Leadership Approaches in Relation to Transformational Leadership - Essay Example

Management Subject Name Institution Management Introduction By motivating and inspiring others aiming towards a mutual purpose, great leaders get unique and amazing things done in organisations, according to Schermerhorn et al. (2011). In regard to Schermerhorn et al. saying, leadership research has greatly been impacted by transformational leadership for over 20 years. More than 1, 000 studies have been done by leadership scholars within the last 50 years, in attempting to determine the leadership definitive styles, personality traits and characteristics of great leaders. These studies done have also been aimed at discovering the best leadership approach (Maak & Pless 2006). However, despite the repeated studies, none has been able to provide a clear profile of a perfect leader. This, lack of an ideal leadership style is preferable because, in case the leadership scholars had managed to produce a perfect leadership style, there would be a crisis with everybody trying to imitate the style (Howard 2010). This would change people into personae, and others would definitely and eventually see through them. One leadership approach is not just enough, but integrating all the approaches from transformational leadership, ethical, authentic leadership and behavioural integrity, can make a good leader (Kumar, Kim & Kumar 2012). This is because, these approaches share some aspects meaning they can be integrated, and some aspects are different, meaning that, they can form a complete or near complete leadership style, if integrated together. Leadership approaches Transformational leadership has, for more than two decades, been occupying the centre stage, by being the poster child of new model theories. It has been argued by some scholars of leadership study that before the transformational leadership took the stage and became the dominant paradigm, there were a lot of qualms about the leadership scholarly study. The misgivings about the scholarly study of leadership suggested that the disillusionment with the values of leadership, if added potential, gave birth to the strong impetus of new paradigms that came about as a result of being ushered in by transformational leadership in the mid- 1980s (Avolio 2005). Therefore, when the theory of transformational leadership reached a stage of gloom and doom, new paradigms stated sprouting (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). The other leadership approaches that will be discussed in relation to the transformational leadership are: ethical leadership, authentic leadership, and behavioural integrity. These approaches have been proposed to highlight and look at ethical issues in organisations (Howard 2010). In the last five years, there has been a development of a deep distrust for the organisational leaders, and this is evidence that there is need for new approaches of business and organisation leadership, for the 21st Century, in order to highlight and address the ethical issues in organisations (Martins 2007). Transformational leadership Transformational leadership involves a leader who is inspirational, and who awakens other people to look for extraordinary performance achievements (Maak & Pless 2009). A leader who uses transformational leadership is charismatic, is able to raise other people’s aspirations as well as shifting organisational systems and people into high performing and new patterns. Transformational leadership is different from transactional leadership as shown by leadership study scholars (Kumar, Kim & Kumar 2012). Transactional leadership describes a person who is very methodical in keeping other people engrossed on the progress towards attainment of a goal or goals (Brown & Reilly 20009). A transactional leadership involves the leader to adjust rewards, tasks and structures so as to move and shift the followers towards the accomplishment of organisational objectives and goals (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). The important thing is that these leadership styles are in no way mutually exclusive approaches of leadership because; transactional leadership acts as a building block and a foundation which supports the transformational leadership (Liang & Steve 2013). However, transactional leadership is not enough to meet and address the demands and challenges of leadership that are present in the contemporary work environments. An additional inspirational effect of transformational leadership comes in handy to help achieve the sustainable high performance results, in a continuous changing high profile setting (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). Transformational leadership is not enough when it comes to possessing the traits of leadership, knowing the behaviours of leadership, as well as understanding the leadership contingencies in order to act differently from a transactional approach and perspective (Kumar, Kim & Kumar 2012). This is because; the idea of transformational leadership provides a unique management challenge, which cause essential personal development implications (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). Transformational leadership is characterised by providing an aura of vision which is very strong, as well as a contagious enthusiasm that significantly raise and increase the aspirations, confidence as well as commitment of followers, to meet high performance demands. In general, the characteristics of transformational leadership and leaders are; charisma, vision, empowerment, integrity, intellectual stimulation, as well as symbolism (Maak & Pless 2009). Research shows that although many leaders perceive themselves as most qualities of the transformational leadership, they, in