“Only 7% of CEOs believe their companies are building effective global leaders, and only 10% said that their leadership development initiatives have a clear business impact.“

Source: McKinsey & Company

What is
Leadership Transformation?

Leadership transformation is a management philosophy that encourages and inspires employees to innovate and develop new ways to grow and improve the path to a company’s future success. Using this method, executives give trusted employees the independence to make decisions and support new problem-solving approaches.

Transformational leaders are passionate about their work and the company’s mission, while also helping all employees succeed. Another key trait is their ability to identify business processes that no longer work and focus on streamlining or changing them as needed.

While transformational leaders are often admired, they don’t seek out praise or adulation because their focus is on doing what’s best for their organization. Risk taking is calculated — based on gathering intelligence from team members, the leader’s own instincts and experience. Decisions are made with an eye toward the organization’s values, vision and objectives.

Transactional vs. Transformational Leadership

Different managers may deploy different management styles depending on the situation and the needs of the organization. There are times when a more transactional approach is needed to make sure important short-term goals are met and operations are running smoothly. However, the transformational approach encourages business innovation, new ideas and longer-term objectives.

| Transactional Leadership

Transactional leadership uses structure and clear guidance to determine and communicate an employee’s performance requirements. It also employs a system of rewards and punishments, depending on the results. This transactional leadership approach tends to favor short-term planning and results. While it is a more top-down approach than others, ideally, employees are given the resources they need to do their jobs effectively, and goals are mutually agreed to. SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound – goals are set for employees.

Transactional leaders also practice management by exception, not getting involved if things run as expected. But negative results, such as missed sales goals or production delays, attract prompt attention.

| Transformational Leadership

While transformational leaders are responsive to issues and concerns as they arise, they are more proactive in encouraging new ideas and approaches on an ongoing basis. They focus on long-term or aspirational goals that are harder to quantify. However, the transformational leader puts more traditional, quantifiable goals, such as a sales quota or positive customer feedback, into the bigger picture.

Transformational leaders also encourage actions that help the team and company achieve organizational goals and their vision of success, motivating employees by appealing to their own self-interest. This is developed by letting employees be part of the decision-making process, which leads to more buy-in of agreed-upon goals. For example, a manager and employee might agree that response time to customer service inquiries has to be 10% faster to ensure greater customer satisfaction. However, rather than simply following a management edict, the employee understands that meeting this goal is a sign of accomplishment for them and better for the company.

Where a transactional leader may react to negative results punitively e.g., a missed sales quota leads to lower commission or reassignment of sales prospects, the transformational leader strives to fix the problem by more direct involvement e.g., joint sales calls to better understand the challenges the salesperson is facing or offering additional resources and training.

The Four Elements of Transformational Leadership

Bernard M. Bass broke the concept of transformational leadership into four key elements, sometimes called the “4 Is”. These four elements collectively define transformational leadership and highlight the leader’s role in inspiring and guiding followers. The four elements are:

| Idealized Influence (II)

Also known as charismatic leadership, this element involves the leader serving as a role model and exemplifying strong values, ethics, and morals. The leader’s actions and behavior should inspire admiration, trust, and respect among followers.

| Inspirational Motivation (IM)

Transformational leaders are able to communicate a compelling vision of the future. They motivate their followers by articulating a clear vision, fostering a sense of purpose, and instilling enthusiasm for the vision. Transformational leaders help their followers understand the significance of their work and how it contributes to the organization’s success.

| Intellectual Stimulation (IS)

Transformational leaders encourage creativity, innovation, and critical thinking among their followers. They challenge the status quo and promote problem solving. These leaders promote a culture of continuous learning and growth.

| Individualized Consideration (IC)

To achieve this element, a leader should recognize and address the individual needs, strengths, and aspirations of each follower. Transformational leaders help everyone reach their potential. By fostering a strong interpersonal connection, leaders create a supportive and empowering environment.

