As a leader, I want so much more than to achieve goals. I want transformation. I want my life and the lives of the people around me to transform as we reach our objectives. But what does it mean to be a transformational leader?

Transformational leadership is often contrasted with transactional leadership. Transactional leadership emphasizes the transactions or exchanges that take place between and or among leaders. In the transactional model, the focus is on how rewards and punishments influence outcomes. In transformational leadership the emphasis is on relationships characterized by mutuality and the desire to multiply influence and effectiveness.

Transformational leadership supports all individuals in an organization to accept that they are leaders. Leadership is less about position and more about people exercising their potential as human beings to effect outcomes. Individuals are encouraged to accept responsibility for being leaders all the time. Instead of asking themselves whether they are leaders, they are asking, “Towards what am I leading?” We are all leading all the time.

In their book, Transformational Leadership, Bernard Bass and Ronald Riggio wrote, “Transformational leadership involves inspiring followers to commit to a shared vision and goals for an organization or unit, challenging them to be innovative problems solvers, and developing followers’ leadership capacity via coaching, mentoring, and provision of both challenge and support.” (Bass & Riggio, 2006, p. 4) The focus is not only on what the team accomplishes, but how the goals are reached. In transformational leadership there is a strong emphasis on the development and maturation of the individuals as the objectives are being met.

Under transformational leadership, the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts as people are motivated and inspired to exceed even their own expectations of what they believed was possible. Not only do the individuals grow and develop under the direction of transformational leaders, they are also far more productive. The quality of the relationships has a significant impact on the productivity of the projects.

Bass and Riggio identified four factors that set apart transformational leaders. These dynamics are Idealized Influence, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, and Individualized Consideration. Bass and Riggio believe that transformational leaders achieve superior outcomes as a result of incorporating at least one of these four components in their leadership style.

Idealized Influence (II) suggests that transformational leaders serve as role models to their followers. The leader must walk the talk and as a result the followers increasingly attribute positive regard to the transformational leader.
Inspirational Motivation (IM) describes the transformational leader’s ability to arouse and inspire followers to unite as teams and take on extraordinary challenges and goals. These leaders are both optimistic and inspirational. They are able to clearly articulate expectations and support followers in reaching their objectives.

Intellectual Stimulation (IS) describes the transformational leader’s capacity to inspire creativity and critical thinking in their followers and teams. Team members sense that they are valued partners in the creative problem solving process. Followers are encouraged to be creative and think outside the box without fear of recrimination.

Individualized Consideration (IC) describes the transformational leaders desire to be an individual mentor and coach to his or her followers. Transformational leaders take into consideration the individual differences of their followers. They are approachable, encouraging open and reciprocal communication. Transformational leaders are continually growing in their emotional and social intelligence thus maximizing their ability to connect powerfully with their followers.

Consider joining us at the 2012 Transformational Leadership Symposium and Award Dinner on April 27-28, 2012, and participate in a stimulating and inspiring experience of learning to become the most potent transformational leaders imaginable.

Students of leadership have long known that powerful leaders have the capacity to move and inspire their followers. What they haven’t understood until recently, though, is how. Now, neuroscience is giving us insight into the influence of leadership on the brain.

Thanks to such researchers as Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., we have begun to understand the intensely social orientation of our minds. As Goleman says, “we are wired to connect,” and proof lies in the fact that some of the most common neurons in the human brain are spindle cells, which regulate intuitive or “snap” social decisions. We’re also loaded with mirror neurons, which are brain cells that manage our sense of empathy. These neural structures mean that our moods are contagious.

Can’t we then assume that leadership—and transformational leadership in particular—is also “contagious”? Long before neurologists discovered what we now know about brain structure, James MacGregor Burns was writing that “ … transformational leadership is the process whereby a person engages with others and creates a connection that raises the level of motivation and morality in both the leader and the follower. This type of leader is attentive to the needs and motives of followers and tries to help followers reach their fullest potential.”

Leadership theorists Bernard Bass and Ron Riggio later wrote that “… leadership is intrinsically an emotional process, in which leaders display emotions to evoke emotional reactions in followers.” This should be particularly true for transformational and charismatic leaders, who use inspirational motivation to encourage followers.

The next time someone tells you that “emotions have no place at work” – tell them they’re wrong! They do have a place, and it’s called “transformational leadership.”

