The Meaning of Transformational Leadership - Coursework Example

Title: Leadership Student’s Name: Institutional Affiliation: Name of the Course: Date Submitted Leadership Introduction Transformational leadership is a type of leadership whereby leaders are able to broaden and elevate the interests of all stakeholders in order for achievements to be made within the organization. Transformational leaders are always able to bring about awareness and acceptance of the mission and purpose of the organization in a unique manner. They are always able to stimulate employees to think beyond their self interests and to consider the good of the entire organization. Transformational leaders always have a very clear vision of how communication can be managed effectively among all stakeholders within the organization. They act as role models by inspiring employees to be innovative and to take personal risks in order to achieve different organizational goals. Through transformational leadership, employees can adopt measures that are unconventional (but ethical) as part of being innovation in solving problems. The meaning of transformational leadership Transformational leadership extends beyond the traditional notions that emphasize on transactional forms of leadership. In the traditional conception of leadership, emphasis is on corrective action, rewards and mutual exchanges only on condition that the set expectations are met. Through transactional leadership, it is very easy for a centralized control to be maintained. For this reason, managers end up controlling almost all actions, leaving employees few or no opportunities to be creative and innovative. On the other hand, all transformational leaders always trust their subordinates and always leave them enough space and opportunity to gain leadership confidence and grow into responsible leaders. For this reason, transformational leadership is a more development-oriented leadership style compared to the traditional transactional leadership style. It is beneficial to both the individual employees and the entire organizational. Many studies have revealed that transformational leadership is a great way of significantly increasing the level of organizational performance. It is also linked positively to long-term increase in an organization’s customer satisfaction and market share. It leads to increased level of commitment to the vision and mission of the organization. Employees who work in an environment of transformational leadership easily trust the management as well as various organizational citizenship behaviors such as consciousness, sportsmanship and altruism. Most of these behaviors, though discretionary in nature and without any connection with the company’s formal reward system, are critical in the achievement of day-to-day organizational goals. Transformational leaders always articulate a compelling vision of the organization’s future. They use many approaches to explain what they feel is the right course of action to take in order to achieve the set goals and objectives. They are always able to specify the reasons why a strong sense of purpose as well as a collection mission is critical for the long-term survival of the organization. The foundation of transformational leadership is the desire and ability by a leader to instill a strong sense of consciousness in other people by appealing to highly powerful moral ideals and values (Bass 1999, p. 211a). The best transformational leader is one who is able to transform all his followers beyond any dishonorable emotions such as jealousy, fear and greed in order to inspire the principles of justice, liberty and humanitarianism. Transformational leadership is about mentoring, coaching and teaching followers. It is also about empowering and elevating as many people as possible to a higher level. Transformational can be found in any organization and within any level of an organization’s structure. This implies that being a transformational leader entails the ability to inspire one’s superiors, peers, as well as subordinates. Transformation leadership is characterized by feelings of trust, loyalty, admiration and respect towards a leader. All followers feel motivated to offer service as well as to achieve much more than they thought they could achieve. In other words, they are aroused to rise up and pursue higher-order needs that are required for purposes of achieving competitiveness and excellence. Today, few managers are dependent on the coercive power that they legitimately hold in order to make employees do what they are told to do (Bass 1999b, p. 12). Rather, managers tend to engage in a transaction with their employees. They humbly explain what is expected of them and the form of compensation that they will receive upon fulfilling all the requirements. However, in many instances, transactional leadership easily becomes a prescription for mediocrity. This may be the case especially when the leader adopts a passive management style. Such a leader is the kind of person who responds only when certain tasks have not been met. Transformation leadership is always aimed at preventing any such form of mediocrity from taking place. The extent to which the promise of rewards and avoidance of penalties motivates people depends largely on whether or not the leader has full control over all rewards and penalties. It also depends on whether employees are afraid of penalties or are interested in the rewards. In many organizations, leaders have little to say about rewards since employees are rewarded on the basis of seniority, qualifications and the existing policies. Transformational leaders may sometimes feel tied by contract provisions, inadequate resources and organizational politics. However, they must always find ways of dealing with these difficulties in order to prove their appropriateness for the leadership position. Transformational leadership manifests itself through the broadening and elevation of employees’ interests by a leader. Transformational leaders have to be in the forefront in generating awareness as well as acceptance of the mission and purposes of different work groups within an organization. The seniority of transformational leadership manifests itself in the ability by transformational leaders to inspire the heads of different groups to look beyond their own personal interests and to pay attention to the needs of the organization as well as those of group members. In order for transformational leaders to inspire their followers, they may be charismatic. They may need to work hard in order to meet the emotional needs of every employee. They may also need to stimulate all employees intellectually. Attaining charisma, in the view of employees, is critical to becoming a transformational leader. Charismatic leaders are always popular by virtue of the great power and influence that they weird. Employees always want to identify with charismatic leaders, merely because of the high degree of confidence and trust they always have with them. Charismatic leaders always inspire and excite employees by making them aware of the possibility of accomplishing great things only by putting in an extra effort. A critical element that adds to the magnetism of charismatic leaders is the ability to