Transformational Leadership is a very powerful style of leadership. A leader using Transformational Leadership has the ability to inspire their followers and make them accomplish more then they thought they were capable of (Northouse, 2013). Transformational leaders are charismatic, dominant, confidant, morally strong, and are visionaries in accomplishing the goal (Northouse, 2013). Transformational leaders use these characteristics to inspire and create dedicated followers that share in their vision of success.
Coach Hall is one such transformational leader in the realm of high school sports. Coach Hall has an intrinsic ability to get his players to preform at a level beyond what any of them or anyone else thought was possible. The fact that coach Hall’s teams rarely loose is a testament to his Transformational Leadership style. Coach Hall is a larger than life type personality that is very dominant there is no question who is in charge of his team. He has a way of instilling his values of hard work and never quitting in his players. Coach Hall also sets very high standards and goals for each player as well as the team (Northouse, 2013). Playing perfect is his vision.
Coach Hall never stresses the importance of wining or loosing. It is always about playing up to the top level that each player is capable of playing at. These goals are big, however they are also clear and attainable. Each player soon shared a common set of values and a common vision. To not play to ones potential was to let yourself, your teammates, and Coach Hall down. We all knew Coach Hall would not quit on us and neither would our teammates. In this way we were all inspired to play as hard as we could every play. We all bought into Coach Hall’s ideology and had would have followed him anywhere (Northouse, 2013).
In my life of playing many years of sports and spending many years in the military Coach Hall is the only transformational leader I have met. I have often wondered why and how to emulate his style of leadership. It might be that Transformational Leadership is more of a trait than a style (Northouse, 2013). However I think it is more complicated than most realize. Transformational Leadership is like a cake, it takes all the ingredients to work right. First there has to be a charismatic, dominant, confident, moral, and a leader who wants to lead and push people to become better. Second there has to be followers willing to be open to the leader and align their values with the leader’s values. This shared belief system will foster trust and transform both the leader and the followers to perform at a higher level.
Transformational Leadership is very important to understand, as it is a very powerful form of leadership that can be used for both good and bad purposes. Pseudo Transformational Leaders such as Hitler and Jim Jones lead people to do horrific things (Northouse, 2013). Yet Transformational Leaders such as Martin Luther King Junior lead people to equality. Transformational Leadership has the power to forever change the world. In this light Transformational Leadership is important for every industry and every leader to better understand how and when to apply it.
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership theory and practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.