Within the world of leadership, we recognise that there are an array of different styles and approaches used to create an impactful leadership culture across a business.
According to Forbes, transformational leaders are billed as leaders of the future who can help their companies through turbulent times full of change and innovation.
Throughout this blog, we will discuss the four different elements of this increasingly popular leadership approach.
What Is Transformational Leadership?
Transformational leadership is an innovative leadership style. It inspires and motivates employees to build a creative work culture. It is an approach which causes a change in individuals and social systems, particularly tailored for professional and experienced teams, this leadership style can motivate and calve out high-performing teams within an organisation.
Transformational leaders focus on ‘transforming’ others to support each other and the entire business. Employees under this kind of management style tend to feel more motivated and empowered, resulting in happy, engaged teams.
There are four different elements of transformational leadership:
. Idealised Influence
. Inspirational Motivation
. Intellectual Stimulation
. Individual Consideration
Each factor is positively related to individual and organisational performance and helps leaders to implement this approach in the workplace.
1) Idealised Influence
When it comes to the first element of transformational leadership, idealised influence is defined as having a leader who is an exemplary role model for their employees. Leaders with idealised influence are more respected, trusted and admired.
As we know from our previous blog Do you know where to begin your leadership journey? Your approach to leadership is important as the way that you lead and deal with employees makes an undeniable difference. Idealised influence will support organisational change as it is built around leaders who show first-hand through their actions how to react and behave correctly. Instead of using power for personal gain, a transformational leader will embody characteristics which you might take inspiration from.
Some characteristics of an idealised influence leader include:
.Ethical
.Honest
.Charismatic
.Clear communication of the organisation’s passion and goals.
2) Intellectual Stimulation
The next element of transformational leadership is intellectual stimulation. This includes the willingness to provide independence and freedom to your employees, defining the leader as encouraging.
Making sure to be positively constructive and encouraging your team in decision-making rather than making the decision for them is a great way to achieve this. If your employee is feeling listened to and understood, it boosts their confidence, ultimately resulting in them contributing and providing creative solutions.
Intellectual stimulation is all about the transformational leader looking to inspire their team to make conscious decisions alone in order to overcome problems.
3) Inspirational Motivation
Transformational leaders are able to passionately communicate their goals and visions in a way that inspires and motivates employees.
Creating shared goals and guiding your team through the process of how to achieve said goals is essential to success. It inspires your team to get engaged and take action with enthusiasm to perform beyond expectations.
Key characteristics of inspiring leaders include:
.Positivity
.Gratitude
.Passion
.Trustworthy
.Clear goals
.Clear communication
Employees are more likely to be committed when leaders consistently communicate high expectations honestly and openly.
4) Individual Consideration
As a transformational leader, you must be mindful of how every employee is different. It’s often the case that different employees wish to approach the execution of tasks differently. This means that you must work one on one to gather an in-depth understanding of which task each employee is best suited to complete.
If you as a leader are able to work out each individual’s specific skills and what motivates each individual, it allows for the possibility of developing these skills further and capitalising on the resources you already have in your team!
At Rencai we use the GC index as a tool to empower organisations to analyse the diversity of thinking and preferred ways of working they have in their teams. We talk about the GC Index more in-depth in our previous blog.
Why should you adopt a transformational leadership style?
As we have broken down the elements and characteristics of a transformational leader, it’s safe to say that it would highly benefit an organisation. It’s a creative leadership style which places the focus on the need for positive change, which would help your business to flourish!
If you’d like to chat, call our office number 0161 222 3142 or chat to us via our website live chat.
