Currently, I am a Student Trainee at a United States Government agency. I work in the Office of Human Resources Management. One of the areas that I have worked in is the Work-Life Programs for the employees. This can cover accommodations such as alternative work schedules. Under the alternative work schedule, you can work 10 hour work days and get a day off every other week. You can also have a flexitour schedule where you work 8 ½ hours a day but you have to come in during a fixed arrival time. Lastly, you can telework at home and complete your official work off duty during your prescribed work hours. I believe that this represents a transformational leadership because it is parallel to its leadership factors and is aligned with the transformational model research.
Transformational leadership can be defined as a process that changed and transforms people (Northouse, pg. 161, 2016). In addition, it is concerned with emotions, values, ethics, standards, and long-term goals that moves followers to accomplish more than what is usually expected of them (Northouse, pg. 161, 2016). For example, the Work-Life Programs were designed to accommodate employees to address issues that may take place in life so that the employees can do their job to their fullest potential. By offering a variety of alternative work schedules, this can allow employees to factor in their children into their schedule for certain activities such as dropping off and picking up at school or after-school programs. According to Bass (1985) and Burns (1978), there are certain factors that make up transformation leadership: charisma; idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. By having the influence to work certain hours, employees can fit their schedule around what they have to do outside work so they can have enthusiasm and influence to complete certain hours to get a day off every other week. By having inspirational motivation to pick up and drop off your children every day, this will allow the work week to go smoothly and decreases the amount of time to complete tasks. By developing and/or maintaining intellectual stimulation, the employees that work at home are able to take a break from working in the workplace and work in more of an informal environment and complete more tasks efficiently. By having individualized consideration of what you have going on at work, employees can take the time to adjust their schedule to meet both the companies needs and their own needs. It is important to know both the employer (leader) and the employee (follower) are gaining from this transformation in the workplace by allowing the employee to adjust their schedules to participate in family life and contribute more proficiently to the company.
There has been a lot of research on transformational research which studies have implications that relate to the alternative work schedules at the workplace. First, transformational leadership can be observed in all countries, institutions, and organizational levels, but is more prevalent in public institutions and at lower organizational levels (Avolio & Bass, 2000). Within the Human Resources Management organization, there are may sub divisions. Within these lower organizational levels, they practice the alternative work schedules to allow the core values of their employees to be maintained within the workplace and outside of the workplace with their family. Allowing that balance can have an employee producing more in the workplace. Second, transformational leadership is a better predictor of organizational effectiveness and driving organizational change (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2012). By creating Work-Life Programs that also expand to child day care to financial assistance, this can help provide more organization within the company and an increase in employee involvement with regards to completion of tasks and team building exercises.
Through research with studies of implications and the functions of transformational leadership, it is clear that by having employees values put first in the betterment of a company, this provides organization effectiveness that can result in an increase in production and team involvement. The necessary balance to have between work and family life is crucial to the working class. By establishing transformational leadership, the workplace truly cares about its employees and their lives whether they are in the office working, at home working, or with their families.
References
Avolio, B.J., & Bass, B.M. (2000). Developing a Full Range of Leadership Potential: Cases on
Transactional and Transformational Leadership. Binghamton: State University of New York at
Binghamton.
Bass, B.M. (1985). Leadership and Performance beyond Expectations. New York: Free Press.
Burns, J.M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.
Hughes, R. L., Ginnett, R. C., & Curphy, G. J. (2012). Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies.
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
The Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2017). Lesson 9: Team Leadership. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1848444/modules/items/22449207
Joshua John Bustos says
Hello Jasmine,
Great post and good insight. I really connected with the portion of your blog that expressed there were implications of the alternative work schedule within the lower organizational levels of your HR office. You stated that “they practice the alternative work schedules to allow the core values of their employees to be maintained within the workplace and outside of the workplace with their family.” “Allowing that balance can have an employee producing more in the workplace.” I found this very interesting. I find the sociological and psychological implication of this program interesting. The fact that the head of a government entity who employs many different employees would have the insight to allow local management the latitude to assign alternative work schedules as they see fit, which enhances the employees core values outside of work and produces a balance of the employees output at the office. This is pretty ingenious and maybe a bit devious. If you think about it, by doing this, the employee goes home for the most part of the day and continues to exhibit the same values he conforms to at work, at home. It gets employees used to working without to much oversight and still get the job done. From a psychological perspective, you are in a sense conditioning your employee to do the right thing and be a good productive citizen by simply letting him or her go home to do work.