What is Transformational Leadership?
The Chancellor of the Wright Graduate Institute, Mike Zwell, Outlines How Social Emotional Intelligence is the Pathway to Transformational Leadership.
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.