5 Qualities of Transformational Leaders

Transformational leaders possess multiple traits that make them effective mentors. Here are those:

| Self-Awareness

Transformational leaders know what they’re good at and what they need to work on. They’re always reflecting and setting goals for themselves while believing that everyone, including themselves, should be learning and improving all the time.

| Proactivity

Leaders are proactive and not passive. They make decisions that can set an example for others instead of just waiting for change to happen. By being proactive, leaders show they are taking the initiative, which can inspire others to do the same.

| Adaptability and Innovation

Good transformational leaders know how to change with the times. They are always coming up with new ways to stay ahead of the competition. They are not afraid to change traditional methods that have worked in the past as they look toward the future.

| Open-Mindedness

Transformational leaders need to be open to new ideas and fresh perspectives. Rather than making decisions without considering other points of view, these leaders regularly gather feedback and input from various sources. This helps them make strategic decisions that are more likely to be successful.

| Humility

Finally, transformational leaders know that they don’t have all the answers and are okay with admitting that. They can remain confident in themselves and their abilities but also know when to put their ego aside for the sake of what’s best for their team or organization.

Why Organizations need Leadership Transformation

| It Fuels a Positive Business Culture

The most important reason why organizations must invest in leadership transformation relates to the positive business culture that arises when a leader gives individual consideration to each employee.

Leadership Transformation focuses on how each individual’s personal development can be accelerated and optimized to induce self-worth and motivation, resulting in a workforce that feels valued, supported, and nurtured irrespective of background.

It’s about driving vocational tasks, challenging assumptions, and energizing employees to put their energy and effort into the business and to yield their critical practice, by which they go about doing things differently

| It creates a clear vision for the business

Leadership transformation articulates a vision that’s appealing and inspiring to followers, providing a vivid mental image of the long-term goals and aspirations of the business. This is crucial, especially during times of drastic internal organizational change.

Think of a company going through a merger or acquisition, for example, whereby its original identity may be jeopardized. A transformational leader will provide motivation by inspiring employees with excellent communication skills, honesty, and integrity. They will put the employees and employers on the same playing field, promoting confidence in and optimism for the business’ new shared identity.

| It can lead to lasting and durable success

Lastly, fostering the right culture and promoting a clear vision should lead to lasting and durable success. A transformational leader has strategic decision-making capabilities through which they can adapt a firm to rapidly changing markets and environments. They drive an adaptable, agile, and sustainable workforce by serving as a role model and displaying high moral conduct.

It must be highlighted that leadership is not intrinsically linked to a position, it’s vested in groups, not just individuals. As leaders empower their employees, they themselves can become leaders and influencers within the organization, further fueling an engaged workforce that’s empowered to innovate and help shape an organization’s future success.

Leadership Transformation

Build a leadership-pool calibrated for impact and excellence

KNOLSKAPE’s Leadership Transformation courses have been scientifically developed to unlock the potential of leaders and drive transformational change in organizations. Our experiential learning approach enables participants to develop a deep understanding of their leadership strengths and areas for improvement. Through immersive simulations, gamified assessments, and interactive coaching, participants gain practical insights and develop the skills needed to lead with purpose, impact and excellence. Our courses also leverage talent intelligence and analytics to identify leadership gaps, develop personalized learning paths, and measure the effectiveness of the learning interventions, ensuring a data-driven approach to leadership transformation.

Introduction to Digital Leadership

This course helps you understand the new leadership practices for the digital age. It covers a basic introduction to the concept, an introduction to digital leadership, understand the 4 personas of a Digital Leader: Networked leader, Sense-making leader, Design leader and Agile leader.

Leading Virtual Teams

This course is intended to help leaders develop a framework-based strategy so that they can be more impactful in their roles in ensuring performance, growth and commitment from their teams.

Agile Leadership

Leaders must embrace agility to make the most of opportunities that emerge on a continuous basis. This course unpacks this continuous mindset and a lot more in this course on agile leadership.

Leading Teams Effectively

Most leaders struggle with their responsibilities when they employ the same leadership style with all their team members. This course will help your leaders develop the skills they need to apply a contextual approach that addresses each team members’ needs and become truly motivational leaders for their teams.

Explore more about KNOLSKAPE’s Leadership Transformation solutions:

Way Forward

KNOLSKAPE acknowledges that to be successful, today’s leaders need to futurize and humanize their approach to people and work. Leaders today face unprecedented challenges around managing volatility in the workforce, being agile to changing market conditions, and mitigating elevated business risks. Companies are becoming flatter and more dynamic. As a result, companies now need a new breed of leaders across the leadership pipeline.