A transformative leader is not just about bringing in changes. It is a complex concept to understand. A transformative leader would try to bring in changes affecting the fundamentals of a business.
It tries to change the workforce’s mentality positively and make an organizational overhaul. Try to follow along, and you will understand what it means to be a transformative leader and how you can be one.
Transformational Leadership Overview
The world of business is changing. The landscape is becoming more and more conducive to newer forms of leadership modules. Transformational leadership is one such form of leadership.
This form of leadership is best suited for today’s fast-paced and diverse workforce. Even though this form of leadership has risen in popularity, the leadership style is hardly new. This form of leadership originated back in the 70s.
A business coach named MacGregor Burns coined the term and method of transformational leadership. Later, this model was revised and updated by Kevin Ford. Ford is a renowned business analyst who has worked on other leadership modules as well.
According to Ford, here are some of the most prominent styles of leadership that one can encounter in a corporate setting.:
- Tactical: These leaders are straightforward and offer a certain level of operational expertise in handling complex problems.
- Strategic: These leaders primarily focus on the future and can simultaneously work on the present to move closer to that goal.
- Transformational: This form of leader focuses more on bringing positive changes to the organization. Changes that will allow businesses to grow and become more profitable.
These are the three most common and noteworthy variants of organizational leadership. However, today, we will be discussing and primarily focusing on transformational leadership and understanding how it functions and can be used in order to create a healthy organizational culture.
Transformational Vs Transactional
Young leaders often try to find a suitable leadership style and stick to it religiously. This is a common practice and does bring out some results. However, jazzing things up and mixing leadership styles have been proven to yield better results.
As a result, more and more leaders are trying to check out newer combinations of leadership styles to see which one works. Hence, through trial and error, it was found that the combination of transformational and transactional leadership works best.
Transformational leadership functions on the proponents of change and revamping organizational structure to improve business. However, transactional leadership is about transactions between leaders and employees.
Transactional leadership focuses on rewarding employees for their hard work. This transaction is usually done with the bits of help of rewards and recognition. This system of rewards and recognition is proven to help employees reach their true potential and contribute to better work.
Meanwhile, transformational leadership tries to inspire people by helping them bring positive changes to the plate. Therefore, a transformational relationship focuses more on the present problem and tries to address it from the core.
Primary Components Of Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership is all about bringing in positive changes. These positive changes try to rely on components like charisma, communication, empathy, and adaptability. All of these can bring about positive behavioral changes.
Therefore, the primary focus of the transformational form of leadership is understanding what an organization needs to reach its goal. Here are some of the primary components of definitions of leadership.
You need to understand if you want to have a career as a Business Intelligence Engineer to achieve greatness. Therefore, follow along.
#1
The foremost quality of transformative leadership is individualized consideration. A good transformational leader tends to listen to an employee’s concerns. Subsequently, they will try to provide you with an adequate solution.
However, this whole thing needs to come from a place of individuality. You cannot create a one-size-fits-all solution for people’s individualized problems. In fact, you should come up with something more curated.
#2
Good transformational leaders tend to motivate their team to work towards a more unified goal. This unified goal could be a business goal or something else. However, it is the transformational leader’s job to unify and bring people together to work towards a unified endeavor.
A transformational leader must be a great orator to bring people under their wing. A transformational leader must lead by example and help people realize the unified goal or the bigger picture.
#3
A transactional leader focuses on the give-and-take aspect of a business relationship. In other words, an employee works with the expectation to receive rewards or other forms of tangible rewards. Meanwhile, transformational leaders work with the help of influence.
In other words, a transformational leader appeals to the morality of employees. This is a huge shift from the transactional leadership. Therefore, a good transformational leader can help a group of employees understand the importance of a unified goal and work towards it with more clarity.
#4
Last but not least is the intellectual stimulation. A transformational leader understands that nobody is working ‘beneath them.’ Instead, they are working ‘with them’ towards a unified goal. This realization brings in a newer form of clarity on different leadership roles.
As a result, most transformational leaders are often seen to be challenging their peers, assumptions, etc. A transformational leader would always try to see things from a different perspective and, therefore, allow input. This improves the chance of success. Greatly.
Primary Traits Of A Succesful Transformational Leadership
We have mostly covered all the important components of transformative leadership. However, we are yet to understand how this form of leadership manifests itself.
In this closing section, we will see the character traits that you need to possess to have a career as a business intelligence engineer or a transformative leader.
Here they are:
- Self-awareness: a transformative leader needs to be self-aware. They cannot say or do anything they want. There needs to be some semblance and self-imposed awareness.
- Open-Mindedness: A transformational leader needs to keep an open mind and approach problems with that mind. They cannot approach problems with a closed mind.
- Innovate & Adapt: A leader expects adaptability and innovation from its employees. However, a transformative leader would first like to bring in those changes from within.
- Proactivity: A good leader is a proactive leader. A proactive leader is someone who will take charge and try to reach at a solution.
- Humility: Last but not least, a good transformative leader needs to lead with humility. They cannot be arrogant or self-centered. They need to understand that they are also one of the cobs in a robust machinery, just like their employees.
The End
In summation, this is all there is to know and understand about transformational leadership. Therefore, if you happen to find yourself at a precipice of new leadership roles at your job, you must consider adopting these traits and characteristics to become a good leader.
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