What Is Transformational Leadership?

Transformational leadership is future-focused, inspirational, often challenging and high-stakes. Successful transformational leaders come in a variety of types, and the success of a transformational project often depends on its social and cultural context.

Transformational leadership is inspiring, future-oriented, and often socially ambitious. It is often thought of in terms of Silicon Valley’s “masters of the universe.” They are “disruptors” with varying degrees of education and expertise who lead large groups of followers into unknown technological territory. Often, they succeed despite the odds.?

How does someone convince an entire company or industry to follow them toward a goal too ambitious to be conceivable by other expert leaders? It’s complicated. Transformational leadership isn’t based on offering employees rewards like larger salaries, fame, or status. Rather, the vision of the transformational leader is the reward itself.

Transformational leadership examples are legion. Whether it is Oprah Winfrey’s media prowess, Robert Moses’ looping concrete cityscapes, or Richard Branson’s Virgin empire, transformational leaders see more than the big picture: They see a big picture no one else can see yet.?

Origins of Transformational Leadership

The term “transformational leadership” was coined by James V. Downton in 1972. Most credit James MacGregor Burns with codifying the transformational leadership definition later that decade. Burns defined transformational leadership as a communal organizational event wherein “one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.”

Transformative leaders come in many shapes, harboring various intentions. There are plenty of TikTok cult leaders who dubiously claim access to a higher morality. Bill Gates’ extensive philanthropy is an example of a transformational leader’s commitment to causes he finds ethical.

Transformational leadership may seem diverse, but transformational leaders have a few things in common.

Components of Transformational Leadership

Michigan State University experts discuss the four “I’s” of transformational leadership per Bernard M. Bass’s Transformational Leadership Theory :?

• Intellectual stimulation. This is where leaders stimulate interest in innovation by sketching new horizons and presenting challenging but actionable problems to capable problem solvers.?
• Individual consideration. Leaders are careful to make sure everyone involved understands their vision in terms of both the big picture and their individual involvement in the project. Transformational leaders are mentorship-minded and eager to prove why their vision is worth a large-scale, unorthodox swerve.?
• Inspirational motivation. Here’s where a leader creates a framework for the future. Employees are encouraged to be a leader’s equal partners (at least psychologically) rather than just subordinates who work out the nuts and bolts of the plan. Many transformational leadership plans address profound questions and personal and social needs and inspire hope where it may not have existed before.
• Idealized influence. Transformational leaders need to seem authentic and energetic. This makes sense. They’re proposing things that may seem outrageous or impossible from within an organization’s current framework. They embody their plans, providing a model for employees to emulate.?

Traits of Successful Transformational Leaders

Leadership expert Kevin Ford built on Burns’ innovations, ascribing these traits to true transformational leaders:?

• They are tactical leaders?focused on solving common problems via operations-oriented expertise.
• They are highly strategic leaders?whose future focus isn’t separated from recognition of industry trends and norms as they currently exist.
• Authentically transformational leaders?are ultimately more unifiers and visionaries than they are tacticians or strategists. That’s what it takes to bring a vision to fruition; it’s what sets them apart from other types of leaders.

Transformational leadership styles vary. Some leaders are experts who work out operational contingencies well in advance, while others are gut-level change agents who largely decline to consider potential problems until they arise. There are benefits and risks associated with each approach.

Making an Impact as a Transformational Leader

Transformational leaders have an outsized impact on their industries, and sometimes on society at large. There are complex social and psychological reasons for this. A transformational leader’s vision isn’t always self-evidently beneficial. Why is Mark Zuckerberg celebrated for creating a music-free MySpace platform that harvests user data it then sells to foreign governments? It’s complicated.

Transformational leaders often appear at historical inflection points. They offer new philosophical, technological, economic, scientific, and social ideas that express new theories of history and human potential. They can run the risk of resulting in destruction and sorrow.

Transformative leadership may look untrustworthy at first. That’s the curse and the responsibility of transformational leaders. They need to have the strength and vision to push through opposition without distorting their message or diluting their ambition to pacify the world.?

Top Takeaways

What is transformational leadership?

• Transformational leadership is visionary and future-oriented.?
• It often addresses deep-seated social and personal needs.?
• Transformational leadership looks diverse and challenging: Some leaders build from the ground up, while others cast their eyes to the future, barely paying attention to the terrain along the way.

(Reporting by NPD, Editing by Timothy Mably )