TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Leadership Styles And Attitudes

Leadership Styles And Attitudes

Introduction

Transformational leadership begins with the development of a vision, a view of the future that will excite and convert potential followers. This vision may be developed by the leader or the senior team or may emerge from a series of general discussions, requiring energy and commitment, as few people immediately buy into a radical vision, and some much more slowly than others. Transformational leaders thus seize opportunity and employ tools at their disposal to gain numbers and create a following (Burns, 2008).

However, transformational leaders have to exercise caution with matters of trust, as personal integrity is a critical element of the package that they are promoting. In effect, they are selling themselves as well as the common vision. They motivate followers by appealing to strong emotion regardless of the ultimate effects on the followers, not necessarily always tending to positive ethical values. Transformational leaders are often charismatic but may not be as self-absorbed as this description would suggest (Bass, 2005). In this way, they succeed through esoteric, rather than exoteric, motivation. This paper discusses Inproving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership that empowers employees and influences change in the organizational culture.

Discussion

Transformational leadership exists in a continuum with transactional leadership, and therefore, a leader may exhibit traits of both leadership styles. It recognizes the need for organizational practices such as performance appraisals, job descriptions, management by objectives, performance-based pay, position grading, and organizational process analysis and clarification. It also recognizes and uses praise, recognition, and the delegation of responsibility and work when both leaders and followers are in agreement as to which tasks hold importance (Burns, 2008).

The transactional leader works through creating clearly structured frameworks whereby it is unambiguous to subordinates what is required and what rewards are received for obedience. Reprimand is not always explicit but well understood, and formal systems of discipline are usually administrable. The transactional leader is responsible and fully accountable for allocating work to subordinates, irrespective of whether the latter have resource or capability to perform the assigned tasks (Bass, 2005). In the event of mishap, the subordinate is considered to be personally at fault and penalized for failure. Alternatively, in contrast to transactional leaders, transformational leaders motivate by appealing to followers' self-interests.

Focusing on the transformational leader factors, leaders with idealized influence become role models that followers want to identify with and emulate (Burns, 2008).

These leaders are ...