Leadership is a very essential ability to lead people in order to come up in doing a successful task. It said that leadership is a complex series of paradoxes that are not simply understood or reduced to a single formula; what we make of it depends upon our perspective, and the trade-offs that we are prepared to make (Grint, 2005).
According to Adair, leadership is about giving direction, especially in times of change; inspiring or motivating people to work willingly; building and maintaining teamwork; providing an example and producing a personal output (Adair, 2002).Among the other leadership models, Transformational leadership had kept me interested because upon researching and relating it to my personal experience, I find it the most effective one. ORIGIN James MacGregor Burns was the first one who proposed the concept of transformational leadership. He stated that his theory is based partly on the work of Maslow, who introduced the hierarchy of needs, said in brief that as fundamental needs are satisfied, higher needs develop. He became interested in what happens when leaders deal with followers in such a way as to help raise them through higher and higher stages of self-realization (Brandt, 1979).This theory recognizes that people have a range of needs, and the extent to which they will perform effectively in the workplace will be affected by the extent to which these needs are satisfied (Transformational Leadership, 2007).
He defines this as a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents (McCloskey, 2013). Burns contends that leaders and followers are peers of one another, each playing a different role, the leader tends to look for what motivates the follower, keeping him productive and moving forward (Evans, 2013).This theory was then expounded by Dr. Bernard Bass. However, there was an important difference with their works because Burn’s work focuses more on social reform by moral elevation of followers’ values and needs while Bass’ theory focuses more on attaining practical organizational objectives on social reform (Goertzen, 2013). He explained this model in terms of how the leader affects followers, who are intended to trust, admire and respect the transformational leader (Transformational Leadership, 2007).
He implied that transformational leaders motivate their followers to exceed their own self-interest for the good of their group, organization or community, country or society as a whole (Winston & Patterson, n. d. ). These leaders raise the awareness of their constituencies about what are important, increase concerns for achievement, self-actualization and ideals (Bass, 2000).
Bass had formulated the four concepts of transformational leadership which include idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration.For idealized influence, leaders serve as outstanding role models for their followers as they display conviction, emphasize important personal values, and connect those values with organizational goals and ethical consequences of decisions (Goertzen, 2013) It is very essential that you should be a good example for your followers. Influencing is the process of guiding the activities of organization members in appropriate directions that lead to attainment of management system objectives (Certo, 1992).Because whenever human beings notice a difference between what is said and what is done, they gear their own standards to the example set by those at the top (Arnold, 2012). One of the exciting aspects of role models is their cumulative effect, thus, the greater number of role models available for new employees to emulate, the greater the possibilities for new employees to perform well (Marquis & Huston, 1996).
For example, in a group of employees, a leader had done all his responsibilities well and successfully achieved their goal.Upon knowing that the strategy that the leader has made was successful, his followers may imitate his ways on achieving the goals for them to be successful as well. In that way, your followers are learning from interacting with you and observing your actions and attitudes. This is the degree to which the leader behaves in admirable ways that cause followers to identify with the leader and they display convictions, take stands and appeal to followers on an emotional level (Transformational Leadership, 2007). According to Templar; “Everyone needs someone to look up to, someone they want to respect and emulate.Every one of your team has a special relationship with you.
You are their leader, inspiration, mentor, guide, teacher, and guardian. To be all these things means you have to set an example. You have to set standard, you have to be that role model” (Templar, 2005) For the inspirational motivation, leaders articulate an appealing vision of the future and challenge followers’ high standards and expectations in which they also provide encouragement, optimism, and purpose for what needs to be done (Goertzen, 2013). Motivation is an inner state that causes individuals to act in certain ways that ensure the accomplishment of some goal (Certo, 1992).For leadership, achieving a vision requires motivating and inspiring by keeping people move in the right direction, despite major obstacle to change, by appealing to basic but often untapped human needs, values and emotions (Kotter, 1990).
Leaders with inspirational motivation challenge followers with high standards, communicate optimism about future goals, and provide meaning for the task at hand because their followers need to have strong sense of purpose if they are motivated to act (Transformational Leadership, 2007).In order to motivate a group of people, you must possess these five behaviours; a. informally recognizing team member’s achievements b. providing team members with feedback concerning ineffective performance c.
ensuring that team members are informed of steps that can improve their performance d. implementing rewards and punishments to encourage and sustain good performance and e. inspiring people through such means as being charismatic, creating visions, telling interesting stories, and being highly ethical (Dubrin, 2013). Your followers will be motivated if they know that they did something right when you recognize their achievements.Furthermore, they will continue to possess that behaviour for them to continually accomplish their task and helping the group to attain their common goal. Same informing them with their unsuccessful results, by doing so, they will be motivated to search for another way for them to execute their work correctly.
