Transformational Leadership: How to Motivate & Inspire Teams

A perennial question in the arena of leadership thinking is simply this: ‘What constitutes good leadership?’ Filtering such questions through a new theoretical framework can be powerful, causing top-down paradigm shifts in the way organizations are run. One framework that has the potential to cause this degree of change is transformational leadership theory.

Intellectual stimulation

Transformational leadership is often juxtaposed with transactional leadership

A Take-Home Message

Quality leadership can make all the difference when it comes to achieving both objective success and subjective wellbeing

• Adopting a transformational style may well be integral to these ends
• It’s never too late to change the approach, and the power of a compelling, inspiring vision to motivate shouldn’t be underestimated

Inspirational motivation

Transformational leaders stimulate the inner emotional worlds of their followers by appealing to higher ideals and values

Applying Transformational Leadership in Healthcare

Five key elements of optimum leadership in healthcare settings

• Inspiring visions at every level, along with upholding a shared, holistic view of care
• Clear, aligned objectives for all teams, departments, and individual staff
• Supportive and enabling people management and high levels of staff engagement
• Learning, innovation, and quality improvement embedded in the practice of all staff

Insufficient identification of negative effects

One suggestion is that followers can become “transformed to such a high degree of emotional involvement in the work that over time they become ‘burned out’ by the prolonged stress” (Yukl, 1999, p. 292).

Transformational Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

Is there a meaningful link with the construct of emotional intelligence (EI)?

• A 2010 meta-analysis looked at the relationship between transformational leadership variables and emotional intelligence parameters, and found no significant link.
• This suggests that claims of EI being the core of transforming leadership may be overstated, but it does demonstrate that EI may contribute to successful leadership.

Tallest tower

Participants are given everyday items like toothpicks, wooden blocks, and uncooked pasta. The task is to construct the tallest possible free-standing structure from the materials provided.

Is the Style Effective?

Transformational leadership positively aligns with how well companies, the military, governmental organizations, educational institutions, and nonprofits perform

• Five specific research findings that found a link between transformational leadership and employee/organizational effectiveness
• Some organizations perform to a much higher level, engender more loyalty from workers, and innovate to an unusual degree
• Can the transformational style help to account for some of these outcomes?

Characteristics and Traits: 5 Examples

What are the characteristics of a transformational leader?

Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI)

Another tool that can measure leadership, including transformational leadership style

• Both leaders and their team members rate the leader on 30 items using a 10-point Likert scale
• Often used in workplace settings, the LPI isn’t often used in research

What Is Transformational Leadership Theory?

Transformational leaders are those who engage with followers such that they “raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.”

• How do they achieve this? By embodying an inspiring vision in order to motivate followers to work on shared goals that transcend their self-interest

Using Transformational Leadership in Education: 3 Games

Leadership isn’t just an academic exercise, it’s a lived experience.

Desert island

Each team has to agree on just five items they would take if stranded on a desert island. This activity reveals any mismatch between the priorities of participants and tests their ability to make compromises for the greater good of surviving together.

Inspirational motivation

This Swedish study evaluated 128 leaders across different sectors to see whether transformational leadership domains are predictive of organizational outcomes

Employee outcomes

This study looked at questionnaire data from social service employees, as well as interview data from managers in three empirical studies.

Advantages and disadvantages

Inspirational motivation has been linked to employee enthusiasm, hopefulness, pride, happiness, attentiveness, and inspiration

• Transformational leadership is more effective when applied in smaller, privately held organizations compared to larger, more complex ones
• It isn’t a blanket solution to every situation and setting

Resources to help leaders become more effective

Empathy Bingo

• Generating Alternative Solutions and Better Decision-Making
• Spotting Good Traits
• Writing Your Mission Statement
• 17 Motivation and Goal-Achievement Exercises
• PositivePsychology.com’s Relevant Resources

Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ)

Designed as a 360-degree instrument, it takes data from the leader’s superiors, peers, subordinates, and others

Ambiguity about transformational behaviors

The theory may fall short in terms of its clarity

Ambiguity about transactional leadership

Transactional leadership is identified by a diverse collection of behaviors that “lack any clear common denominator”

• Yukl points out that providing “praise” and “recognition” can be seen as transformational and transactional, blurring the distinction between the two

Leadership crest

Participants are asked to create a family crest that visually represents their organization

Team performance

Lowe, Kroeck, and Sivasubramaniam (1996) established a link between transformational leadership style and team effectiveness

• The level of ‘charisma’ was especially correlated with leader effectiveness, as reflected by subordinate perception, supervisor appraisals, and hard measures of organizational outcomes such as meeting profit goals

Communication

One study found that such a leadership style was significantly related to not only citizenship behavior but also employee retention.

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