Turning the Ship Around: The Power of Transformational Leadership

“Transformational leaders empower others, enabling them to achieve willingly.” Leadership can be defined as an ability to influence, inspire, and help others to become the best of themselves. Influential leaders significantly impact the people surrounding them and encourage them to become the best version of themselves and reach new heights in life.

Transformational leadership is one of the styles of leadership that can fill others with a positive attitude. As such, leaders are filled with energy, enthusiasm, and passion and can induce self-confidence and positive vibes in others who follow. These leaders don’t depend on others but take full charge themselves. They focus on helping the group members grow together by supporting and guiding them in every situation. Hard work and determination are the keys to success, but the proper guidance and motivated leader is equally important to keep up the team spirit and achieve the desired success. Transformational leaders fulfill the criteria of being such leaders.

Transformational leaders have distinct characteristic features that help them promote growth and loyalty and instill employee confidence. These leaders do not just work on theory but stimulate the energy among others through intellectual criticism and positively influence them to work for the whole team’s benefit. Inspirational motivation becomes an essential criterion of transformational leadership that significantly helps others improve their work.

Significance of transformational leadership

Transformational leadership is a model of leadership that is seen and can be implemented across a vast spectrum, including education, entertainment, politics, finance, technology, and other different industries. James MacGregor Burns first put forth the concept of transformational leadership, further expanded by Bernard M. Bass, who described transformational leadership based on the leaders’ impact on their followers. Bass also suggested the four main components of transformational leadership, which are defined as

• Intellectual stimulation: As creativity is a form of intelligence and helps find innovative solutions to problems, transformational leaders challenge the status quo and stimulate creative ideas among employees or team members. Such leaders will always encourage people to find new ways and work hard toward their dreams to succeed.
• Individualized consideration: Easy access is required for the leaders and is of utmost importance for the employees to discuss the problems and find solutions to the situations or issues that arise. To foster such supportive relationships, transformational leaders keep lines of communication open so that people find their comfort zone to discuss and share ideas with the leaders.
• Inspirational motivation: Transformational leaders are presented with unique personalities and have a clear vision of their goals that can be articulated to their followers. These leaders also help others to work with passion and positive energy and inspire them to fulfill tasks effectively.
• Idealized Influence: Transformational leaders have a personality and aura everyone aspires to and wants to follow. As everyone trusts and respects such leaders, they are idealized and followed by everyone.

Transformational leaders have the potential to create a hardworking, loyal workforce with an excellent possibility to achieve great things in life. Some typical traits commonly seen amongst almost all transformational leaders include creative ideas and awareness of the self-potential and worth through which they can motivate others to work on their dreams. They have strong willpower to take responsibility and determine calculated and well-informed risks.

Great and efficient leaders not only impose their ideas and orders on others but also have the stamina and open-mindedness to listen to other people’s proposals or suggestions. These leaders encourage others to communicate and participate in constructive criticism and frame new ideas and ideologies to work differently and efficiently in which they always support their employees or subordinates. They are emotionally intelligent and never let themselves be driven by negative thoughts and emotions. In addition to all such qualities, these types of leaders are active problem solvers who are always ready to take full charge and responsibility for the situations themselves.

Conclusion

Leadership is a great responsibility; hence, transformational leaders should remain positive in every situation, whatever life throws at them. They should always work as a team with their fellow members and inspire them to reach great heights in life.