Leadership, Innovation and Change - Transformational Leadership - Coursework Example

Leadership, Innovation and Change Name: Institution: Introduction Different business organizations apply different leadership styles during their day to day business operation. Transformational leadership style, as earlier noted, ultimately determines how the employees within the business organizations carry out their day to day duties and responsibilities. It also dictates the magnitude of the performance and success of the business organization. This means that whenever employees are highly satisfied with the kind of leadership styles they receive from the management, they become motivated. As a result, they deliver the best result to the company and enhance its success. Therefore, this implies that transformational leadership is one of the greatest assets of the business organization. Therefore in this essay, I will explore the role of transformational leadership and what such leaders are expected to do in order to take the organization to the nest successful level (Sarros, Cooper & Santora, 2008). Transformational Leadership Transformational leader is the one who has the ability to motivate and take the employees to carry out their duties and responsibilities efficiently within a business organization. The general definition of a leader states that he or she is somebody who is eligible to motivate or inspire people to do the assigned duties. During the process of motivating employees, transformational leaders tend to ask a lot of the questions when interacting with the employees during daily business operations. Usually such leader makes eye contact with the employees so that such employees can understand that their leader focuses and put a lot of attention to them. The leader ensures that the welfare of the employees is taken care of so that they can deliver their services more efficiently (The World Bank Institute, 2009). In simple terms, transformational leadership occurs when a leader within a business organization put on the forefront the priorities of the employees by adequately feeling on them. For instance, the employees are regularly involved in the decision making process. The leader achieve these by motivating their employees to render the best services possible, asking them to give out their opinion about any changes which has been made within the business organization and involving them on various factors which contributes to the progress of the business organization. Research indicates that when employees are involved in the decision making progress, they will develop positive feelings about the organization. They will feel that they are attached to the company, and they will focus on the best performance during their daily operation. Transformational leadership as seen, therefore, is about the empowerment of employees to strive to excellence on their own will rather than being pushed by the company to do so. Roles of transformational leader to the Company Transformational leader plays a significant role within the company. Research indicates that whenever there is transformational leader within an organization, the self-esteem and the morale of the workers is highly raised, leading to the high productivity as a result of hard work by such employees. Transformational leader will venture into an organization, analyze different factors and adequately know what is needed to be done to make the situation to be better. Transformational leaders have various approach of not only changing the work environment to be conducive, but they tend to focus mostly on how they can develop individual’s talents. Under transformational leadership, employees tend to strive hard and work towards promotion as this leadership style push them to deliver the best by working hard and becoming developed an employee. Research further shows that transformational leadership encourage their potential employees during harsh and critical time, acknowledge the events that occur in their lives such as when their employees loses their members of family and congratulate by rewarding those who meet the company’s expectation. As such, the employees will feel valued and wanted and they will by all cost adhere to the principles of the company (House, 1996). Transformational leaders, according to the statistics are usually good at retaining their employees as they have skills and tactics of empowering such employees and hence keep them satisfied. According to Wolfe, (1994), such leadership has been found to have lower turnover implying that they will have lower training costs. The principle is mostly applicable whenever there is a higher rate of training cost whereby the company relies on the employees to provide certification so that they can provide training for. The trend shows that as more money is required to offer the employers training, the more money the transformational leaders can require from their employees. From the analysis, the money which is saved through retention can actually outweigh what the manager’s salary and the cost which results during an attempt to increase the employee’s morale. Transformational leadership grants the employees to look out and take care for their company rather than caring only for their own needs. Psychologically, by giving the potential employees the sense and reality that the company indeed care for their needs, such employees will accomplish more by looking out for the business organization. Such system will eventually enhance the saving capacity of the company because the ambitious and motivated employees will be less willing to take the supplies of the office, likely to reduce the cost of the company and interestingly always willing to share information about what it need to be done to increase the productivity of the company As the transformational leader asks the employees about their opinions on improving the systems, research clarifies that the flow of ideas from the lower level will be high up through the management chain. In simple words, whenever the employees are satisfied about how they are treated within the organization, right from the workers, supervisors up through the branch managers, they will go the company valuable information as they are open minded and are ready to move to the next level. This is because they will generate more idea power which is vital to the development of the company (House, 1996). Roles of transformational leader to the employees Transformational leaders are vital to the welfare of the employee’s within a business organization. They invest much of their time listening and addressing to the welfare of each employee who is hired to work in their company. Such time spent during listening and addressing the challenges faced by the employees will lead to a better understanding within the workplace. Research states that whenever the manager understand much about their employee’s welfare, the higher chance of providing for such needs, leading to the higher productivity in the work place. As the transformational leadership involves the coordination with the employees, the employees will get more recognition by their leader and what they are capable of accomplishing when given an opportunity to do so. Research shows that many leaders fail to listen and understand what their potential employees are eligible of doing and will eventually fail to understand how