The type of leadership practised by those in charge of a team is a complex issue, but one that can be a key factor regarding growth and efficiency. What happens when the chosen path is transformational leadership?
Each work group has its own personal stamp, an imprint created from bidirectionality between those in charge and the rest of professional profiles that comprise it. But it is true that the manager’s attitudes play a key role when establishing the organizational anatomy inside a department or team.
There are diverse interesting approaches regarding management strategies that are capable of enhancing the accomplishment of successful objectives in many ways. In this article, we are going to focus on transformational leadership. Theodore Roosevelt said that “people ask the difference between a leader and a boss: the leader leads, and the boss drives”. There´s something to that in a transactional-type leader that makes him or her stand out. Let´s have a look…
Beyond “give and take”
The concept of transformational leadership was already defined in the 1970s. Therefore, it is not a new notion, it has been developed through time and nowadays it´s certainly a contemporary term.
The managers who can be recognized as transformational leaders more often than not have great charisma, being also characterized by their motivational drive towards the people in their team while sparking a positive transformation in their working life, showing them how to identify opportunities and set goals. And what else?
– They take the singularity of each individual working alongside them into account, they´re communicative and listen to what those people have to say.
– They encourage creativity in their team, they ask and try to place value on the various ideas that could come up.
– They motivate through their attitude, they remain optimistic and are always accessible to collaborate, clarify tasks or listen to any proposal that could offer a new approach in order to address it.
– They achieve involvement and spread good mood over the group in such a way that the spirit is maintained even if they´re absent.
Transactional and transformational leadership, why are they not the same thing?
Transactional and transformational leadership can be mixed up, but they are two completely different management concepts, although not incompatible. In fact, both styles are necessary to lead an organization.
However, while a manager with a merely transactional approach uses discipline and incentives to lead and motivate, one with a transformational insight is more focused in team creation and collaborative efforts in order to promote positive changes in both working and interaction dynamics.
Eventually, the type of leadership implemented in a company has a crucial influence in its results. The paradigm should not be based on the confrontation between both notions, but on the balancing of the advantages and limitations provided by each model on the part of the organization and the people in charge.
Sources: Enciclopledia Financiera, La voz de Houston