Transformational Leadership Theory and Its Aspects
Question:
Discuss about the Transformational Leadership for Intelligence and Charisma.
Leadership can be defined as the practical skill that is present within an individual to lead as well as guide the other team members in any specific project. The person, who fulfils the duty of leadership, is known as a leader (Van Wart, 2013). The study of leadership has several important theories that solely involve traits, attitude, functions, behaviour, values, situational interaction, vision, intelligence, charisma and many more. These leadership theories help to know about the various types of leaderships and how well a situation can be handled in a project or any organization. The most popular significant theories include Great Man Theory, Trait Theory, Behavioural Theories, Role Theory, Charismatic Theory, Transactional Theory, Transformational Theory and many others (Antonakis & House, 2014). The following report outlines a brief description on the leadership theory of Transformational theory and its aspects. Moreover, personal experiences are also shared for this particular leadership theory.
Transformational leadership can be defined as the specific leadership style, where any worker works with his subordinates for the successful identification of required changes and thus creating a vision for the guidance of that change (Avolio & Yammarino, 2013). This eventually helps to execute those changes within the project group or team. This transformational leadership is responsible for serving to enhance the overall morale, performance and motivation of the project members.
Transformational leadership even inspires the people in achieving the remarkable or unexpected results. This type of leadership provides autonomy to the people and thus they can take decisions once the training is over. The other name of transformational leadership is quiet leadership (Price & Weiss, 2013). Moreover, this type of leadership eventually mobilizes the people for getting the work done perfectly. It even helps in the conflict resolution in any project team.
Transformational leadership comprises of several significant characteristics or aspects. These main aspects are given below:
- i) Self Management: This is the first and the foremost aspect of transformational leadership. It helps to the project management as well as themselves (Kark & Shamir, 2013). This particular aspect helps in motivating to direct the organization in right path.
- ii) Ability in Calculating Risks: The second aspect is the ability in calculating the correct risks. These risks are the most significant threats of any project and they help to understand the difficult situations of that typical project.
Taking Tough Decisions: This is the third important aspect of the transformational leadership (Effelsberg, Solga & Gurt, 2014). Various tough and difficult decisions could be taken with the help of this leadership.
- iv) Sharing Collective Organizational Consciousness: Transformational leadership helps in sharing as well as understanding the collective consciousness of the project. it eventually helps to know about the perspectives of the team members and thus a clear idea is given about the actions that are to be taken for the betterment of the project.
- v) Entertain New Ideas: Another important aspect of the transformational leadership is that it helps to entertain new and innovative ideas (Odumeru & Ogbonna, 2013). It helps in understanding the truth that success of any project is completely dependent on the team effort.
- vi) Provides Autonomy to the Members: The next important and significant aspect of the transformational leadership is that it is responsible for providing autonomy to the members. Since, it provides autonomy to the project members; it helps the group members to take their own decisions.
Leading with Vision: Transformational leadership helps in the setting of an achievable and realistic visionary for the project (Braun et al., 2013). Thus, communication with the vision is done effectively with the followers.
Adaptability: The next important aspect of the transformational leadership is the adaptability. This type of leadership helps to adapt with the changing market constantly for keeping in moving forward.
There are several challenges that are faced by the project leaders while executing any particular project (Avolio & Yammarino, 2013). The most significant challenges faced by the project managers in a project are as follows:
- i) Misalignment between Business Objectives: This is the most basic challenge that is faced by the project executives or project leaders in any specific project. When there are drifts in the objectives of a project, it is evident that the project would face significant losses as there would be lack of team work.
- ii) Project Delays: This is the next challenge in any specific project. Any type of delay in the project would incur more expenses and thus the project would be in losses.
Conflicts: This is again another important challenge in any project (Antonakis & House, 2014). The conflicts between the project members often turn out to risky for the project members to execute their business operations.
- iv) Difficulty in Execution: The fourth important and significant challenge within a project is the difficulty in executing that project. The most problematic situations are the wastage of resources, opportunities and time and thus divert the attention of the management for hindering the project delivery.
- v) Redundant and Overlapping Projects: Due to the waste resources, the redundant and the overlapping projects occur (Price & Weiss, 2013). These projects are extremely unprofitable and they incur huge expenses, hence, reducing the potential benefits of the project.
- vi) Unrealistic Business Values: The deliverables of any project determine the business values of that project. If those deliverables are late or does not arrive on time, the business is supposed to lose the opportunities and thus this is a major challenge for the project managers.
The challenges faced by the project managers in any particular project could be easily mitigated by the help of transformational leadership (Van Wart, 2013). The most interesting mitigation techniques of the transformational leadership are given below:
- i) Conflict Resolution: This is the first and the foremost mitigation technique of transformational leadership. This particular leadership helps to reduce the conflicts of the project and thus the projects does not incur much losses.