difficult some tasks are difficult to solve within a given time. As a result, they normally misunderstand and sometime punish the employees who do not meet certain expectation over a given period of time. While the work of sales people may be recognized, the work of the administrators, for instance which make lots of calls in a day may not be known. A transformational leader is keen to spot and note all the changes of such accomplishment and of course show appreciation by rewarding the employees who make the process profitable (Dayan, Benedetto, & Colak, 2009). Transformational leader is able to stand in the forefront fighting for the rights of the employees whenever necessary. As opposed to only receiving the idea which has been sent out down the chain, the leader is willing to express feelings of the front line and look for necessary changes needed to change the issue. In short, the transformational leader always supports the welfare of the employees because he or she recognizes that the employees are the driving force of the productivity of the business organization. Transformational employees also worked directly with the employees within the company. What does this mean? It means that transformational leader is so supportive such that whenever an employee is not feeling well, then the leader will try his or best to replace and look for ways through which he can address the plights of the sick employee. In other words, transformational leader will listen keenly to the grievances of the employees and immediately look for alternate and effective solution. However, research illustrates that the leader will make the decision based on the organization’s and employee’s needs. This will allow a smooth transition of the companies systems and give a room for necessary improvements (House, 1996). While the transformational leaders focus on how to transform the organization, there is a promise that the employees will be transformed because they are the key players in the organization to be more like their leader. Generally the final answer is that, in essence, the potential employees are the product of the transformation. According to the Burns, (1978), transformational leaders are usually charismatic, and their success is based on the faith they have on themselves. One of the crucial areas which cannot be understood about transformational leaders is that they are viewed to have confidence and passion, as opposed to reality and truth. While it is agreeable that much has been achieved through enthusiastic leadership, it is notable also that many passionate people have been able to positively transform the productivity of the company right from the bottom line. Paradoxically, the level of power and energy which triggers employees to perform the best can also make them give up. Transformational leaders have the authority and power which when misused can drastically affect the positive performance of the company. Generally, the work of the transformational leader is to change the company or rather increase the performance of the company. They are the individuals behind the big picture. However, whenever the business organization may not need transformation, and employees and business stakeholders are happy the way they are, then the leader will become frustrated. However, when given the opportunity and ample working environment, the transformational leader will change the business organization for good (Dayan, Benedetto, & Colak, 2009). Leadership and Innovation Employees and managers are generally in agreement that behavior, values and attitude promote innovation. Research shows that, in an innovation culture, the potential employees are aware that their ideas are significance to the welfare and the progress of the company, and they believe that it is safe to work and promote ideas and learn from failures. To apply this system of innovation, leaders involve the employees in decision making process. Research indicates that engagement and trust are fundamental features of promoting strong performance on innovation (Bass, 1990) There are also mutual agreements of essential cultural attributes that undermine the promotion of innovation: fearful environment, hierarchical and bureaucratic. Such cultures dictate the use of incentives and resources to promote performance and also intolerance of failure. Research highlights that in order to make co-operate culture incompatible and friendly to innovation, the leaders must be willing to acquire the necessary skills and encourage the organization to do so as well. The system should be changed such that as opposed to coaching of the employees, facilitating collaboration and subordinates should be embraced and applied by the leaders. This will increase transparency, understanding well of all the process and promoting innovation within the organization. Innovation leads to the higher productivity and success of the company. (Benner, & Tushman, 2003). Conclusion In conclusion, as learnt from the discussions above, it is evident that transformational leadership is indeed a strong method as it pushes the company from the low to high performance. Employee’s performance is stirred, and this will increase productivity and reduce the rate of turnover. There may be employees within the organization who undermine their ability and it takes only the transformational leader to change the self-esteem of such employees (Bass, 1985). Innovation, as also explored is indeed a big idea with major potential outcomes. However, it is necessary implement it in steps so as to maximize its significance (Barsh, 2008). Therefore in my opinion, companies should facilitate the use of transformational leaders and embrace innovation so as to increase the organization’s productivity. Reference Barsh, J. (2008). Leadership and Innovation. Retrieved from http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/innovation/leadership_and_innovation Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectation. New York: Free Press. Bass, B. M. (1990). From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to share the vision. Organizational Dynamics, (Winter): 19-31. Benner, M. & Tushman, L. (2003). Exploitation, exploration, and process management: The productivity dilemma revisited. The Academy of Management Review, 238-256 Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row Dayan, M., Benedetto, A., & Colak, M. (2009). Managerial trust in new product development projects: Its antecedents and consequences. R&D Management, 39(1), 2137 Gliddon, D. G. (2006). Forecasting a competency model for innovation leaders using a modified Delphi technique. Retrieved from http://www.openthesis.org/documents/Forecasting competency-model-innovation- House, R. J., (1996). Path-Goal theory of leadership: Lessons, legacy, and a reformulated theory. Leadership Quarterly, 7(3), 323-352 Sarros, J. Cooper, B. K & Santora, C. (2008). Building a climate for innovation through transformational leadership and organizational culture. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 15, 145-158 The World Bank Institute: Leadership and Innovation (2009). Retrieved from http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/devoutreach/article/365/leadership-and-innovation Wolfe, R. (1994). Organizational innovation: Review, critique and suggested research directions. Journal of Management Studies, 31, 405-431. Read More