What Is Transformational Leadership?

Transformational Leadership refers to leaders who make employees aware of the importance of their responsibilities and tasks, and stimulate their higher-level needs through leadership charisma, leadership appeal, intellectual stimulation, and personalized care. In order to maximize its potential to achieve the highest level of performance. ^[1]

According to Burns (BURNS), leadership behaviors include the following two types: transactional leadership, which mainly motivates subordinates by satisfying subordinates' immediate and self-related interests; transformational leadership, mainly through interaction with subordinates To improve each other's maturity and motivation. These two are the two extremes of a continuum. The former emphasizes transactions and the latter emphasizes change. BURNS has further developed related research, defining transformative leadership as stimulating the high-level needs of subordinates by making employees aware of the significance of the tasks they undertake, establishing an atmosphere of mutual trust, and promoting subordinates to sacrifice their own interests for the benefit of the organization, and Achieve more than expected. ^[3]

The world economy continues to develop and science and technology are increasingly updated. While bringing great wealth to the whole society, these advances have also brought more uncertainty to the society, especially the management community. Good management is inconclusive so far.

Overview

In general, the transformational leadership theory interconnects the roles of leaders and subordinates, and attempts to create a process between the leader and subordinates that can improve the motivation and morality of both parties. Leaders with transformational leadership optimize their interactions with members in their organizations through their role models and concerns about the needs of their subordinates. While passing

versus

The theory of transformational leadership has been developed for more than 20 years. Foreign research on transformational leadership has become more and more intensive. In addition to the process of localization, domestic research on it has also done some in-depth theoretical and empirical research . ^[4]

Although there are many commendable aspects of the transformational leadership theory, in the process of its continued development, it also encountered some confusions and deficiencies, which is also the place where this theory needs to be resolved and improved in the future. ^[4]

From the definition of transformational leadership, it can be seen that the reason why this leadership theory has become the focus of current leadership research is that it meets the needs of the times. Since Maslow put forward his theory of hierarchy of needs, it has had a profound impact on many areas of society. Everyone values the high-level needs and self-actualization of each individual, and can see people as social people. The perception of people as animals or economic people is no longer appropriate. The transformational leadership theory attaches great importance to the realization of employees' own values, treats them as active people, encourages them to realize themselves, and believes that they have unlimited potential. We should be able to see that in some current knowledge-based enterprises, the cultural quality of employees is relatively high. If leaders treat them as mechanical people, they usually lead them by command. The effect will not be good, so That is to say, in this economically developed social environment, the transformational leadership has great significance and application value in the context of relatively high population and cultural quality. ^[4]

(1) It transcends the incentives of exchange, and encourages employees to surpass self-interest for group goals, tasks, and development prospects through the development and intellectual incentives of employees to achieve the expected

There is strong evidence that transformational

Situational factors will buffer the impact of transformational and exchange-oriented leadership behavior on performance. Organizations with a tendency to change and risk tolerance tend to accept transformational leaders. Conversely, organizations that are constrained by traditional habits, regulations, and laws often have doubts about the status quo and often seek ways to improve when they complete tasks. This is regarded as a lack of stability, and transformational leaders are not suitable for organizations with structural stability and coherence. Therefore, organizations with higher levels of innovation, risk-taking, and openness are more attractive to transformational leaders than organizations that are structurally stable and well-organized. Studies have shown that innovation support has a buffering effect on the correlation between intellectual and individualized leadership behavior and job performance, while the relationship between charismatic leadership behavior and performance is not affected by innovation support. There are two main aspects Reason: ^[4]

(L) Leaders with high leadership charm usually want employees with internalized leader values and goals, and induce their subordinates to go beyond the immediate environment, complete the tasks assigned by the leaders, and achieve the desired goals. Quasi-powered leaders are not affected by high and low productivity standards, enabling their subordinates to achieve high task performance, high task adjustment, and high adaptability to leaders and groups;

(2) Compared with a more standardized and stable environment, in a more chaotic and unstable environment, charismatic leaders have a greater impact on employee performance.