What is transformational leadership?

Inspiring Followers

Transformational leadership is a leadership style that instills positive, valuable changes in followers. The ultimate goal of transformational leadership is to develop followers into leaders through the act of inspiring workers to accomplish their tasks (Kotlyar & Karakowsky, 2007). The transformational leader accomplishes this goal by teaching the followers to help each other, to look out for each other, and to be encouraging and harmonious. The grand goal encompassing these traits is the loyalty and caring of the follower towards the organization as a whole.

Under this approach transformational leaders enhance the motivation, morale and performance of his or her followers through a variety of psychological devices. These devices include meshing the followers identity and self to the mission and the instilling the collective identity of the organization. Other simpler devices include being a role model that inspires others; challenging followers to be responsible for their work, and realizing the strengths and weaknesses of peers. By doing this the transformational leader can appropriately assign tasks and optimizes group performance (Kotlyar & Karakowsky, 2007).

References

Kotlyar, I., & Karakowsky, L. (2007). Falling Over Ourselves to Follow the Leader. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, Vol. 14, №1, 38–49

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