the performance of a workforce by emulating the characteristics of charisma, scholarly attributes that created stimulation, and thoughtfulness for each individual. The products of transformational leaders that lead their organizations in this manner result in improved customer service and a more positive work environment.

Transformational leadership needs to be fostered at all levels in the firm. In order to succeed, the firm needs to have the flexibility to forecast and meet new demands and changes as they occur —and only transformational leadership can enable the firm to do so (Bass, 1990, p. 31).

Bernard Bass’ transformational leadership model in 1985 was based upon James MacGregor Burns’ studies. This model focused more on what the followers needed instead of the leaders needs, like James MacGregor Burns had done.

Transformational leadership is a process that motivates individuals by appealing to their moral value, instead of their own personal interests (Doody & Doody, 2012). This theory is credited to Burns, but continues to evolve and expand by others throughout the years. There are four main components when describing transformational leadership:

Transformational Leadership transcends multiple situations. Leaders utilize the four components of Transformational leadership which include idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration (McCleskey, 2014; Robbins & Judge, 2016; Stone, Russell, & Patterson, 2004). Leaders that employ Transformational Leadership often have highly desirable personality traits that are modeled, and then emulated by followers as a method of idealized influence (Marques, 2015). The transformational leader is able to generate inspirational motivation within an individual by empowerment of the follower through communication of shared goals and sense (Stone, Russell, & Patterson, 2004). Intellectual stimulation is achieved thorough the leader engaging the follower in problem solving and innovation for solutions (Robbins & Judge, 2016; Stone, Russell, & Patterson, 2004). Furthermore, the transformational leader connects with the follower through mentorship and acknowledgement of the individual versus the team (Stone, Russell, & Patterson, 2004). To conclude, Transformational Leadership is a successful tool for managing change, as the transformational leader is able to create a shared vision, generate support for change, and successfully implement and maintain the change (Marques, 2015). Relative to the scenario, Transformational Leadership is paramount for successful change due to the engagement of the followers with the shared vision of the

Transformational leadership has been presented in the literature as different from transactional leadership. While transactional leadership was defined on the basis of the influence process underlying it, as an exchange of rewards for compliance, transformational leadership was defined on the basis of its effects, as transforming the values and priorities of followers and motivating them to perform beyond their expectations (Yukl, 1998). Bass and Avolio (1994) proposed that the behaviors transformational leaders’ exhibit include four components: individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, idealized influence and intellectual stimulation.

Leadership is a fundamental aspect of an organization. A good leadership approach that suits the organizational will determine and indicate how successful the company will be in dealing with challenges that the organization may encounter whether internal or external. One such type of leader is a transformative leader. Transformational leadership is distinguished by its capacity to promote the idea of “innovation and change. Transformational leadership is a manner that encourages subordinates to excel in performing their job and to move far beyond their personal goals and attain targets that benefit the organization as a whole. The literature has proposed that there is a solid correlation between transformational leadership and followers performances.

In 1978 Burns first introduced the theory of transformational leadership and differentiate it with transactional in his research of political leaders (Givens, 2008). In 1985 Bass developed his theory of transformational leadership based on Burns’s works with some additional changes (Bass, 1995).

After studying and learning from the different theories of Leadership, I found Transformational Leadership the best theory to identify with. Before going further with this theory, I want to state the most accurate Leadership definition for me. Leadership is a development of social influence and an exchange of values, behaviors, and power delegation between leaders and followers, where leaders maximizes efforts of the followers to achieve a collective goal (Kruse, 2013). Moreover, Scholars has divided leadership into different areas, such as Trait Approach, Skill Approach, Situational Approach, Transformational-Transactional, to name a few (COLLINSON & TOURISH, 2015). In this paper, I will talk about my concept of leadership before learning about the different leadership theories, what Transformational Leadership Theory is, how it helps raising the productivity in the group, the different dimensions of this theory, the differences with transactional leadership, the relation between charisma and transformational leadership, why I chose transformational leadership, and the different challenges and obstacles of this theory.

Transformational leadership starts with the development of a vision. This should be a view of the future that will grab the attention, excite and convert potential followers. Once the vision has been developed, you will have to constantly sell the vision. This will probably take a lot of energy and commitment, because few people will automatically believe in your vision. A transformational leader should take every opportunity available to convince others to climb on their “bandwagon.” In order to create followers, the transformational leader has to be careful in creating trust, and their personal integrity is a critical part in what they are selling. Therefore, they are selling themselves as well as the vision. “The common

Transformational leadership is a leadership style that promotes change as well as improves performance in the organization as a whole as well as on the individual employee level (Phaneuf, Boudrias, Rousseau, & Brunelle, 2016). James MacGregor Burns first introduced transformational leadership in his book titled Leadership that he authored in 1978. Burns defined transformational leadership as leadership that stems from one’s core unchanging values and beliefs. Burns believed that transformational leaders not only bring together their followers, but also positively influence their follower’s values and beliefs in a way that brings about positive change (Humphreys & Einstein, 2003).

Transformational leaders behave in ways that provide motivation and inspiration to people around them by providing new challenges for their subordinates in the work. Leaders create expectations clearly communicated to the men attracted to achieve and demonstrate commitment to the objectives and shared vision.

In addition, unlike other styles of leadership, transformational leadership has a significant effect on subordinates’ behaviour and attitudes towards common goals (Dignam et al. 2012). Further, it is important to note that transformational leadership style has the ability to motivate and inspire employees, particularly when organisation is experiencing difficulties (Rolfe 2011).