The year 2020 came and had surprised companies and organizations — big and small — with crisis management and business survival. Months before the year 2021 ends and businesses are still dealing with the consequences of the pandemic. While plans have been laid out to strengthen business continuity and risk management, these times may also require a leadership reset.
Leadership is crucial in making a difference in the success of the business — leading, managing, and inspiring employees to achieve positive and productive outcomes. A reset in leadership does not necessarily mean electing a new administration, but it denotes a change in leadership style to give way to digitalization.
What is transformational leadership?
Implementing a leadership style gives direction to how business leaders will manage their teams. While there may be a current type that you or your leaders are utilizing, the shift to transformational leadership has been a trend.
Introduced by James MacGregor Burns and polished by Bernard Bass, transformational leadership is the approach that banks on the impact of leaders on their followers. Simply put, inspiring employees to be innovative and creative to help develop the success of the business. Through implementing stronger corporate culture, employee accountability, employee independence, and innovation, transformational leaders can help transform companies for the better.
A transformational management approach can work on whatever type of organization, but the crucial part is the employees’ belief in the company’s vision-mission. As leaders, instilling a mindset that every employee can make a positive difference can increase employee performance and satisfaction.
How is transformational leadership effective for businesses?
“The ability to deal with people is as purchasable as a commodity as sugar or coffee, and I will pay more for that ability than for any other thing under the sun.”
This famous quote of John D. Rockefeller embodies a transformational leader. Leaders in the transformational approach “humanize” the team dynamics to inspire employees to work toward a shared vision.
Transformational leaders influence an organization — steering organizational members in the right direction through strong vision and influence. There are certain qualities that transformational leaders possess, striving to be more effective.
Transformational leaders are:
- Have a strong empathy
- Charismatic
- Engaging and proactive
- Humble yet inspiring
- Positive and innovative
Carrying these traits can create an effective transformational approach in managing your team. While innate transformational leaders have strong ethical values, leaders who adopt transformational values need to be more open-minded and inclusive — to communicate better with the members. In turn, employees will be encouraged to strive for a common purpose for the business’s welfare.
Advantages of a Transformational Approach in Leadership
Administering a transformational leadership style can bring positive outcomes to the employees and the business. Employee independence and commitment to moral standards are some benefits of implementing this type of leadership. Below are some of the positive results of transformational leadership in organizations.
- Increased performance and job satisfaction
Transformational leaders build strong relationships with the employees to boost their morale, leading to increased work motivation and job satisfaction. Working with a common goal and having an empathetic leader make employees happy and motivated.
- Increased employee engagement and retention
Employee engagement and retention are crucial to the internal health of the business. Inspirational leaders prioritize the development of the employees. Dedicating attention to the employees’ health and career can mitigate turnovers. Having an engaged workforce can also breed more transformational leaders in the company working towards a shared vision.
- Better company reputation
The company culture, employee and customer experiences, and company values all comprise the reputation of the business. Fostering transformational leadership can help resonate with how consumers perceive the company — employees are respected, innovating for the better — leading to increased sales and hire.
Disadvantages of Transformational Leadership
While implementing transformational leadership would pose different advantages, the organization’s management would also have to note certain obstructions. Here are some of the drawbacks of transformational leadership.
- It requires constant communication and feedback.
- It may lead to employee burnout due to unreasonable expectations.
- Leaders may abuse their power and deceive employees.
Moreover, transformational leadership could be hard to teach. This is because the leadership style is based on personality traits rather than a documented technical procedure. Likewise, transformational leaders may miss specific protocols because of the tendency to always look at the big picture.
Digital Transformation and Transformational Leadership
Implementing transformational leadership heavily relies on the acceptance of the employees. Change does not happen in a short period. In order to lead a transformation, leaders must know how to lead employees in a transformational manner.
The shift to digital has been forced on businesses because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies are pushed to adopt digital tools to conduct operations and engage employees. While transformational leadership may not be the sole answer in embracing digital transformation, this approach can help further digitalization in your company.
Hone Leaders and Employees to be (Digitally) Transformative
As transformational leaders, you are called to be open-minded in adopting digitalization within your company. This means that you need to be open to new, fresh, and digital perspectives in your business operations. Most of these outlooks can be developed by your employees, so you need also to be open to your members’ opinions. Likewise, your team must be open-minded in adopting innovation and change in their processes.
Alongside open-mindedness, transformational organizations must strive to be innovative and proactive. The leaders and members must not be afraid to go beyond traditional planning, acting on, and measuring business success. Furthermore, they must initiate ways to embrace digital solutions while combating digital challenges.
Transformational leadership banks on the idea of leaders being empathetic and inspiring. Digital transformation within companies needs to be planned. Thus, it could be difficult for the workforce to adjust to the change. Compassionate leaders opt to listen to the plights of the team and develop ways to optimize workflows. Moreover, inspirational leaders can streamline digital adoption through igniting employees to think differently by introducing digital tools.
Build the Digital Culture in the Workplace
In order to shape the entire team into becoming digitally transformative, leaders must develop a workplace culture focused on digitalization. The transformational leadership style involves all the employees working together to achieve a common goal for the welfare of the business. It is crucial to establish an environment that allows seamless collaboration and communication. Utilize digital tools such as task and meeting management software to facilitate collaborative work remotely.
Similarly, transformational leaders must foster innovation in the operational processes — furthering the products and services of the business. To achieve innovation in operations, transformational leaders must encourage opinions, suggestions, and employee feedback. Employees, on the other hand, must contribute their ideas and comply with the initiatives. At times, the freshest and trendiest of ideas come from the employees. Implementing a transformational approach can empower members to speak up and develop innovation.
Adopting the digital culture in the workplace relies not only on installing digital and innovative tools in the business processes. The actions of the employees are needed to transform the workplace fully. Drawing from the transformational leadership style, leaders need to conduct mentorship and training with the digital proceedings. This ensures that the entire organization is aligned with the company’s vision-mission, values, and innovative methodologies.
Transformational leadership breeds the leaders of tomorrow and the organizations of the future by rising to the challenges of today’s business. Innovate businesses with tools that can empower and transform workplaces. Through banking on employee engagement and motivation, this leadership style can bring forth transformational results — inspiring everyone to embrace digitalization positively.