Transformational leadership is a style in which the leader seeks to transform the organization through the cultivation of an effective organizational culture that will see all the other employees get motivated and work towards the attainment of organizational goals and objectives. This essentially entails the leader using several mechanisms that are aimed at enhancing enthusiasm in the entire organization.
In addition to that, the leader should be able to empower the employees so that they recognize and appreciate the importance of hard work. Besides, he should oversee that the organization attains its objectives. The seven specific traits associated with transformational leadership or transformational leaders include loyalty, enthusiasm, accountability, discipline, empathy, result-oriented, and ability to learn.
Using the seven traits of a transformational leader as the yardstick for the assessment, my score regarding the various traits used in assessing this kind of leadership is low (Carless, Wearing & Mann, 2000). The credibility of this score has been enhanced by the fact that I was able to obtain a second opinion from my friend who also came up with a score that was almost the same as the one I had obtained earlier.
This, therefore, implies that my leadership style is lacking when it comes to my capacity to transform the organization effectively and seer it towards its intended goals and objectives. It also implies that my leadership style lacks some of the specific aspects required from transformational leaders. These include the ability to motivate organizational employees towards the attainment of organizational goals and objectives.
Based on the results obtained, it is necessary to improve my leadership style and align it more towards transformational leadership. This is attributable to the fact that it is important for any leader who wishes to steer their organization towards the attainment of greater heights to integrate all of the aspects of transformational leadership into their leadership style. This will enable them to improve their capacity to steer the organization towards the attainment of its goals and objectives.
To align my leadership style towards a transformational leader effectively, it is important to address specific behaviors in the workplace that touch on me and the organizational employees. First and foremost, it is important to align my behavior towards transformational leadership (Leithwood, Jantzi & Steinbach, 1999). This will essentially imply that I should encourage the cultivation of transformational leadership traits.
Some of the specific traits which might be lacking in both my leadership style and the organizational behavior of the employees include loyalty. The employees may not seem to be very loyal to the organization and this compromises their ability to steer the organization towards the attainment of its goals and objectives. In addition to that, I should cultivate a culture of enthusiasm within myself as a leader and the employees. To successfully attain this objective, I should be able to reaffirm my commitment to the organizational goals and objectives and explain the importance of hard work to the employees. An enthusiastic approach should be used to oversee the performance of employees’ duties and responsibilities.
In addition to cultivating a culture of loyalty and enthusiasm, another important transformational leadership trait that will be instrumental in enabling the organization to realize its goals and objectives is accountability. I should be able to cultivate a culture of accountability within myself as a leader and the employees so that the whole organization will be accountable to all its stakeholders in all the activities it undertakes. The final behavioral attribute that I should cultivate within myself and extend to the organizational employees is results orientation. Sometimes, I tend to lose focus on the result of my activities and all undertakings must be aligned with the set results. This will ensure that I do not lose focus in my day-to-day engagements with the organization.
A careful and calculated implementation of all the aforementioned initiatives should enable me to transform my leadership style into a transformational leader and consequently, enable the organization to reap the benefits of transformational leadership. Bass and Avolio (1990) assert that one of the main objectives of transformational leadership is not only to impact the leadership style and approach of the leader but also to influence the behavior of organizational employees and enable them to horn their leadership skills and specifically, transformational leadership skills.
This is why as a transformational leader; I should also be able to cultivate the traits and characteristics of a transformational leader within the employees. From the foregoing discussion, a transformational form of leadership enables the organization and employees to benefit. In essence, the impact of this leadership style is an improvement in the employees and organization.
References
Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1990). Transformational leadership development: Manual for the multifactor leadership questionnaire. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Carless, S. A., Wearing, A. J., & Mann, L. (2000). A short measure of transformational leadership. Journal of Business and Psychology, 14, 389-405.
Leithwood, K., Jantzi, D., & Steinbach, R. (1999). Changing Leadership for Changing Times. Changing Education Series. Taylor and Francis Group, 7625 Empire Drive, Florence, KY 41042.