This was a statement made by the trainer of a leadership program that I attended through my employer. Their premise was that each employee can be motivated to perform better. However, all of the motivation and encouragement may not make them better. The problem may be that they do not have the skill set to perform those duties well, yet, they do have value at something. One example would be a person who is working as a waiter in a restaurant who has trouble taking customer’s orders. They continue to get the customer’s orders wrong. The customers are frustrated, the waiter is frustrated and the restaurant suffers. This waiter, though, is very good at interacting with the customers throughout their stay in the restaurant. The waiter is very attentive to customer needs and engages them socially to the point of getting praised by them and management. In this situation, the manager can work with the waiter to improve their performance or recognize their talents and move them to a host type position. A leader’s role is to determine where people are a ten, and help them get to a place where they can utilize that strength. Transformational leadership is the best approach to determining employee’s strengths and helping them move to a position where they can use those strengths.
Transformational leadership involves leaders working with their followers to encourage them, build trust, and make them feel valued (Northouse, 2016). Northouse describes this style of leadership as one that transforms people through its concern for values, goals, ethics, and emotions; satisfying the needs of the follower and treating them with respect. Adair (2011) claims that people will follow a leader who makes them feel valued. Bass and Riggio (2006) believe that this style is popular because of its follower development and the mentoring and coaching aspect. The need to feel valued is in both leaders and followers and what Burns (1978) referred to as the need for gratification.
Bass and Riggio (2006) describe the four components of transformational leadership. Idealized influence (II) is where the leaders serves as a role model for the follower. The goal is for the follower to respect and trust the leader to where they want to emulate them. Inspirational Motivation (IM) is where a charismatic leader will shine. The premise is that leaders will be optimistic and motivate through inspiring their followers. Intellectual Stimulation (IS) happens when the leader works with the follower on alternative solutions to problems and asking questions thatrequire some thought by the follower. The leader also solicits feedback from the follower which is part of the last component of Individualized Consideration (IC). This component is at the core of what I mentioned above as one of the reasons for the popularity of transformational leadership. Leaders will spend time learning about follower’s needs, wants, desires, and the characteristics that make the follower unique. This is where coaching and mentoring take place to develop the follower.
These four components are part of the Full Range of Leadership Model which also include components of laissez-faire leadership, charisma, transactional leadership, and pseudo-transformational leadership (Bass and Riggio, 2006). There is a large amount of detail spent on each of these in their book but they present the evidence that the four components described have proven to be the most effective aspect of transformational leadership. Laissez-faire leadership, which is a hands-off approach to leadership or mainly non-leadership, has been shown to be the least effective.
Bass and Riggio (2006) clearly state that the development of followers is the heart of transformational leadership. They devote an entire chapter to the subject of empowering followers which is a result of individualized consideration where leaders provide some autonomy to each follower. Their research showed that this component yields increased performance and self-efficacy. Much of this focuses on increasing performance by an individual within the same job function. What if the performance does not increase? The development, mentoring, and coaching aspects will provide information to the leader regarding why the individual may not be increasing their performance as well as revealing to the leader strengths and weaknesses that can be used to determine if there is a better job function more suitable to the individual.
The time a leader spends with a follower should not be solely focused on observing task performance and correcting errors to increase performance. Time should be spent to develop them. As mentioned earlier, the focus is the needs, wants, and desires of the follower. The transformational leader will spend time getting to know the individual to learn these characteristics. This is where the leader learns at what the follower is a “ten.” The leader can then determine if the task needs adjusted so that the follower’s strengths can be used or if the follower will need to be in a different job function. If the latter is determined, the leader can then use their contacts to find a place where the follower will shine. Again, the transformational leader’s objective is the well-being of the follower even if this means mentoring them to find another job.
Since a major component of human nature is a need to feel valued, and the core of transformational leadership is follower development, one can easily see that transformational leadership is effective at increasing performance. The mentoring and coaching by the leader will develop the relationship between the leader and the follower where the leader focuses on discovering the strengths of the follower and works with them to determine how to increase performance or find them a different role. Keeping in mind that everyone has value and is good at something has helped me even with colleagues or senior management relationships.
References
Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York, NY: Open Road Integrated Media.
Adair, J. (2011). Leadership and motivation: The fifty-fifty rule and the eight key principles of motivating others. Philadelphia, PA: Kogan Page Limited.
Bass, B. M. & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.