Major Characteristics
Transformational leadership is a style of leadership that inspires positive changes to its followers. Transformational leaders generally are enthusiastic, energetic and passionate. These leaders are involved and concerned about the process as well as being focused on ensuring that every group member succeeds. Through their vision and personality strength, transformational leaders inspire their followers to change their perceptions, motivations, and expectations so as to work towards a common goal (Oreg & Berson, 2011). Also, transformational leadership is based on its impact on its followers as the leader garners respect, admiration, and trust from their followers. Transformational leadership uplifts its followers’ morale, performance, and motivation by using a variety of mechanisms. It includes connecting the sense of self and identity of the followers to the collective identity and the mission of the organization; being the followers’ role model and inspiring them and by also challenging the followers into taking greater ownership of their work, understanding their strengths and flaws so that the leaders can align their followers with the tasks which optimize their performance and productivity.
First, an individualized consideration which is the degree which each follower’s needs are handled by the leaders by being their followers’ mentors and listening to their needs and concerns. The transformational leader gives support and empathy, keep open communication and also places challenges to their followers (Picollo & Colquitt, 2016). This encompasses the need for respecting and celebrating the individual contribution made by the followers to the team hence giving them the aspirations and the will for self-development and also having intrinsic motivation towards their tasks. The second characteristic is intellectual stimulation which is the degree to which the transformational leader solicits the ideas of the followers, challenges their assumptions and takes risks. A leader using this style encourages and stimulates creativity from their followers and also develops and nurtures individuals who think differently and independently (Hay, 2016). These leaders take learning as a value where they see unexpected situations as learning opportunities. Their followers think deeply, ask questions about things and also try to figure out ways of executing their tasks in an efficient manner.
The third characteristic is inspirational motivation which is the degree in which transformational leaders articulate a vision that inspires and appeals to their followers. Inspirational motivation enables transformational leaders to communicate about the goals of the future with optimism, provide the task at hand meaning and challenges their followers with standards that are high. Their followers, if motivated to act, develop a strong sense of purpose as meaning and purpose the energy that is needed to drive them forward (Nielson et.al, 2012). The visionary aspect of transformational leadership is generally supported by the communication skills making the vision precise, engaging, powerful and understandable making the followers to be more willing to invest a lot of effort in the tasks assigned to them through optimism and encouragement about the future and also believing in their abilities.
Evaluation of Transformational Leadership
The fourth characteristic is that it shares collective organizational consciousness where the leaders understand the consciousness of the organization collectively. This makes them attuned to their followers’ feelings which give them an idea of the actions to take so as to elicit their followers’ desired actions. They are also able to come up with ideas that spur organizational growth creating a shared vision that all the followers feel to be a part of (Jones & Rudd, 2017). Lastly, self-management is where the transformational leaders prove that they can manage themselves well hence, doesn’t need others directions. They are highly motivated, internally, enabling them to direct their organization in the right path. Also, these leaders have values that are aligned with their organization’s values.
Transformational leaders articulate new visions constantly so as to motivate the organization by exhibiting high confidence and passion in their beliefs and also giving more importance to values and ethics while setting organization’s standards that are accountable. These leaders are charismatic and are able to exceptionally influence their followers which compels them the vision with their leaders and take actions that exceed their specified responsibilities. Transformational leadership is advantageous in the following ways; first is its vision which is an important leadership trait (Mandell & Pherwani, 2013). Transformational leadership stands out from the other styles of leadership due to their ability to assess the organization’s current situation quickly which allows a vision for improvement or growth to be formulated. Their vision is well communicated to the other organization leaders and the employees so as to make sure that everyone is on board with their vision. This strength enables the leaders to deal with the organization’s challenges in certain situations as they can clearly see the bigger picture.
The second strength is its ability to motivate and inspire that aligns with its vision. Enthusiasm and passion are important leadership traits as they enable transformational leaders to get their followers in the organization to optimize their performance. These leaders usually rely on their passion to sell their vision to get their followers head into the same direction when the organization is in challenging situations (Bass & Riggio, 2016). Thirdly, transformational leadership creates an enthusiastic working environment enabling them to drive the organization with innovations and changes. As the employees are working through self-motivation, transformational leadership guarantees a high level of output and efficiency.
Transformational leadership style also has some weaknesses; one of them is that the leaders struggle sometimes with detail orientation. This means that transformational leaders sometimes need support from detailed-oriented and more organized people, which also indicates that other additional leadership team or executives who help in maintaining transactional focus are needed to help the vision of transformational leaders to move in the right direction even though these oversights might derail the effectiveness of the organization’s vision (Medley & Larochelle, 2015). Another challenge with this leadership style is that the leaders may rely too much on passion and emotions, making them overlook the reality as well as the truth. Relying too much on enthusiasm restricts the willingness of the transformational leader to delve into the study, research and logical reasoning which enable them to face the harsh truth about the organization’s situation. If the transformational leader is to stabilize success and motivate change in their organization, they must have the willingness to uncover their situations truth.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Transformational leadership is crucial to effective managers as leader effectiveness determines the organization’s success level. These leaders are capable of increasing individual performance beyond expectations thereby making massive changes among their employees and the entire organization. Transformational leadership indulges working as a team as it is effective as the leaders motivate their followers by providing constructive feedback. The important feature of this leadership style is that feedback is also expected from the followers which create a two-way communication (Garcia et.al, 2012). Also, transformational leadership is very effective in emergency situations and in crisis and when projects are carried out in specific fashion. Therefore, this study examines the leaders who have the capability and the capacity to influence their followers and change situations by use of an appealing and challenging vision. Overall, this study has demonstrated the importance of transformational leadership when it comes to dealing with the attitudes of the employees and their well-being, as well as the factors identified that could influence this leadership style’s success. Also, working and organizational conditions may inhibit the leaders from providing ineffective leadership as well as engaging in transformational leadership behaviors (Dionne et.al, 2014). Hence, this style transforms the leaders and the followers so as to enhance their job performance and to help the organization be more successful and productive.
References
Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2016). Transformational leadership. Psychology Press.
Dionne, S. D., Yammarino, F. J., Atwater, L. E., & Spangler, W. D. (2014). Transformational leadership and team performance. Journal of organizational change management, 17(2), 177-193.
García-Morales, V. J., Jiménez-Barrionuevo, M. M., & Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, L. (2012). Transformational leadership influence on organizational performance through organizational learning and innovation. Journal of business research, 65(7), 1040-1050.
Hay, I. (2016). Transformational leadership: Characteristics and criticisms. E-journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership, 5(2).
Jones, D., & Rudd, R. (2017). Transactional, Transformational, or Laissez-Faire Leadership: An Assessment of College of Agriculture Academic Program Leaders'(Deans) Leadership Styles. Journal of Agricultural Education, 49(2), 88-97.
Mandell, B., & Pherwani, S. (2013). Relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership style: A gender comparison. Journal of business and psychology, 17(3), 387-404.
Medley, F., & Larochelle, D. R. (2015). Transformational leadership and job satisfaction. Nursing management, 26(9), 64JJ.
Nielsen, K., Yarker, J., Brenner, S. O., Randall, R., & Borg, V. (2012). The importance of transformational leadership style for the well?being of employees working with older people. Journal of advanced nursing, 63(5), 465-475.
Oreg, S., & Berson, Y. (2011). Leadership and employees’ reactions to change: the role of leaders’ personal attributes and transformational leadership style. Personnel psychology, 64(3), 627-659.
Piccolo, R. F., & Colquitt, J. A. (2016). Transformational leadership and job behaviors: The mediating role of core job characteristics. Academy of Management journal, 49(2), 327-340.
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