I have the privilege of having worked for over 10 years for one of the founding members of the Foundation for Transformational Leadership, Dr. Robert Wright. I’ve learned countless lessons along the way, but there is one that has really stuck with me over the years and that is the concept of always being a learner, always taking something from every experience I’m in, fully engaging as a curious being with a beginner’s mind who is ready to learn new things, to transform how I look at something, and to understand another person’s point of view in a new way.

Early on Bob and I attended a workshop together. We went to the first portion of the seminar sitting in separate sections of the room. About 5 minutes into the workshop, I was disgusted by the leader in the front of the room. He was chauvinistic and simplistic in his solutions and not very deep. I couldn’t wait to regroup with Bob at a break to fill him in on my acute observations about this workshop and then to figure out what we were going to do with the rest of our day.

As we finally met up, I could tell he was bursting at the seams to talk so I thought I’d wait to see if my observations matched him. I was shocked to hear the first words out of his mouth, “Isn’t this great!” I barely had a chance to say a word before he was listing all the masterful ways this person did what he did. Finally I put in my two cents and said, “I didn’t get any of that. I thought he was simplistic and superficial and kind of a jerk.” Bob quickly replied, “Yea, that’s all true, but who cares. Isn’t it amazing how he’s doing what he’s doing?” He proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes filling me in on all of his observations about the process as well as the points he found relevant for his own development—all of which were very relevant to me and applicable to our business.

To me this is true transformational leadership. Being the kind of leader who can learn from anyone, who can go into any situation and take what there is to glean by actively engaging, and to apply that knowledge for a higher purpose. Now when I meet someone who tells me they aren’t interested in a workshop or talk or concept because they already know it, I think of that moment. I think of how much time I wasted being a know-it-all and how exciting it is that, as a transformational leader, I never need to be bored because with a beginner’s mind, there is always something to learn.

Read and get inspired by Bob’s blog on transformation. Get to know Bob’s leadership yourself, join him and Barb at the Transformational Leadership Symposium. Register now!

Transformational leadership is a relatively new and evolving model of leadership in which leaders empower and develop themselves, their followers, and their organization to achieve extraordinary outcomes while generating high levels of satisfaction and commitment.

There are certain qualities that transformational leaders posses that distinguish them from the more traditional transactional model of leadership.
1. Social and emotional intelligence: Transformational leaders have a high degree of social intelligence and emotional intelligence and have a deep understanding of the emotions, concerns, and desires of their constituents.
2. Authenticity: Authenticity is characterized by congruence between words, beliefs, actions, and core integrity. The authentic leader demonstrates a consistency of purpose and meaning and manifests him- or herself as the same person at work, at home, and in community.
3. Commitment to personal transformation: Transformational leaders engage in their own personal transformation, which has a transformative effect on the people around them, and ultimately, their world. Their personal transformational work includes questioning and challenging their own deeply held beliefs and assumptions and experimenting with new behaviors to better manifest desires and results.
4. Dedication to stretching themselves: They set goals for themselves stretch them beyond what seems possible. By doing so they create circumstances that require them to adopt different ways of being and new approaches outside of their current way of thinking and actions.
5. Investment in empowering others: Transformational leaders inspire their followers to become more and achieve more than they thought possible for themselves, fulfilling more of their own potential. They motivate their followers to transform themselves as the leader transforms him- or herself.

The traditional model of leadership in organizations has been transactional leadership, which seeks to achieve an outcome through an exchange of value (exchanging work for money, for example). This more common, current management paradigm—effective in many ways—is insufficient to respond to current global challenges. Transformational leadership seeks to go further, satisfying deeper hungers and responding to higher missions and purposes within the individual—often changing the status quo in the process. Transformational leadership involves a never ending process of growth and development, in which people are continually challenged and expected to take the next step towards realization of their potential. This produces a vibrant and fulfilling culture that empowers individuals to take deep responsibility for themselves, their results, and their careers.

The Wright Graduate Institute for the Realization of Human Potential offers a M.A. degree and an Ed.D. in Transformational Learning, Leadership, and Coaching; as well as non-credit certificate program courses in Transformational Leadership, Social Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, and Transformational Coaching. Click here to learn more about the Wright Graduate Institute for the Realization of Human Potential. Find out more about your potential.