And as a leader, you’ll also need to discuss to them the possible actions that they may take in order to guide them towards a more acceptable results. Motivation matters because it increases efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity and makes it more likely that whatever results are targeted will be hit (Forsyth, 2006).In order to motivate other people, a leader must follow its six principles which consists of; being motivated yourself, select people who are highly motivated, set realistic and challenging targets, remember that progress motivates, provide fair rewards and give recognition (Adair, 2002). It is very important that in order for you to motivate your followers, you should also be well motivated. Only then can you fall back on a few very useful approaches on how you can create conditions conducive to motivating others (Arnold, 2012).
According to Certo, there are five principles to motivate followers which includes (1) felt needs cause behaviour aimed at reducing those needs, (2) the degree of desire to perform a particular behaviour is determined by an individual’s perceived value of the result of performing the behaviour and the perceived probability that the behaviour will cause the result to materialize, (3) the perceived value of reward for a particular behaviour is determined by both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards that result in need satisfaction when the behaviour is accomplished, (4) individuals can effectively accomplish a task only if they understand what the task requires and have the ability to perform the task, and (5) the perceived fairness of a reward influences the degree of satisfaction generated when the reward is received (Certo, 1992).Another concept is Intellectual Stimulation whereas leaders question old assumptions and stimulate new perspectives and innovative ways of doing things addition to that, they also encourage followers to think creatively to address current and future challenges (Goertzen, 2013). Through this concept, it helps promote critical thinking and problem solving to make organization better (Inspirirng Enterprise, 2011). According to Arnold, innovation is the one core skill that any organization needs.
One of the good examples of this is Steve Jobs, who founded Apple which is one of the most successful companies of the world.He was not the first person to think of developing an affordable computer at home, developing a new generation of music players, developing a cell phone that would epitomize a new generation of smartphones, but instead, his innovation lies in spotting the true potential of great ideas and implementing them to unparalleled effect (Arnold, 2012). In this factor, the leader encouraged followers to question assumptions and look at old problems in new ways to enable the followers to be more innovative and creative (Bass, 2000). The last one is the Individual Consideration in which leaders provide and carefully listen to followers’ needs that includes advising, teaching or coaching their followers with the intention of advancing follower development (Goertzen, 2013).Elkins and Keller (2003) stated that the inspirational motivation of providing a common vision for the project enables team members from different disciplines to work together to bring technological innovation to fruition while intellectual stimulation encourages team members from disparate disciplines to look problems from new vantage points that can enhance innovation (Madoyan, 2013).
Northouse (2011) states that the weaknesses have many components that seem too broad, treat leadership more as a personality trait than as a learned behaviour, and have the potential for abusing power (Hall, Johnson, Wysocki, & Kepne, 2002). In order to be an effective leader using transformational leadership, one must consider many things that can lead the whole group to a successful task. Since they can influence their followers and serves as a role model, one should be careful with the things that he do. He should be a good example to his followers so they may imitate it. A lazy leader may have lazy followers too.
It is also necessary to have good communication skills when doing this type of leadership because it deals more on interacting with your followers in order for you to influence, inspire, motivate and coach them. Creativity, team-orientation, appreciation of others, teaching and responsibility are some of the traits that a leader must possess for him to utilize this model of leadership (Gh. Jandaghi, 2009).Transformational leadership has been an effective and tested kind of leadership as proven by many famous leaders such as Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Theresa which they based it on values.
According to Burns, this model is training the followers to be future leaders and leaders into moral agents (Madoyan, 2013).These trained followers can be an added asset in the company as they can tend to gain loyalty with them because they are the one who mold them into great leaders as they are now and they can contribute innovation that can make an impact on the company’s growth. Transformational leadership is a vital role for effective managers because leader effectiveness determines the success level of the organization (Hall, Johnson, Wysocki, & Kepne, 2002). Based on my work experience, I have been influenced and motivated by my supervisors in a good way for us to achieve our targets. I have worked in a fast paced industry so all of the tasks are time pressured.
So whenever I didn’t hit my daily targets, we will have a discussion on how we can enhance our performance together. My supervisor has given me tips to motivate me in doing more than what is expected and also asked me of my inputs regarding that matter.And in a period of time, specifically in a week, we will evaluate together how the plan came up. And after we determined that it was successful, he will appreciate my efforts and still giving me his help for improving. I have been promoted to a higher position by following those things that my supervisor taught me.
And when I took a higher career step as an operations officer, I adapted that leadership style and it helped me with dealing with my followers and achieving our goals together. It has been proven that combining the 4 I’s in transformational leadership is very effective in building organizations and preparing the followers to become future leaders.
