Transformational Leadership

Transformational Leadership

What is Transformational Leadership: a leadership approach that causes change in individuals and social systems.

Humans generally prefer to have a serene life without much hitches or hurdles in the way.

Even if they are to witness a problem situation, they tend to pull themselves away from the scene of action to avoid consequences that may lead to complications at a later date.

Very few are bestowed with qualities that make them appear exceptional to the eyes of ordinary men and women.

Such people bring wonderful transformations in the lives of people, who willingly follow the leader and support the cause.

Need for Transformational Leaders:

In business environment, there has always been this debate, whether transformational leaders show success!

But it has to be kept in mind that each component of transformational leadership has relevance for improving the decision-making process.

In comparison, individually considerate leaders make sure that all parties to the problem are heard. Intellectually stimulating leaders reformulate with followers, colleagues, or superiors into more familiar and concrete terms, what may have begun as fuzzy.

Inspirational leaders increase confidence and raise aspiration levels, that the problem can be solved once its causes have been determined.

Decision-Making Styles:

Leaders with idealized influence show their concern about the problem and the need for its solution.

The common thread that emerges from the discussion on decision-making is that decision making styles may be primarily viewed as being based on logic or feeling and instincts.

The rational and intuitive decision-making styles are generally considered in conjunction since they represent two ends of a continuum as observed through most studies.

While making decisions, transformational leaders are more likely to

• Be proactive to incipient problems, anticipating the emergence of problems more frequently and farther in advance.
• Incremental, taking small steps toward problem solving without waiting for a guarantee of complete success.
• Willing to look at a problem in a larger context and longer time frame.
• Encouraging of search and choice that take into account the wider context of the larger organization and outside environment rather than limiting the search to the immediate neighborhood of the problem.
• Quick to react to emergent problems.
• Seeking information informally for making their decisions rather than prescribed by organizational rules.
• Practicing walk-around management to promote the upward flow of communication and information.
• Making decisions involving higher payoffs at higher risks rather than decisions that favor exploitation and achieve lower payoffs at lower risks.
• Willing to take failure in their stride.

Rationale in Making Decisions:

The rational style of making decisions is deliberate, analytical, and logical assessing the long-term effects of decisions and having a strong fact-based orientation.

The intuitive style is feeling-oriented and based on internal ordering of information. Such decisions are made quickly.

The dependent style is characterized by use of support from others while delay and denial characterize the avoidance style.

The spontaneous style displays a strong sense of immediacy and an interest in getting through the decision-making process as quickly as possible.

A transformational leader would more likely to make decisions rationally after considering carefully all the facts and information and spending a considerable time over the decision-making process.

Transformational leadership will be positively related to rational, spontaneous and dependent decision-making styles, and will be negatively related to intuitive and avoidance decision making. The interaction effect of rational and dependent decision making styles on transformational leadership will be significant.