The purpose of this post is to familiarize you with transformational leadership. We’ll talk about the meaning of this leadership style, its various characteristics, and its advantages. By the end of this post, I hope you are inspired to use transformational leadership as a real and practical leadership practice to get the most out of yourself and your team while achieving the goals of the organization you work for.
Transformational Leadership: What Is It?
My definition of transformational leadership, based on my experiences, research, and overall leadership expertise, is the following:
Transformational leadership is the ability to inspire yourself and others to make changes that help team members reach their potential and the organization reach its goals.
Jeff Davis, leadership expert and author
Transformational leadership is about leading by example, leveraging your energy to increase the team’s energy in a way that leads to improved results, and being open to new ways of doing things so that real and sustained change can take place. It’s about facing reality so that you can become solution-oriented and discover more effective ways to doing things, and then actually taking action on those potentials for improvement.
This is no doubt easier said than done, though when you truly leverage the unbelievable power of transformational leadership, you and your team will never be the same. The point being, the investment in learning how to apply this style and work through the uncomfortableness of the change management process are well worth the effort.
What Are The Main Characteristics of Transformational Leadership?
Being a transformational leader is all about living your message and being true to your word. When this happens, your teammates and colleagues will become inspired, energized, and ready to achieve the goals of the organization. Each team member begins to feel valued, and change no longer is an impossible mountain to climb – change instead becomes a monthly, weekly, and even daily practice.
Remember: actions speak louder than words. You don’t need a title to be a transformational leader. What you need are action and example.
Here are the characteristics of the best transformational leaders:
- Integrity: Living the values of the organization, treating everyone fairly, and not doing anything you wouldn’t want on the front page of the New York Times.
- Energy: We all have good and bad days, and we all have high energy moments and low energy moments. With that said, transformational leaders maximize the value of those high energy moments while minimizing the damage of low energy moments – in both themselves and their colleagues. Transformational leaders show up to work excited and ready to perform most of the time, and this rubs off on the team. At the same time, transformational leaders are unafraid to be vulnerable and show their true emotions when they’re struggling. This transparency allows for a genuine exchange of energy. It’s been said that the world runs on money. While that may be true, I would argue that even more so the world runs on human energy.
- Communication: In order for change to take place, strong communication needs to take place. This means there needs to be a willingness to be open and vulnerable at least to some extent (and if you are in a toxic workplace that shuns honest communication, I’d suggest finding a different place to work). Authentic leadership is all about transparency, and this natural congruency is a cornerstone of the ensuing transformation.
- Awareness: Are people in your organization sitting in the right seats, in roles that maximize their strengths? Are your colleagues happy or are they coming into work miserable every day? Why or why or not? When you are aware of the cracks in your organization, you can start to serve your colleagues in a way that inspires, helps, encourages, and empowers them. It’s important to point out that this isn’t some kind of pie-in-the-sky motivation here; this is about getting into the mud, into the reality of the situation, and seeking to make it better.
- Change: When there is integrity through authentic leadership, maximizing of high-energy periods, open and honest communication, and a real awareness of what needs to improve, change can take place. This step simply must not be overlooked in the eyes of transformational leaders, because if this step is forgotten then the whole process was largely for naught. The whole point of transparency in an organization is to lay a framework and foundation for real, true, and actual change to occur. Transformational leaders start change, continue change, and follow-through with change until it’s permanently in place.
When you or your colleagues are missing any one of these five pillars, the whole process can collapse. But when these facets are working together, real magic can occur. We are all human and we all make mistakes. There are going to be inevitable slip-ups, shortcomings, misunderstandings, and challenging moments. With that said, transformational leaders will keep returning to these core principles time and time again.
Advantages of Transforming Yourself and Your Team
Transformational leadership is an ongoing and continual process. It’s a process even more than it is a destination. It’s sometimes messy and tough. There will be days where you don’t feel like transforming, instead preferring to stick with the status quo. In the end, though, transformational leadership becomes worth it when you fully realize and understand the following advantages and benefits:
- While not everyone will love the change at first, overall employee happiness will significantly improve. Your colleagues will feel heard and valued, as well as feeling like they have a real hand in the success of your organization. Consequently, creativity will flourish.
- Piggybacking off of the previous bullet point, happier employees leads to happier customers. This is a fact, not my opinion.
- Happier employees + happier customers = more money and an improved bottom line. You’d love to make more money in an authentic way, right?
- Your colleagues and teammates will feel like they are working toward their potential and therefore will want to stay with the company longer. Employee retention will improve.
- Your organization will start to win workplace awards (both internal and external) and your company will start to gain recognition. Talent will be attracted to your team and you’ll often have to make a tough choice between very talented candidates – you’ll have the freedom to be picky and only hire the best of the best.
As you can see, transformational leadership is no joke. It improves the bottom line while leaving everyone – yourself included – with a better feeling about your organization.
A Story of a Bad Boss and a Good Boss
Before ending this post, I’d like to share with you a story of a bad boss and a good boss. Both of these are completely true stories, based on my experience. I’d like to emphasize that transformational leadership is real and practical.
A bad boss I had in the past stayed in the box, protected the status quo, and lived in fear. He meant well, but he limited his teammates and those around him. He was intimidated by people higher than him in the company hierarchy, and he made sure to always do as he was told and never rock the boat. He fought change and viewed asking for help as a sign of weakness. He reprimanded me for being myself, for being the changemaker that I am. This is the opposite of transformational leadership. I ended up leaving the company after six months.
A good boss I had in the past brought positive energy to work each day – not in an over-the-top, happy-go-lucky kind of way, but in a grounded way that made others around him feel and perform better. When I had a bad day, his presence helped me to remember that my challenges were temporary, not permanent; he helped me to see silver linings. He was unafraid to speak up. He helped me speak to one of the owners of the company we were working for to implement real and lasting change. Because of his help, the change was put into place and things became better – with lots of time freed up due to the effectiveness of the change. This is transformational leadership at its finest.
As we can see here in these real-world examples from my previous experiences, transformational leadership makes all the difference in the world.
What Are You Waiting For? Start Transforming Today!
The power of transformational leadership is undeniable. Establish your vision and then implement behavior to match that vision. Take it one day at a time, and start transforming today!
Jeff Davis is an award-winning author, most recently publishing The Power of Authentic Leadership: Activating the 13 Keys to Achieving Prosperity Through Authenticity. He’s an authentic leadership keynote speaker and Executive Coach to leaders and CEOs, offering individualized coaching. Follow him on Twitter. For three free books (The Power of Authentic Leadership, Reach Your Mountaintop, and Traveling Triumphs), email his Executive Assistant at meg@jeffdspeaks.com. This post is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to transformational leadership – consider taking the next step by working with Jeff as your trusted advisor.
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