Transformational Change: Role of Leadership - Research Paper Example

Transformational Change: Role of Leadership Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Literature Review 3 Role of Transformational Leadership 7 Effective Application of Transformational Leadership 9 Empirical Analysis 10 Conclusion 13 Reference List 14 Introduction Over time, scholars and researchers have repeatedly revised the meaning of leadership and its role in business. The task that a single manager needs to accomplish in workplace is termed as leadership in the contemporary world. According to Peter Northouse, “leadership is a process whereby one individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (Bigler, 2001). A leader is considered to be effective if he can influence his subordinates in an optimistic manner, to achieve organizational goals (Scully, 2008). The state of affairs in the external world is constantly changing. Contemporary organizations are making certain changes to sustain these transformations in the external world. Transformational management is a style of incremental and evolutionary management, which enables an organization to adopt changes in workplace. Transformational management in workplaces, nowadays, demands for new attributes of governance in the organization. One such attribute is transformational leadership. This research paper will conduct an in-depth literature review and analysis regarding transformational change in the role of leadership. Along with literature analysis, the researcher will also provide some empirical evidence, which will reflect activities undertaken by modern organizations, owing to a modified role of leadership. Transformational leadership is the pattern of leadership, where leaders alter the overall quality of manpower in an organization. This pattern of leadership also involves matters relating to motivating, valuing requirements and satisfying needs of the employees. Literature Review The concept of transformational change in the leadership style was first introduced in a special sociological study, made by J. V. Downton, in 1973. Soon in 1978, James McGregor Burns mentioned the concept transformational leadership in his book, “leadership”. James MacGregor Burns stated in his book that transformational leaders in organizations are initially driven by individual recognition and acknowledgement. However, these leaders gradually addresses to the communal interests in workplaces. Burns also claimed that great leaders, such as, Gandhi and Mao, were transformational leaders. History has recorded that these great leaders had first sufficed the requisites of their followers and then tried to exercise certain powers on them. These historical leaders were also claimed to be highly sensitive towards their aspirations and purposes. Barnard M. Bass’s theory on transformational leadership includes factors and models relating to human behavior. Overtime, it is noted that the value and importance of transformational leadership, in the contemporary world, is increasing for both scholars and business enterprises. Transformational role in leadership is becoming more valuable overtime because of two primary reasons. Firstly, giant multinational companies, such as, AT&T, General Motors and IBM, have recently launched programs on transformation in management. From the period of World War II till that of 1970s, business world in the western nations, like, U.S., was extremely stable, rigid (subjected to market changes) and inflexible. 1980s onwards, it was found that growth rates of the organizations were very slow and subjected to this issue. The business firms started making their operations more dynamic and less stable (Rivera-Vazquez, Ortiz-Fournier and Flores, 2009). Even so, it was already found that firms were subjected to various types of business issues. The demographic characteristic features of the labor force were seen to change; technological advancements in the market was rapidly enhancing the level of market competition; commercial sector, in most of the economies, were getting deregulated; and oil cartel fluctuations in the market was rendering business competition more severe. Due to such changes and difficulties in organizations, the need for change in the role of leadership had become indispensible in business. Secondly, ancient theories of leadership only emphasized on characteristic features among the leaders and analyzed their importance in the workplace. The theories of leadership did not take into consideration “untypical” attributes of leadership (Tashakkori and Creswell, 2007). Therefore, such deficiencies in theories of leadership in the ancient days have carved the way for transformational leadership theory. It is believed that transformational leadership theory is based on concepts of transactional leadership theory. Barnard M. Bass advocated that the concept of transactional leadership is not valid in the present scenario. Under this concept, leaders in an organization clearly stated the various duties that had to be accomplished by subordinates in the workplace in order to achieve the desired goals of the concerned organization. Leaders in an organization, following the concept of transactional leadership theories, predetermined various ways through which followers would be able to turn out as self-confident workers and achieve the desired goals in their organizations with minimal effort. On the other hand, theories of transformational leadership claim that a leader should persuade his followers to accomplish work that they are not expected to do. In short, transformational leaders, in the modern days, encourage workers to work beyond their targeted limits (Papalexandris and Galanaki, 2009). This pattern of leadership instructs workers to place their personal interests, way below that of the organization. Under the regime of transactional leadership, the leader and his followers interact with each other in order to exchange certain duties or tasks, which are accompanied with certain price value. On the contrary, in transformational leadership style, leader-follower relationship is not limited to exchange of work and money. The leaders, under this regime, try to deliver greater visionary and inspiring figures of achievement from their followers. According to the views of Barnard M. Bass, transformational leadership is a “new paradigms of leadership style that is a particularly effective leadership style of the military” (Sam