fact, strongly appear to use inspirational motivation, which is charisma and intellectual stimulation while they are interacting with their staff (Howard 2010). Other leadership approaches in relation with transformational leadership Ethical leadership Ethical leadership is leadership by ethical standards as expected by the society, and these ethical standards should clearly pass the test of being correct and good. The societal expectations are that organisations should be run and led with moral leadership (Brown & Reilly 20009). These expectations are that any person holding a leadership position will put into practice high ethical principles and values assist in building and maintaining an ethical culture in an organisation, as well as require and help other people to behave ethically while doing their work. Ethical leadership includes both leading and acting ethically all the time (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). Ethical leadership is essential to practice because; it builds trust, brings respect and credibility for both a person and the organisation. Ethical leadership is important because it models ethical behaviour to the community as well as to the organisation, and it can also lead to, and provide room for collaboration (Maak & Pless 2009). When an organisation is run with ethical leadership, a good climate is created within the organisation, and in case of an opposition ethical leadership allows and helps a person to occupy the high moral ground (Martins 2007). Ethical leadership is the right path to follow, as it affords and creates self-respect. Ethical leadership entails a coherent and clear ethical framework, upon which an ethical leader can draw when taking actions as well as making decisions (Pienaar 2009). A leader’s ethical framework ought to agree with the ethical vision, framework as well as the mission of the initiative or the organisation. Ethics should be discussed, and put out in the open, and the ethical thoughts should always be connected to actions, while the ethical leadership should always remain a shared process (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). Ethical leadership is characterised by the following aspects: ethical leaders put the organisations good, before their own egos and interests. Leaders do encourage general discussions of ethics and ethical choices applied in specific settings as well as decisions about the culture of the organisation. Ethical leadership is characterised by fair treatment to every person, respect and honesty at all times, as well as treating other organisations with the same honesty, respect and fairness, as one treats other people. A leader also looks at the impacts and consequences made, to other people, and also find ways of minimising harm. Ethical leadership gives room for people to question the leader’s authority. In ethical leadership, there is communication, and collaboration inside and outside an organisation (Avolio & Gardner 2005). There is a similarity between ethical leadership and transformational leadership in that; both approaches of leadership are not based on personal interests or even egos, but aim and providing good for all people. Both approaches also employ integrity, in that; they aim at leadership while doing the right and correct thing (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). The ethical leadership and transformational leadership employ credibility, honesty and consistency in putting values and morals into actions (Maak & Pless 2009). However, there is a difference between the two leadership approaches in that; ethical leadership entails doing what is right always and being fair to all people and the organisation, while transformational leadership involves contagious enthusiasm that are aimed at achieving a goal (Kumar, Kim & Kumar 2012). Ethical leadership is a shared process, which is not the case with transformational leadership where there is always a leader and the followers (Liang & Steve 2013). As much as the two leadership approaches have similarities and differences, in most cases at the work places and organisations, they are usually applied together, to complement and supplement each other for better organisational leadership (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). Authentic leadership Authentic leadership entails a self- awareness level that is very high for the leader, and a clear understanding of her or his personal values (Howard 2010). The leader acts in consistent with the values, is honest, and avoids self- deception. As a result of these characteristics, an authentic leader is seen as genuine, and this makes him or her gain the followers respect, as well as develop a capacity which enables the leader to influence their behaviours positively (Knights & O’Leary 2006). Leadership scholars believe that authentic leadership is made possible by the positive psychological states, hope, optimism, confidence and resilience. These, results into a positive self- regulation, which assist authentic leaders to frame moral dilemmas clearly and transparently, as well as respond to them and serve as moral role models (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). Authentic leaders have a passion for their purpose, they practice their values with consistency, and they lead with both their heads and their hearts. Authentic leaders know and understand who they are, have self- discipline in order to get results, and they establish meaningful relationships that are long- term. According to Gardner and Avolio, authentic leadership has continued to gain increased attention in the practitioners and scholarly communities, (2005). This is because of the ubiquitous nature of authenticity, which calls people to be true to themselves, as well as