pay attention to the differences that exist among different employees. This is the way in which they act as mentors to the employees in different departments within the organization. Intellectual stimulation in transformational leadership entails the ability to show employees how to look at old problems in a new way. Using this approach, employees are able to see difficulties merely as problems that need to be solved and to put emphasis on rational decisions. Managers who adopt a transformational leadership style are more likely to be viewed by employees as effective and satisfying compared to those who adopt a transactional leadership approach. Different types of evaluations such as performance ratings and standards financial measures have shown a strong correlation between high ratings and transformational leadership. Such evaluations are often carried out through the efforts of supervisors as well as through direct reports. A good example is Boeing’s turnaround after facing the 1969 crisis. This turnaround can be credited to the company’s chief executive, T. Wilson. He emphasized on aggressive marketing, technological progress, and boldness in taking calculated business risks. Employees at Boeing had great confidence in him as well as respect for him as an intelligent engineer and transformational leader. Transformational leaders are also known to maintain better relationships with their supervisors compared to leaders who use transactional styles. Employees tend to assert that they feel obliged to exert more efforts on behalf of organizational managers who present themselves as transformational leaders. Transformational leaders widely vary with regard to the personal styles that use in their work. While some of them are self-effacing, others are flamboyant (Kuhnert 1987, p. 650). What matters, though, it the ability to convert their vision into a reality through hard work and by mobilizing others towards their way of thinking and level of motivation. The best leaders are those who make their presence felt across the organization and in all activities. Employees work harder when they are convinced that the person leading them is a transformational leader. Moreover, they also have to be satisfied with the performance appraisal system being used in the company. It is upon transformational leaders to ensure that the overcome the shortcomings of the existing performance appraisal system in order to keep employees satisfied and motivated. Transformational leadership entails much more than the ability to use mass communication channels. Such channels need to be reinforced by face-to-face communication. Such communication needs to be geared towards improving the performance of the company at all levels (Bass 2009, p. 3). Such communication platforms provide the leader with an opportunity to communicate the social, material and personal benefits to be derived once the right services have been rendered in a satisfactory manner. Although a lot of development has been made in management development programs, some executives feel that leadership is very much like weather; there is always something to talk about but little to do about it. Others say that one’s leadership ability is a mystical attribute that one needs to be born with. Despite these views, there is much that can be done I order to improve organizational leadership. The presence of suitable human resources and organizational policies can inspire many people to develop transformational leadership skills. How transformational leadership helps increase organizational effectiveness Transformational leadership is one of the ways through which an organization image is improved. It also increases the level of success in recruitment, selection, placement, and promotion. This type of leadership also has far-reaching implications for process of training and development of employees in an organization. Consequently, the roles of job design and restructuring of an organization are greatly impacted on by the decisions of transformational leaders (Dvir 2002, p. 738). A firm that employs transformational leaders at all levels conveys a sense of vision to all personnel, suppliers, customers, financial partners and the entire community. Such a firm is viewed as having put its eyes on the future. Confidence arises when employees are pulling together towards the same direction, thanks to the coordination work of transformational managers. Transformational leadership enables organizations recruit the best workforce that the job market has to offer at any given time (Bass & Avolio 2003, p. 29). Prospective employees are always attracted by organizations that are headed by charismatic CEOs. This is because such CEOs are a representation of success, optimism, and dynamism. Moreover, these leaders can inspire other organizational members to make individualized considerations during recruitment interviews. Such members may draw on their own experiences when they were seeking employment at the company. Intellectual minds can easily be motivated to seek challenging employment positions in such an organization as well as to exhibit loyalty to the company throughout their professional lives. Transformational leadership benefits can be easily integrated into programs relating to managerial assessment, employee selection, placement and assistance programs. It can also help in related assessments of various relevant individual differences and personal dimensions. As managers climb the ladder of seniority within an organization, they are expected to become the greatest beneficiaries of transformational leadership. Therefore, they are naturally expected to play their part in showing transformational characteristics in their leadership qualities. The traits that underlie individualized considerations in transformational leaders can be revealed best through an assessment of their level of self-confidence, energy, determination, verbal skills, intellect, and strong ego ideals (Bass 1998, p. 328). Such qualities can best be nurtured within an environment of transformational leadership, whereby face-to-face communication is highly valued and top executives are willing to delegate tasks. Organizations can also benefit greatly from the intellectual skills exhibited by transformational leaders, regardless of the level within which they engage in leadership activities. The best managers are those who promote employees through reference to an employee’s knack for intellectual stimulation towards his peers and subordinates. General, mathematical and creative intellect proves very useful when applied at the top levels of organizational management. Use of intelligent tests may be necessary for purposes of choosing the ideal candidates for promotion. Supervisors who have transformational leadership skills can make a remarkable different in the employees who work under them. This is because managers tend to model their leadership qualities on those that are employed by their immediate supervisors. Therefore, if many leaders at the top are transformational, those in lower cadres are highly likely to become transformational as well. They are likely to nurture transformational leadership skills as they climb the ladder of organizational leadership. Idealized influence