and Huey, 1996). Authors, Neol Tichy and Mary Anne Devanna, had estimated certain new dimensions in the role of leadership, under the regime of transformational leadership style. There dimensions were: Organizations’ operational pattern changes under the regime of transformational leadership. The degree of adaptability, innovation, flexibility and entrepreneurial activities significantly increases in firms with governance of transformational leaders. The attribute of courage is strong within transformational leaders. There leaders are found to exhibit appropriate attitudes in business workplaces, as far as matters relating to risk taking and maintaining status quo in organizations are concerned. Unpleasant conditions in workplaces are resolved with great expertise by these leaders with the help of their intellectual abilities. Transformational leaders experience strong, open, sincere and confident relationship with all followers in workplaces. These leaders rest their faith on decisions and thought perspectives of the followers in workplace, as and when required. The transformational leaders are highly sensitive to the actions of followers and efficiently try to empower responsibilities to subordinates in workplace as per requirement. Such strategic relationship, under this pattern of leadership, helps to cultivate efficient, hard working and productive workforce in organizations (Andersen, 2000). A set of values or ethics in business are possessed by transformational leaders. These leaders react and behave in their organizations according to these ethical and moral principles. The transformational leaders in business always try to enhance their knowledge and experience in workplace. They try to learn from own experiences of success and failure in workplaces, thereby making themselves more competent for future business strategic situations. These leaders radically adopt changes in their behaviors, approach and attitudes in workplace. These leaders are skilled enough to adopt complex, uncertain and ambiguous alterations in workplaces. Such attributes among these leaders enables the giant successful firms to sustain extensive competition in current marketplaces. The visionary capabilities of transformational leaders are extremely adequate in business. The corporate firms, in the current epoch, are significantly affected by changes in the external business environment. Without forecasting future risks and opportunities in markets, these modern firms cannot gain enough competencies in the industry (Hotho and Dowling, 2010). Elise Walton had stated that transformational role in leadership is actually a “Leadership Role in Major Change” (Huse, 2003). Watson claimed that transformational role in leadership helps in building tolerance in workplaces, during situations of ambiguity; in enhancing the quality of working in an organization with advantages of productive changes; and in augmenting the learning of organizations through re-assessment of historic values in workplaces. Thomas D. Huse provided a special leadership role model that explained various types of leadership methods, which can assist the governance of an organization in the modern world (Huse, 2003). This model was labeled as the Full Range Leadership Model. Figure 1: Full Range Leadership Model (Source: Huse, 2003) The concept of Full Range Model was also discussed by Avolio. He claimed that transformational leadership role is a special style of leadership, where leaders develop the followers as future leaders (Svensson, 2005). Thomas G. Crane had regarded transformational leadership in business as a type of ‘transformational coaching’. He stated that mentoring and coaching are two primary attributes of transformational leadership in business. He also mentioned that “the art of assisting people enhance their effectiveness, in a way they feel helped” (Huse, 2003). Role of Transformational Leadership Bass and Avolio claimed that roles of transformational leaders in an organization are often explained as “Four I’s”. These attributes are: Idealized Influence This is related to the level of confidence present among leaders. It believes that if a transformational leader is ideal for his followers and is appreciated in the workplace, then radical and productive transformations can be experienced within organizations. Only with extensive confidence of transformational leaders, organizations can house productive and hard working workers, thereby becoming competent in the business world. In short, under the concept of idealistic influence, a leader acts as “The Role Model” in an organization. Such idealistic transformational leaders strongly follow norms of ethics and morale in business (Northouse, 2001). These highly skilled leaders transmit their own potential skills to their followers, which in turn helps in achieving the aims of an organization. Inspirational Motivation The success and ability of a transformational leader is judged by his expertise to make his subordinates follow goals and objectives of an organization. When an organization undertakes certain transformational changes in business, leaders must be able to inspire and motivate employees in the concerned workplace to adopt the concerned changes with ease. The extent of optimism and enthusiasm among workers speak volumes about inspirational or motivational quality of transformational leaders. Intellectual Stimulation Creativity and innovativeness of modern organizations demand for more productive and skilled workers in workplaces. It is the duty of a transformational leader in a workplace to assure that subordinates in the concerned organization constantly stimulate their productivity at work. So, according to the skill of intellectual stimulation, transformational leaders must be capable enough to stimulate or catalyze working quality of followers in workplace (Northouse, 2001). Individualized Consideration This concept states that a transformational leader in an organization must be able to assess capabilities of workers. The values, abilities and requirements of general workers in an organization must be correctly estimated by these leaders. A transformational leader in an organization must be aware of the factors, which can help to enhance self-motivational levels of employees. Even so, transformational leaders in workplace should understand the difference between needs and wants of the followers. Author, Ken Parry, included one more skill that was considered