Transformational Leadership Characteristics - Essay Example

Given contemporary leadership styles, transformational leadership is about change management (Carless, Wearing, & Mann, 2000). Leadership that is inspired by change and is in the evolutionary process of changing is a transformational style of leadership (Hacker, 2003). Change is the cause of ignition for the transformational leader. Stimulating followers with evolving motivations and aspirations come with the characteristics of a transformational leader (Bass, 2012). This paper is a review of transformational leadership characteristics applied to personal experience and understanding (WordPress, 2008).

Transformational leadership evolves with seven behavioural characteristics. This may include idealized influence (vision making), inspirational motivation (self-building to inspire), individualized consideration (support), intellectual stimulation (problem-solving and decision-making capability), collaboration (team building), coordination (demonstration) and integration (trust building) respectively (Hall, 2012).

In my personal experience, I find idealized influence and inspirational motivation to be rare and the most influential behavioural characteristics. Only genuine leaders understand the strength of such powerful behavioural characteristics (Bertocci, 2009). Idealized influence and inspirational motivation are about character building and inspiring others through your moral and ethical development (Barbuto, 2005). These qualities are hardly found in modern-day leaders as they are more like managers missing the actual inspiring tone of leadership (vision building and character transformation) (Bertocci, 2009, p. 50). In my peer’s opinion, who is a teammate at the workplace and has been with me since my early school days, I apprehend the quality of inspirational motivation. For me inspiring others means that you have honesty, fairness, and reciprocity in your character. This is what motivates others at work and with their ambitions. These are fundamental qualities of a transformational leader (Shelton, 2012).

In this way, out of the two leadership behavioural characteristics (idealized influence and inspirational motivation), my peer scores me 1/2 in such leadership attributes (WordPress, 2008).

One famous quote by St. Francis Xavier “Be great in little things” is actually what inspires me to myself (Martins, 2013). When you have natural self-inspiration such as building yourself for driving others, then this is actually what makes you a leader. Transformational leaders always have such instinctive character. They have such peculiarity which clicks the hearts of the followers. This is what my peer perceives about me and for that reason, he calls me a change replicator (Bertocci, 2009).

Apart from my rare transformational characteristics (inspiring others), my peer identifies three of the frequent behavioural characteristics in me: intellectual stimulation, coordination and integration (Barbuto, 2005). This gives me a score of 3 out of 5 frequent transformational leadership behaviours. According to my peer, I take proactive and effective decisions on challenges at the workplace, which makes me a wise and tactful decision-maker. Decision-making is the quality of a leader, especially the quality of a transformational leader who is driving and asserting change organizationally (Hacker, 2003). To replicate the change in the system, you need to be thoughtful in decisions and troubleshooting. When one has the guts to rule out problems, he or she deserves to be called a transformational leader (Hacker, 2003).

My peer also judges me on my team's behaviour and attitude. He finds that I am quite intimate with my team, their efforts and their ambitions respectively (Northouse, 2010). Moral and practical support is what teams expect from their leaders, as these are the things that lead the teams to synergize motivation. When motivation is there, trust is automatically there between the team members and team leadership. These are all qualities that my peer finds in me and for that reason, he gives me credit for my team-building attitude in the organization system (Northouse, 2010, p. 180).

Eloquence, speech and demonstration are further qualities of a transformational leader. A transformational leader is not complete until he or she has the power of strong communication (Bertocci, 2009). According to my peer, when I communicate with my team, my message is heard loud by the team members. The message is about organizational goals and about strategically achieving them. In this way, my peer finds in me qualities of coordination and integration which are the most significant and viable leadership attributes (Hacker, 2003).

Adding the score as per my peers’ view and my assessment, I uphold 4/7 in leadership behavioural characteristics. One of my colleagues holds a higher score than me – 5/7, and the reason is that he has an extra quality of idealized influence, which is about idealizing and actualizing the vision for the organization (Hacker, 2003). According to my peer, without having a true vision of mission, a transformational leader cannot bring change. This is what differentiates me from my colleague who upholds the qualities of a visionary and idealist (Carless et al., 2000).

Vision is like a seed – a long way perspective to revive change. It is something required by a leader to achieve marvels, dreams and destinations (Barbuto, 2005). To accomplish organizational goals and objectives, a leader must have a broad and transformational vision. This is the vision that asserts the path for the organization – a direction to change and transform (Northouse, 2010).