being true to the world, to be real in them, and in the world. By acknowledging authenticity, people admit their protected secrets, mistakes, foibles as well as their parts that are hidden and shadowed by existence (Pienaar 2009). Authentic leadership is similar to transformational leadership in that, both types of leaders are hopeful, optimistic, of high moral character and developmentally oriented (Martins 2007). On the other hand, there are differences between authentic leadership and transformational leadership in that; authentic leaders differ from transformational leaders, who proactively and actively focus on developing followers into leaders, although the authentic leaders play a positive role on them through role modelling ( Avolio & Gardner 2005). Authentic leadership can incorporate some positive forms and aspects of transformational leadership like charismatic, but that does not necessarily mean that authentic leadership is transformational or the leaders are charismatic; instead their influence of followers is from a value or moral perspective (Knights & O’Leary 2006). They energise their followers by creating meaning for them, as well as completely creating reality for their followers as well as for themselves. Behavioural integrity Moral leadership is started with personal and individual integrity, which is a fundamental concept to the view of transformational leadership. A leader who has integrity is credible, consistent and honest while putting values together into action. A leader earns the trust of followers when he or she has integrity (Avolio 2005). When followers believe that their leaders are worth trusting, they in return, try to live in a manner that will go hand in hand with the expectations of the leader. When looking at integrity in the view of the right thing to do, the most hard decisions and dilemmas are made easy. Behavioural integrity is not the same as the construct of integrity (Liang & Steve 2013). Research shows that behavioural integrity encompasses individual insight between the congruence of the actions and words of a person. The constructs of behavioural integrity is founded on psychological contracts, credibility and trust. The congruence between what is said and what is done by an employer is what makes an employee to develop trust. Trust is highly essential component, when it comes to employment relations (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). Credibility is built on the level of trust existing between individuals. The believability of a person is defined by credibility. Leaders must have some credibility level so that other people can believe them. Both credibility and trust are founded on individual’s perceptions. The fact that perceptions define credibility and trust, for organisations to adopt credible leaders, they require a level of consistency and believability. The intangible agreement between people is defined by the psychological contract. This agreement does not automatically define the implicit meaning and understanding within the contract (Avolio 2005). In this sense then, people can agree to an important principle, but frame the meaning differently. By breaking a psychological contract one causes an analogous parting between actions and words, which define the behavioural integrity premise (Knights & O’Leary 2006). Behavioural integrity is related with transformational leadership in that integrity of the transformational leaders is a fundamental concept to the view of transformational leadership (Brown & Reilly 20009). Both involve consistency and honesty which help followers gain trust in the leaders (Liang & Steve 2013). Although transformational leadership is aimed at creating trust between the leader and employees in an organisation, the passion for a project in most cases elicit rather strong feelings from followers, and this can lead to less predictability (Maak & Pless 2006). This is unlike in behavioural integrity whereby, the intentions of the leader who has integrity are very transparent and clear, hence the predictability, credibility and trust are always present. Basing on the different approaches of leadership, there is none that is more important than the other because; each exhibit some unique and different characteristics from each other (Pienaar 2009). When used together in an organisational leadership, they are bound to highlight and address all the issues pertaining organisational ethical leadership, and this can not only improve management, but also relationships within and outside the organisation (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). Therefore, recommendation is that, for better management of an organisation, transformational leadership, ethical leadership, authentic leadership and behavioural integrity approaches need to be used together, so as to cover all the diverse and complex aspects of an organisation. Conclusion The different leadership approaches have been proposed and invented so as to supplement the deficiencies found to be with the traditional transformational leadership, which has been the centre stage in organisational management (Avolio 2005). Since researchers have not yet managed to invent and come up with a leadership style and approach that covers all aspects of an organisation, there is need to incorporate the different aspects of the transformational leadership, ethical leadership, authentic leadership and behavioural integrity approaches in organisational management (Martins 2007). Since research shows that there has been an increase of leaders distrust in organisations, it is always good to try and incorporate different aspects of these approaches in order to reduce the distrust of organisational leaders. 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