- ii) Encouraging New Ideology: This is the next technique to mitigate the challenges of any project (Braun et al., 2013). New ideas and ideologies are always welcomed in the transformational leadership and thus this type of leadership is extremely popular in all projects.
Challenges Faced by Project Managers
Exceptional People Skills: The third significant technique for mitigating the challenges of any project is the identification of the exceptional people skills or exceptional skills in the project members.
- iv) Providing Mitigation in Redundant Projects: The next important technique that is present in the transformational leadership is the mitigation of redundant and overlapped projects (Van Wart, 2013).
All these mitigation techniques help in the mitigation of all the challenges faced in the project by the project manager.
Transformational leadership can be defined as the leadership theory that helps to work to change the system and thus maximizes the capacity and capability of the team and also solves the challenges by searching for experiences, which are absolutely obsolete for the project. The most popular examples of transformational leaders mainly include William Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker, Ross Perot, John D. Rockeffer and many more.
I have my personal experience with this popular leadership theory. I completed and executed my first project, when I was in school. We were a group of six and we had to complete our science project. Since, I had better knowledge with the subject, I was appointed as the project leader of that project. My other class mates did not take this incident sportingly and they opposed me in my every action. I was extremely taken back with the incident, however with my teacher’s support, I continued with my duties.
I understood that since, I was their class mate; they were not ready to accept my decision or leadership. My best friend was also in that project team and he supported me. Thus, conflicts were raised in the team and our science project was getting delayed. Finally, I came up with the idea of transformational leadership. I researched about this leadership theory and was finally able to learn about the aspects and characteristics of this typical leadership theory. The most significant characteristic of transformational leadership is that the leader himself takes up the first step in the project. He leads or rather guides the rest of the team members and even encourages the ideas and actions of the team members. I did the same thing. I took the main responsibility of the project and gave my team members options to choose their own duties. They were thus happy with the decision and took their own decisions. They were successful in completing their project duties even before me and hence our science project was completed on time. The conflicts were also solved with this transformational leadership as conflict resolution is one of the major characteristic of transformational leadership. I was well appreciated by my teacher for my excellent leadership skills and knowledge.
Apart from the transformational leadership, I also have experience with the Situational Leadership theory. This specific type of leadership theory defines the fact that there is no best style of leadership. It all depends on the situation of a project. The most effective leadership is completely based on tasks and how well those tasks are being executed. Situational Leadership eventually is made of two typical and fundamental concepts. They are the leadership style and the Performance Readiness level of the group or individual. There are four behaviour types in the situational leadership. They are as follows:
- i) SI: Directing: It is the one way communication where the leader instructs everything to his subordinates.
- ii) S2: Coaching: It is the two way communication, where after getting the instructions, the team member is supporting the project leader.
Mitigation Techniques for Challenges Faced in the Project
S3: Supporting: This is the shared decision making features of the project team. It helps to maintain the relation of the leader and the team member.
- iv) S4: Delegating: The team member takes up the responsibility of taking the decision and the team leader monitors him.
I had a past experience with the Situational Leadership theory. Few years back, a building was being constructed in our locality, right beside the only children’s park. The problem occurred, when the owner of the building decided to buy the park and utilize that plot as his parking lot. I raised my voice in against of this and with my whistle blowing; few more people were involved in this protest. Since, I was the first to protest, I was the leader in his situation. However, I knew that I cannot be claimed as the situational effective leader since I have not fulfilled all the duties of S1 to S4.
In the first behaviour of S1, I directed my team members to write to the local police and file a written complaint against the owner of the building. For S2, I was supported by my entire locating and all of them wet to the local police station for filing a complaint. For S3, all of us took the decision to file a case against the builder for S4, my project members decided to talk to the builder for one final time before filing a case against him. I completely, supported the team members and they went to the builder. They were successful in making him understand that he was taking a wrong decision.
Since, I took the first step and was with the team till the end, I was termed as the leader of the group. Thus, I was an effective leader as I was successful in completing all the four situations. I learnt the lesson that an effective leader should always support their team members and should take their ideas and decisions.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that leadership is the practical skill that helps any individual or person to guide or lead the rest of the team members or employees in any particular project or organization. Leader is the person, who is responsible for fulfilling the duties of leadership. Leader helps in the creation of an aspiring vision of the future and motivation as well as inspiring people in engaging with that vision. Furthermore, a leader even manages or controls the delivery of the vision. Study of leadership helps to identify and recognize situations in terms of various attributes. There are various leadership theories that are utilized for knowing regarding the several leadership kinds and how well a leader can handle any difficult situation. The most famous and significant leadership theories are the Great Man Theory, Situational theory, Servant Leadership theory, Transactional Theory, Authentic Leadership theory, Charismatic Theory, Transformational Theory and many more. The above report has properly outlined a detailed explanation on the popular theory of leadership, namely, Transformational theory with relevant details. Furthermore, personal experiences are also shared for this particular leadership theory and Situational Leadership theory in the report.
References
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