A Study On Leadership Trait For Characteristic And Transformational Leadership

Brief about charismatic and transformational leadership

Discuss about A Study On Leadership Trait for Characteristic and Transformational Leadership.

Leadership refers to the ability of a person or an organization to inspire, guide and ‘lead’ other individuals or organizations (Bass, 2000). The past few decades have brought forward many studies, researches and reports which suggest what and how a person or entity becomes a leader or ‘leads’ others. Much has been studied about what makes a person a leader and what are the skills or characteristics that create a leader. In this essay, Charismatic leadership and Transformational leadership have been chosen for the discussion. The study will compare and contrast both chosen theories of leadership in terms of how they contribute in building up of individual’s leadership skill. Furthermore, the study will discuss two leader’s journey (Steve Jobs as a Charismatic leader and Barak Hussein Obama as a Transformational leader) and their achievements over the years. The purpose of such discussion is to know more about leader’s practicing skills to better understand the basic differences of Charismatic and Transformational leader’s approach.

The concept of the charismatic leaders was coined by Max Weber in the year 1920 (McCulloch, 2016). According to Tilstra (2010), it is also accounted that charismatic leaders might be contrasted from other cream of the crop by their deployment of expression in addition to idea administration exercise to motivate supporters in chase of an idea. Charismatic leaders are those types of leaders who have got the ability to draw the attention of the clients with their charm and with pleasing personality (Stutje, 2012). Charismatic leader has also got the potential to instigate supporters in order to perform any kind of work (Bell 2015). There is a lot of familiar uniqueness of the charismatic manager; most uniqueness are taken into account the use of feelings to give confidence obligation as well as devotions in supporters (Bell, 2015).

On the other hand the leaders who holds a transformational leadership trait has got the potential to motivate the supporter to perform more than the needed work and also are positive as well as helpful and assist the supporters to gain the unforeseen objectives. Transformational leaders are mostly the models of honesty plus equality; they always set understandable objectives, have high prospect, give hold up and acknowledgment, blend the feelings and passions of populace, as well as get people to appear further than their self-interest to arrive at for the doubtful (Pierce & Newstorm, 2008; Bass, 1985). According to Bass (1985) Transformational leadership also provides their focal point on the social morals plus emerges in times of suffering as well as modification. They pay consideration on the worries and requirements of individual devotees, advance insight, give vision and a feeling of mission, convey elevated requirements, and can change adherent’s consciousness of issues by helping them to take a gander at more seasoned issues in new ways (Sadeghi, 2012). Commonly, transformational leadership supports 4 I’s while delivering their duties. Leader serves as an ideal role model for followers and perceived as an indealized influencer. As the inspirational motivators, leaders have demonstrated genuine concerns and feelings of the followers by recongnising individualized consideration (Leader 2016). Lastly, intellectual stimulates leader to face the chanllenges and bring the innovation and creativeness within the workplace.

Steve Jobs – a charismatic leader

A few people contend that charisma is a piece of transformational administration, while others trust charisma without anyone else is excessively wide and inadequate, making it impossible to represent the transformational procedure. Some may accept charming pioneers or charismatic may need devotees to embrace the charismatic scene see and go no further while the transformational pioneer will endeavor to embed the capacity to address set up perspectives and those built up by the pioneer. Despite the fact that analysts accept transformational initiative is more extensive than alluring administration, tests demonstrate that pioneers who score higher in transformational authority are likewise liable to score high in appeal. Along these lines, practically speaking, measures of transformational and charismatic authority are pretty much equivalent.

Steve Jobs was a pioneer in the field of micro computing. He was entrepreneur in the Information Technology field, and was a pioneer of the personal computer revolution. A creative entrepreneur from America, Jobs played pivotal roles in the revolutions in the personal computer, music, animated movies, tablet computing, digital publishing and phones. During his tenure as CEO of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs  provides commercial leaders with a perfect template of how to deliver expertly tailored rthetoric (Warwick Business School 2015).