is a contribution that transformation leaders bring into an organization. Organizations that operate effectively are those whose team leaders are able to maintain mission clarity through their power of idealized influence. Such leaders become effective in their organizations through expression of values such as respect, trust, and faith that the leader will drive the team towards the right direction, even in circumstances when this seems to be going against the norms that have been established in the company. Effective through transformational leadership can also be seen in the way rewards are given and recognition accorded to hardworking employees. This impacts positively on the current level of employees’ performance as well as that of the future. This is because they feel that their presence in the company is being appreciated. Transformational leaders bring about new dimensions to the organizational requirements for success. Some of the resources whose necessity is made clear include personnel, monetary support, access to people, equipment and consultations, both within the organization and externally. There are many practical aspects that become discernible when employees have all the resources that they need in order to complete the job. First, they attach more importance to the work that they do. They also believe in the tasks they are undertaking since the resources meant to facilitate these tasks have been provided by the organization. In this regard, the cordial relations between the transformational leader and his superior are very critical. When these relations exist, potential causes of organizational conflicts are avoided. Transformational leadership has far-reaching implications for a company’s organizational structure, particularly with regard to the work of multifunctional teams. Multifunctional teams comprise members of different functions within the same organization. Cooperation is required in different functional areas of an organization in order for cycles of product innovation and renewal to function in the right manner. In the traditional setting, organizations have tended to use a sequential mode during efforts aimed at innovation (Bass & Avolioa 1994, p. 552). Different group members within the same area have tended to engage in tasks in every phase during the innovation process. Whenever there is lack of communication at any level during the innovation, the resulting product ends up not being feasible. In order to avoid such a scenario, the traditional approach to innovation tends to be slow-paced while the needs of customers are always difficult to meet. To avoid these problems, organizations have found multifunctional teams to be effective tools in all phases of innovation. These teams effectively oversee the innovation process from inception to entry into the market. Transformation leaders bring together multifunctional teams whose members are from different backgrounds. These leaders can bring together these people on a short notice in order to solve problems that are of great significance to an organization. The transformational leader’s tasks tend to be complicated because of the fact that they cannot rely on the leadership styles and personal attributes that favored them in previously held traditional leadership positions. Multifunctional teams succeed in bringing about innovation when leaders participate in all the levels of engagement. In most cases, transformational leaders engage in coordination work while at the same time maintaining a sense of focus and direction among all team members. They may participate in the idea-generation process, which marks the beginning of the innovation process. The next phase, which involves research work and determination of technological and market feasibility, may require transformational leaders to use their technical and professional skills in order to provide leadership. Their intellectual skills also come into play. It is their responsibility to set out the limits of research and to indicate when time for the actual product renewal or development of a new product has come. During these activities, the leader also has the responsibility of ensuring that different challenges that employees face are notified to the relevant departments and relevant corrective measures undertaken. Part of the problem that transformational leaders have to solve entails the composition of different members of multifunctional teams. They have to bring together teams of specialists who have nothing in common except that they are people working towards the development of the same product for the same organization. It is only a transformational leader with the ability to put individualized consideration to each team’s needs who can oversee the product development process to the end. Sensitivity to individual teams’ differences means that no one will fear that the leader will gloss over the different constraints that different members face. The differences may be in the form of divergent career ladders, different bosses for the multifunctional team members, and different needs and challenges. Conclusion Transformational leadership is needed for organizations to thrive in today’s competitive business environment. These leaders are always a great asset to an organization, mainly because of the sense of connectedness that they bring about between different people, tasks and goals in a working environment. Transformational leaders thrive in their ability to use their unique styles in order to instill self-confidence in themselves as well as their followers. These skills are part of a leader’s personality, although they can also be learnt. Organizations can become more effective by elevating transformational leaders to positions of greater responsibility and not merely delegating tasks to them. Improvement in the quality of products made can be achieved through giving such leaders the power to coordinate different multifunctional teams. References Bass, B, 2009, From Transactional to Transformational Leadership: Learning to Share the Vision, Retrieved from ftp://papers.econ.mpg.de/IMPRS/SumSchool2009/priv/Giessner/3%20charisma/Bass.pdf on September 24, 2010. Bass, B, 1999a, ‘Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior’ The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 181-217. Bass, B, 1999b, ‘Two Decades of Research and Development in Transformational Leadership’, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 9 – 32. Bass, B, 1998, Transformational leadership: industrial, military, and educational impact, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New York. Bass, B, & Avolio, B, 2003, Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership, Routledge, London. Bass, B, & Avolioa, B, 1994, ‘Transformational Leadership and Organizational Culture’, International Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 541 – 554. Dvir, T, 2002, ‘Impact of Transformational Leadership on Follower Development and Performance: A Field Experiment’, The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 735-744. Kuhnert, K, 1987, ‘Transactional and Transformational Leadership: A Constructive/Developmental Analysis’ The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 12, No. 4 pp. 648-657. Read More