Transformational leadership sounds so good, it’s the hot topic of leadership and has rave reviews in terms of the results it produces, but how do you get there? If you are broaching the subject for the first time, how do you know where to start? Washington, Hacker & Hacker discuss the five ingredients of transformation: “Vision: Where are you going? Leadership: How are you leading the effort, and do you have the skills? Technical Plan: How will you close the gap between the vision and your current situation? Social Plan: How will you enroll others that might be supportive or not supportive of your plan? Burning Platform: Why should you do anything?”
Being a transformational leader is more than just a phrase or term, it runs deep and takes a series of steps in effort to obtain to it in a way that meaningfully impacts employees and the company at large. Firstly, having a vision of the direction you are taking the team is a crucial first step. And this has to be specific. Not only in terms of team culture and how you want everyone to interact, but also specific project goals and how each of those goals tie in to overall company success and moving the team towards making achievements that will move the company forward, by wither increasing intellectual assets or a direct bottom line improvement.
Once you have gone through all the other steps and still feel like there is something missing in terms of your achievement level, the final phase comes into play: “This is what the burning platform is: it is the motivation to move you toward the vision and overcome obstacles in your way because you can no longer, or no longer want to, stay where you are.” (Washington, Hacker & Hacker, 2011)
Washington, Marvin; Hacker, Stephen; Hacker, Marla. Successful Organizational Transformation: The Five Critical Elements. New York, NY, USA: Business Expert Press, 2011. p 73. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/psul/Doc?id=10478046&ppg=86
I really couldn’t agree with you more when you talk about setting the tone and the vision as a first and critical step to becoming a good transformational leader. This is really something I sometimes struggle with myself is I know what my vision is, but getting that vision out of my head and interpreted in terms my team can also see. Difficult and struggle with regularly.