Transformational Leadership
Benefits and Limitations of Transformational Leadership
Being a transformational leader means having the ability to really inspire and motivate employees to achieve new heights, but it is only one leadership style.
Transformational leadership is yet another attempt to define leadership in terms of style or personality rather than by function. Consider, for example, sales and marketing. These are organizational functions; we can define them in terms of the purpose they serve. Similarly, a functional definition of leadership states that it serves the purpose of moving a group in new directions. Transformational leadership is an exciting idea but it has its limitations. However, it can be useful if we think of it only as one among many leadership styles rather than as an attempt to state how the best leaders should behave.
What Is Transformational Leadership?
Developed initially for political leaders by James McGregor Burns in the late 1970s, it was eagerly adopted for business leadership. It has four components: Charisma or idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration. Being charismatic is like having sex appeal. It's having a dynamic, energetic and commanding presence. We idealize such people. Martin Luther King is a great example. Leaders who are inspirational motivators appeal to basic values with enthusiasm and an eloquent speaking style to offer a compelling vision. Intellectual stimulation means inspiring people to think differently or creatively by suggesting new ways of looking at things. Finally, showing individualized consideration means paying attention to people as individuals and helping them meet their needs.
Burns and his followers contrasted transformational leadership with "transactional leadership" which is based on simple exchange, rewarding followers for a job well done.
Limitations of Transformational Leadership
There is a great deal of perfectly effective leadership that is not transformational. It is possible to lead by citing hard facts in a quiet, soft or even assertive manner. Also, too much emphasis is placed on style over substance. Today, substance has become extremely important, including integrity or character and content (as in "content is king"). There is a growing demand for "evidence based" decision making where, to show leadership, you need to cite hard evidence. Whether you can present your business case in an inspiring manner is not as important as having solid facts to back you up. You can have great sales skills to get people on board but if you do so for unethical purposes, this style of leadership can be dangerous. Cult leaders, for example, are often transformational. Secondly, without good content, leaders have nothing worth saying so it doesn't matter how powerfully they say it.
Participative leadership means involving employees in making decisions. To be a participative leader, it isn't necessary to be an inspirational speaker. Transformational leaders make their mark primarily by promoting a vision in an inspiring mannner. We admire such leaders, but they aren't necessarily skilled at employee engagement. They are like skilled sales people or promoters so they want to sell you their vision. In today's knowledge intensive world, the participative leadership style is likely to be more engaging and motivating for knowledge workers.
Another issue is the fact that transformational leadership has, for some people, become the very meaning of leadership while its transactional counterpart is identified with management. This is unfortunate. The beauty of a purely functional way of defining leadership and management (leadership promotes new directions; management executes them) is that you can leave the style question completely open. Now we can say that inspirational leaders move followers to change direction while inspirational managers motivate employees to work harder. That is, style pertains to how you influence people; it is not a way of defining leadership. Suppose you lead by example by just quietly being the first to try something new. There is no inspiring speech or vision offered here.
Benefits of Transformational Leadership
There is no doubt that being able to inspire people, stimulate them to think differently and pay attention to their needs are great ways for a leader to behave. If you have good content and integrity and can present a case for change with enough enthusiasm to inspire people, you are more likely to win them over than if your communication style is sleep-inducing. Being inspirational is most useful in situations where there is no evidence or the facts are unclear. This is especially true with clashes of values or standards of behavior. Martin Luther King appealed to a basic sense of fair play to move the U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw segregation on buses. The facts alone wouldn't have done it.
The truth is, however, that different influencing styles work better with different audiences. Also, we live in a much more knowledge-driven world today where knowing what you are talking about has become just as important as how you say it.