Steve Jobs was one of the pioneers of the modern day computing as we experience it now. From being a successful businessman to being the visionary who made personal computing experience pleasant and redefined the rules of Computing with his changes to hardware and software design. To bringing innovation through iPod in 2001, Job has redefined the way people listen to music.With constantly evaluating, Jobs further ensured growth by devloping MAC OS X which has became the new age of computing Operating systems (Isaacson, 2011).

Steve Jobs has always been a pioneer in the IT industry and revolutionized the Personal computer or Microcomputer sector with his ideas and inventions. Jobs have been known as a ‘quintessential charismatic managerial leader’ for the innovative approach of management he launched to the American businesses and people (Sharma and Grant 2011). The characteristic of this type of leadership is that Jobs used a revolutionary vision in order to form a company with a widespread following. Jobs assumed in the idea of ‘Charisma’ as well as offered extra attention on ‘Charisma’ rather than management. He successfully combined his ideas and perfected his products through his mythical vision. According to Leader (2016), Job had the ability to visualize and materialize his ideas and also to convice people that it would work. For instance, he visited the Xerox PARC facility and was quick to spot the future of computing in the graphical user interface. He was confident about his vision and inspired others to follow the same.   During his absence from the company in between 1985 to 1997, Apple Inc. nearly went bankrupt and lost the following it enjoyed earlier. His view was to create such an appeal to the mass which would take into account their emotions as well as promise them of a world changing vision (Tilstra 2010). Charismatic leaders like Jobs have their own unique style with a strong sense of purpose, a clear vision of what their goals are, and show enthusiasm and release the pressure of dominance. While no two charismatic leaders are 100% alike, there are nine behaviors among such leaders which make them such successful leaders. These common behavioral traits include the ability to inject excitement and enthusiasm among others, having a sense of mission, belief and pride in the organization, celebration of success, communicating key points in a simple and easy to grasp way, creating clear strategies, establishing a clear vision, setting challenging goals and self-confidence (Pollack, 2012). For the duration of his life, the late Steve Jobs was known as being a standout amongst the most compelling and imaginative pioneers of his time. Jobs is the author of Apple and Pixar as well as he could lead a few associations into being the absolute most capable in the nation. He was known for being requesting and dedicated, yet having a specific Zen and effortlessness which shows his charismatic leadership trait. While large portions of us will never have the capacity to copy the novel attributes that made Steve Jobs such a persuasive pioneer, there are various lessons that any individual can gain from his exceptional charismatic leadership style.

Barack Hussein Obama – a transformational leader

background

Barack Hussein Obama is an American political personality serving as the 44^th President of the United States. A graduate from the Columb

ia University and Harvard Law School, Obama has been associated with different community organizations in Chicago. As a civil rights attorney, Obama taught constitutional law at the University Of Chicago Law School.

Barack Obama the president of the United States has some great achievements to boast about. The first and most important achievement is winning the very prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. He was honored with the Nobel for his ‘extraordinary labors to make stronger the global international relations as well as collaboration connecting the peoples’ and his nomination was confirmed only after 11 days of his presidential reign. Being recognized as an multi-dimensional personality Barack has won the Grammy award for the best spoken word album named ‘Dreams from my father’ a memoir for his father he wrote in 1995. He’s dined with President of Russia Vladimir Putin, created 13.5 million new jobs in the course of a 69 month duration, helped more Americans to take advantage of health insurance, signed a nuclear deal with Iran, stood strong against terrorism, improved the US and CUBA relations, helped America take leadership on climate change and signed a deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, eliminated the infamous Osama Bin laden and many more (Grunwald and Kruse 2016). His standpoint on development and his quest to improve the lives of the citizens of United States have helped him create a large following for himself. Other achievements of Obama include the healthcare reformation, improving benefits for war veterans, tax cuts for the middle class, reformed student loads as well as created many financial reforms (Obama, 2010).