to be a prerequisite of the governance style of transformational leader’s (Northouse, 2001). This was the skill of: Managerial Ability This attribute claims that a good and efficient transformational leader in workplace must harbor excellent management capability. Effective Application of Transformational Leadership From the above analysis, it can be stated that transformational leaders are able to lead in workplaces effectively and efficiently with the essence of: Adequate business creativity An efficient transformational leader is expected to be highly creative in nature. Nonetheless, it is also judged that a creative transformational leader must consider creativities and new perceptions of followers in workplace. High team orientation in workplace Equality in workplace must always be considered by a transformational leader. All important decisions in business must be taken jointly by the leaders and followers in an organization. In short, workplaces should exhibit a participatory atmosphere in modern days. Good support of followers This policy claims that the communication process in modern organizations between leaders and followers must be effortless. Transformational leaders and their followers in workplaces must support each other’s decisions. Good learning expertise A long learning curve should always be encouraged by a transformational leader as this helps to improve competency of a firm. Appropriate sense of responsibility Competent and skilled transformational leaders must always responsibly undertake risks in business, if such risks provide great growth opportunities to firms. High sense of recognition Transformational leaders in an organization must possess adequate skills and expertise, which would help to boost their respective reputation in the business world. It is believed that, currently, by following the above attributes, transformational leaders will be able to transform organizations in appropriate ways through which the latter can ultimately gain higher competence in the market (Simic, 1998). Empirical Analysis The dominant ideas of leadership does not exist in the contemporary world due to changes in political, social, cultural, economical dimensions in the external world and rapid shifts in strategies undertaken by corporate firms. The global business leaders of the multinational companies constantly adopt different policies and leadership roles in workplaces. Transformational leadership style is the new form of leadership followed by cross-country corporate leaders. Figure 2: Evolution in the Role of Leadership (Source: Gitsham, 2012) The above flow chart explains transformational changes in the role of leadership, at present. In 2005, some of the shareholders of Nestle claimed that the latter required enhancing the nature of its corporate governance. Immediately, the company asked nearly 250000 shareholders regarding new perspectives of corporate governance that the company could adopt in its operations (Gitsham, 2012). The Board of Directors of the organization directly amended productive changes in articles of association. The new changes primarily claimed that the company would strategically pursue its business perceptions in the long run with adequate value creation. This apt change made by the company signified that the leaders are transformational rulers at present. The organization of Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP) is a new corporate social enterprise, which is guided by efficient transformational leaders (Gitsham, 2012). The company has invented a special business model, which helps to channelize business capabilities of Accenture to other organizations in the market, lying in the internal development segment of an economy. It is not necessary for transformational leaders to exist only in the business world. Nelson Mandela is considered to be a very famous transformational leader in history of politics. The enormous change, which could be addressed by the great leader in his country, was only possible due to his efficient leadership skills. Modern corporate leaders should adopt such skills in their workplace to bring about productive changes in business. For instance, a very efficient transformational leader, Nelson Mandela, possessed the skill to appreciate symbols and moral persuasiveness of authentic proceeds of magnanimity. He is also a great example of vision and reconciliation for all his countrymen (Gitsham, 2012). Hesselbein and Cohen stated long back in 1999 that organizations that take adequate time to adopt and learn appropriate mode of leadership are more successful and competent than other firms in the industry (Frances and Cohen, 1999). Conclusion The states of political, economical, social and cultural affairs in the contemporary nations have remarkably changed over time. Without the assistance of effective leadership styles, a profit or non-profit making entity cannot achieve successful growth in the long run. From the above context, it would be correct to state that a transformational change in the modern world has demanded for a transformation in the role of leadership. These leaders have adequate knowledge, imagination and ability to influence a large group of followers. Transformational leaders in an organization bring about changes, which are known as soft changes. These changes refer to shifts in the mental and qualitative changes of an organization. These strategic management leaders had undertaken vital decisions in the organization, after combining the desire and perceptions of all individuals in the workplace. Inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, idealized influence, individualized consideration and effective management ability are certain attributes that are indispensable for a modern transformational leader. High competence and sustainable growth of any political, economic, social or cultural entity cannot be sustained without sound transformational leadership skills. Reference List Andersen, J.A., 2000. Leadership and leadership research. Current Issues in Business Disciplines, 5, pp. 2267-2287. Bigler, W. R., 2001. The new science of strategy execution: how incumbents become fast, sleek wealth creators. Strategy and Leadership, 29(3), pp. 29-34. Frances, H. and Cohen, P. M., 1999. Leader to leader. California: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Gitsham, M., 2012. Leadership in a rapidly changing world. 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