Transformational Leadership
Definition
Transformational leadership is a process that changes and transforms the followers.
The leaders stimulate and inspire the followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes and help to develop their own leadership capacity at the same time.
"Transformational leadership occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality."
James MacGregor Burns
Transformational Models and Dimensions
Inspirational Motivation
-Ability to inspire and motivate followers.
-Provides followers with challenges and meaning for engaging in shared goals.
-Show followers how their works apply to the real world.
-Behave in an enthusiastic, passionate, and energetic way.
Individual Consideration
-Able to provide growth opportunities for the followers.
-Self-actualisation, self-fulfilment, and self-worth.
-Attend to the needs of followers.
-Concern about the well-being of the followers.
Idealized Influence
-The role model.
-High moral and ethical standards.
-Show respect and consideration towards the followers.
-Understand the difference in the ability level among the followers.
Intellectual Stimulation
-Innovative and creative.
-Challenge the followers to come up with new ideas.
-Ask questions that make the followers think about.
-Help followers to see the big picture and how they connect to the organisation.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
Transformational leaders able to an enthusiastic work environment and drives the organisation with innovations and changes with efficiency and output.
Transformational leaders arouse emotions towards the followers that motivate them to act beyond the framework of what may be described as exchange relations.
This will likely develop future leaders among the followers.
Disadvantages
This is likely based on the ability of leaders for inspiring the workforce to put their best in whatever they do.
Transformational leadership only applies to followers who want to be part of the process. Team dynamics are different in every organisation.
Some leaders may lack the required characteristics to enforce and achieve that.
World's Transformational Leaders
Jeff Bezos
Amazon
It was a little-known online bookselling company back in 1994 with Jeff Bezos as its CEO. The plan was to sell books online and hopefully break even eventually. Amazon's stock boosted about 5000 percent between 1994 to 1997 and later that year took on another transformational format in creating an eReader market by introducing their Kindles. Bezos bet that he could change the way we read books by turning them into digital content, where many books can be loaded on one device for consumption. Transforming book sales, and later introducing multi-product sales has given Amazon a market value of $1.14 trillion as of April 2020.
Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg’s transformational leadership style continues to move Facebook to a promising future. He has flourished as a leader and he understands and motivates continued growth within his company. His transformational leadership style can be described as aggressive, demanding, innovative, and encouraging. As a leader who appreciates friendly debates, he grants his employees opportunities to offer product improvements and suggestions for Facebook. Zuckerberg understands and admits that he has made many mistakes within his company, but as a transformational leader, he strives to turn those mistakes into growth opportunities.
Steve Jobs
Apple
Under Steve Jobs's guidance, the company has transformed from a computer business to a music and phone device behemoth. The company focuses on innovation, and improving features of device lines. The company shifted focus initially from a product-based identification to one that promotes services and brand loyalty through innovative hardware and software. Brand loyalty has allowed the company to introduce software and content service subscriptions to great fanfare.
Research on Transformational Leadership
Buil, I., Martinez, E., and Matute, J. (2018).
Transformational leadership and employee performance: The role of identification, engagement and proactive personality.
Septi Andriani, Nila Kesumawati and Muhammad Kristiawan. (2018).
The influence of the transformational leadership and work motivation on teachers performance.
Transformational Leadership & Charismatic Leadership
Transformational Leadership
A transformational leader inspires change through his vision and passion to get things done.
Developing the followers so that they can learn and become the leader.
The leader is open to the inputs of the followers.
Vision fulfilment inclusive the vision of followers and the leader.
The leader can emerge at different levels of the organisation.
Behaviour aimed at encouraging teamwork and commitment towards the targeted goal.
Charismatic Leadership
A charismatic leader influences the followers with the dint of his personality and charm.
The focus is not on developing the followers.
The leader is 'the head of the show'.
Vision fulfilment by stimulating followers to leader's vision.
The leader is most likely to emerge in a crisis situation.
The behaviour aimed at leader-driven goals and promote the feeling of obedience and dependency in the followers.