Obama can easily be named as a transformational leader, as he fulfills all the requirements of a transformational leader, which are excellent interaction with the masses and ability to create trust within the masses (Grunwald and Kruse 2016). Obama has engaged the American people for his vision for change and improvement of the society. He has used the transformational leadership approach into his campaigns to promote and earn trust (Biskup 2011). Obama has established himself as a leader, who emphasizes on Women’s rights. He has created a bond with the majority of the Middle Class American citizen with his views and plans of improving and aiding the life of the Middle class population. This dedication from Obama, and his persistence in helping women and middle class citizen give him credits for being a leader who is concerned about the problems faced by the masses and thus connects with the public. Obama’s quest to provide better education for needy children as well as children with special needs is an important aspect since education is really important for a better lifestyle and future. His plans to provide better opportunities for college going students and allowing grants and concessions for fees and education costs make him a great leader who is concerned with the problems faced by majority of Americans who dream of a better life and career.  With his past successes to flaunt, Obama is the ideal Transformational leader who inspires, promises to achieve and shows passion in what he does, all of which makes him a very successful leader  (Obama, 2010). With the transformation leadership trait Obama utilized the American jeremiad to build up a case for change also. His talk shows every one of the three of the American jeremiad components (guarantee, declension and forecast). His guarantee is to change the country by evolving legislative issues, he communicates declension, on the other hand disappointment, with the current situation with the country by broadcasting different disappointments in the past organization’s term, and his prediction is found in his battle proverb, “yes we can” advancing, through his talk, a dream that American can be better.

Comparison of Charismatic and Transformational Leadership

The above discussion describes the four common behaviors of transformational leaders. Obama is quite capable of transmitting a message to each individual person in his political surroundings. By the discussion of an individual influence of Obama, the study identifies his enthusiasm and integrity by acting as a role model. By giving the meaning of achieving goals, the transformational leaders provide inspiration to their followers. On the other hand, transformational leaders like Obama unfolds the challenge their people by delivering the intellectual stimulation (Biskup 2011). The best part of Obama’s leadership skills is treating person individually. This give to his followers the values they deserve.

Based on the above discussion, a clear distinction between Charismatic and transformational leadership skill has been obtained.  However, some argument exists regarding the synonymy of transformational and charismatic leadership. According to Sadeghi (2012), “charismatic leadership is rather a component of transformational leadership; thus they approach transformational leadership as a wider construct than charisma”. As referred the characteristics of Steve job’s leadership skill, charismatic leaders are those who have charismatic effects on their followers to an unusual high degree. In majority of the cases, these followers perceive the leader’s beliefs as correct and accept without arguing anything. Job’s confidence, assertiveness and congeniality fits the profile of charismatic leader (Tilstra 2010). His persona clearly identifies ambitious, dominant and outgoing nature that enables him an effective leader. Moreover, Job exhibited high proficiency in customizing his rhetorical style to the broader contextual situation.  All these traits inspire his followers and help to connect with others. The finding suggests that charisma is not an ineffable, magical quality as classically understood, but can rather be seen as a consequence of the leaderships among audience, leaders and context.

On the other hand, the contents of the transformational leader are typically of an optimistic kind. The leadership traits of Obama clearly radiate the optimistic mood throughout his workplace. Bell (2015) explained “how Obama developed the idea that public reason and public arguments continues to be an influential authority toward the American Dream, which is accomplished by citizens working together to foster a better community”. By his leadership capabilities this can be understood that leaders of the nature of the transformational finds motivation from inside. This has applied as the main driving force to effectively manage the direction of the work field. According to Odumeru (2013), managing difficult decisions are a part of the being a leader. The transformational leaders utilize its communication as functional and practical skills, rather than ambiguous observed attitudes. Evidence suggests that communication is as one of the elementary traits or skills that define and compose transformational leadership.

Conclusion

The differences of persona is a seminal distinctive between transformation and charismatic leadership, representing that the two theories are distinct paradigms. The values and behavior has also reflected differences. The above analysis indicated that both the leadership approaches may be distinct in focus or in process; consequently, differences lie in the process towards followers.

Conclusion:

Each leader has their own sets of skills and characteristics that make them successful. In the case of a Charismatic leader like Steve Jobs, his vision and ‘charisma’ was pivotal in making him a successful leader. ‘Charisma’ has been defined as a unique gift or quality of a person that sets them apart from the rest. While transformational leaders like Barack Obama inspire others to let go of their own interests to work for a betterment of the community or organization.

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