The concept of a transformational leader—one who instigates growth and motivation for the betterment of their followers—makes it extremely popular to any company or organization trying to improve their employee population and subsequently their product or sales (Bass & Avolio, 1994; Burns, 1978; PSU, 2014). Additionally, the growing utilization of teams in organizations highlights the advent of research that points to transformational leadership as a defining link between team mental models (everyone on the same page) and team efficacy (Ayoko & Chua, 2014). This concept greatly supports the idea that transformational leadership is foundational, in both utilization and development, of stronger teams and employee populations. As such, understanding within organizations where and at what hierarchical degree transformational leadership can be exploited is paramount to developmental initiatives and company efficacy as a whole. Additionally, a strong argument can be made that transformational leadership stands to increase the performance of teams (Dionne, Yammarino, Atwater, & Spangler, 2004).
Throughout the past couple decades the use of teams has become significantly more popular and used in organizations (Shuffler, DiazGranados, & Salas, 2011). As with most things that appear to be good, the optimization, exploitation, design, and development of teams has been recognized as vital to creating effective teams (Cannon-Bowers & Bowers, 2010). Logically, the placement and use of teams is predominantly (by quantity) found in the lower half of organizations, however, teams are found throughout all levels of organizations (llgen, 1999; PSU, 2014). In such, and through the popularity and output ability of transformational lead teams, the use of such concepts is at the forefront of many leadership developmental initiatives (Dionne et al., 2004). As transformational leadership fosters both social and task cohesion, it also has been described as providing a sense of purpose and family (Bass & Avolio, 1993). Unfortunately, and extremely interesting, there exists very clear differences between team effectiveness, performance, and learning (Raes, 2013). As effectiveness is generally thought to be outcomes, performance (depending upon who judges such) is thought to be during work and not exactly related to outcomes, and learning is the ability to progress towards either better performance or effectiveness (Raes, 2013).
So, how do companies utilize such training and how effective is it?
Based upon the foundational concepts of transformational leadership, the inherent use of social cohesion, interaction, intrapersonal relations, and fostering of psychological safety, demonstrates that transformational leadership training for teams is greatly beneficial to effectiveness, growth, and the subsequent ability to learn as a team (Raes, 2013). This effect is also highlighted by research that indicates leaders who teach with a social understanding of the importance of fostering psychological safety—team members who feel accepted, respected, and free to express—greatly contributes to team effectiveness, cohesion, and performance (Edmondson, Bohmer, Pisano, 2001). Collectively, these studies mirror many of transformational leaderships inherent traits that can be utilized to best lead teams.
In my experience as a middle to upper level manager within the military, the training of transformational leadership characteristics was minimal. Though a team may be proven to be more effective through the use and function of transformational leadership characteristics, I would posit that this is limited by function of power and influence. The presence, and more specifically the use, of power and influence in the military are markedly different than civilian organizations. This is due in large part by consequential parameters that back orders and directives from superiors—often referred to as “coercive power” (French & Raven, 1959).
However, my experience in small team crews in aviation differs greatly than within macroscopic military hierarchy. The concept of transformational leadership mimics that of Crew Resource Management’s (CRM) function. In short, CRM is based upon 7 critical skills: decision making, adaptability/flexibility, mission analysis, communication, leadership, assertiveness, and situational awareness (Helmreich, Merrit,, & Wilhelm, 1999). Of these components, the efficacy of any one of them is greatly reliant upon the ability of leadership to foster such aspects of teams as psychological safety, cohesion, and performance. I have personally been apart of numerous crews that greatly focus upon such concepts and, in my experience, the outcome was vastly different than crews that did not focus on such. To this degree, I would argue that such research stands to support the use and function of transformational leadership in aviation and within teams ubiquitously. This stands to demonstrate that transformational leadership should be utilized both in general organizational settings, where a majority of teams is in the lower half of the organization, and towards the top level managerial team settings where teams often exists as a conglomeration of different department heads and from different areas requiring specific autonomy apart from common team settings.
In conclusion, the use of transformational leadership continues to be proven by research as a very effective means to lead (Ayoko & Chua, 2014; Bandura, 1986) Additionally, such means of effective transformational leadership initiatives in relation to the efficacy of team learning has been proven to be crucial to overall team effectiveness (Decuyper, Dochy, & Van den Bossche, 2010). Ultimately, the nurturing of transformational leader characteristics in team settings is important to the development, performance, learning, and effectiveness of the entire organization and suggests that developmental initiatives should be universally present and not just subjected to a majority of teams.
Written by Morgan L. DeBusk-Lane
References
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