Transformational Leadership Places An Overemphasis On Charisma And Personality

Discussion of Transformational Leadership

Discuss about the Transformational Leadership Places an Overemphasis on Charisma and Personality.

The leaders following transformational leadership always take visionary position and inspire their followers to follow their visions. Such leaders are highly flexible in nature and can make high level of emotional bonding with their followers through using their emotional intelligence. The charisma and personality of the transformational leaders always attract their followers and encourage them to imitate their leadership approach. Moreover, transformational leadership places an overemphasis on charisma and personality. The study will discuss the matter transformational leadership places an overemphasis on charisma and personality. Furthermore, throughout the study, it will also set several evidences of transformational leadership based on the topic.

Transformational leadership is a kind of leadership style, where leaders work in collaboration with the subordinates for identifying the required organisational change, creating vision to guide changes and executing the changes in tandem with the committed organisational members. In this highly competitive business environment, creating high performance workforce has become highly important. However, organisational leaders must have to inspire the organisational members for encouraging them towards high performance. According to Breevaart et al., (2014), transformational leaders have high level of inspirational power, which can motivate the employees towards increasing productivity. On the other hand, Dong et al., (2017) opined that transformational leadership always delegate some power on the employees on completing their work in their own way. Moreover, the employees are valued with a sense of ownership with delegation of power on them. In this way, the followers can better solve their problem individually and in innovative way. Moreover, transformational leadership places an overemphasis on their charisma and personality.

Transformational leaders have high level of charismatic power towards inspiring and motivating the followers towards better performance. Moreover, with high level of charismatic power, transformational leaders can act as the role model for their followers. Van der Voet, (2014) pointed out that the charismatic attributes of the transformational leaders attracts the followers and they are more likely to imitate and follow the qualities of their leaders towards getting high level of achievement. The self-concept theory of charismatic leaders demonstrates the power of charisma within the leaders enable them to build strong connection between the follower’s self-concept and the leaders, the group led by the leaders and their collective vision (Wang & Howell, 2012).

According to Stoker et al., (2012), transformational leaders have strong visionary power, which enable them to build effective organisational vision based on long term organisational perspectives. The power of building clear and consistent organisational vision motivates the followers to be attracted to those visions. Furthermore, Herman and Chiu, (2014) stated that transformational leaders always believe in clear communication of organisational vision with the followers. Such clear communication vision enhances the value of the followers and they become highly encouraged towards fulfilling those organisational visions for overall organisational success. While considering the example of Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google Inc, it can be seen that the leader always set clear and challenging vision for getting high level of success. Moreover, the leader also communicates their clear vision and role among the employees (Zhang et al., 2015). In this way, the employees are highly encouraged to align their effort with the organisational vision.

Charismatic Power of Transformational Leaders

Nijstad et al., (2014) pointed out that transformational leaders have strong capability to know their followers and motivate them along their inner motivational drive. As per the Theory of Relational Self, the individual’s basic needs of autonomy, competencies, mastery and meaning are the fundamental motives for building close relationship with significant others. Moreover, relational identification builds the foundation of autonomy and empowerment among the employees (Wang, X. H. F., & Howell, 2012).

According to Tyssen et al., (2014), transformational leaders have strong emotional intelligence, which enable them towards recognizing the core and individual needs and demands of their followers. In this way, these leaders are highly capable of encouraging their followers towards better performance through satisfying the individual needs of the employees. On the other hand, Attachment Theory suggests that individuals are only capable of identifying their full potential, when they are confident that there are some trusted persons, who will truly appreciate their value. Moreover, the individuals are highly empowered and autonomous, when they are attached to and supported by trusted person. In this context, transformational leaders are highly focused on demonstrating accountability. Moreover, being highly accountable, the transformational leaders always share important organisational information with their followers transparently. In this way, these leaders can effectively build trusted relationship with their immediate followers. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook is a right and effective example of transformational leader. The success of his organisation is largely dependent on his accountable and open approach towards welcoming the innovative ideas of their followers (McCleskey, 2014). The organisation has become able of foster high level of innovation at all level of their organisation and built uniqueness in the market.

According to Ewen et al., (2013), transformational leaders can build strong emotional bonding with their followers with their friendly approach. The strong charismatic powers of leaders are highly attractive to their followers. The followers are automatically inspired through the strong charismatic power of these leaders. Moreover, the motivated and inspired followers internalize their value and principle of the transformational leaders for getting high level of success. In this way, they can act as effective role model for their organisations. However, Engelen et al., (2015) argued that transformational leaders often overemphasize on the individual needs of some followers. Transformational leaders always believe in teamwork for achieving organisational success. However, they also focus on fulfilment of individual needs       and demands for developing the skills and knowledge level of the employees. In such situation, without balancing the needs of the group members as per the preferences of the individuals, such leaders can overemphasize on the needs of single member. In such situation, overemphasizing on the charisma by the transformational leaders can lead to clash among the followers.

Visionary Power of Transformational Leaders

Social identity leadership theory suggests that the members of a particular group are highly encouraged to put their best effort for organisational success, when they effectively indentified within their group (Men, 2014). In such context, transformation leaders emphasizes on developing collective belief among the team members. Such collective belief and shared value foster enhanced social identity for each of the team members.

According to Boehm et al., (2015), transformational leaders actively seek to change the personal views of themselves as well as their followers so that they can think beyond their self-interest in the crisis for the good of their organisation. Moreover, such leaders are highly adaptable in any situation and change themselves as well as others for dealing with the crisis. Furthermore, Moriano et al., (2014) opined that transformational leaders believe in unifying forces, which facilitates in convergence of leader’s ideas and thoughts with the ideas and thoughts of the followers. Moreover, such converging ideas and thoughts foster innovative ideas in organisations towards dealing with crisis. Furthermore, transformational leaders also have self-sacrificing mentality for the good of their organisation. Such self-sacrificing mentality is also internalized among the followers of the leaders for dealing with crisis. John L. Flannery, the CEO of General Electric is an effective example of transformational leader. This leader always believes in convergence of ideas among between the leader and employees for dealing with difficult situation in the organisation (Zhang et al., 2014). Moreover, the innovative ideas from different employees always provide unique solution to the leader for solving difficult situation at his organisation.

As per Sensemaking theory, the trust and respect for the transformational leaders manifest series of self-sacrificial behaviour among the followers. In this way, the self-giving process from the leaders to followers facilitates them in dealing the crisis effectively and optimally (Zhang et al., 2012). However, Van Dierendonck et al., (2014) opined that transformational leaders often overemphasize on innovative ideas for dealing with difficult organisational situation. In such situation, the uncertain and untested factors of innovative ideas often destroy the success level of their organisation. The uncertainly relied within the innovative ideas may not be fit with the crisis. In this way, despite of bringing success, innovative ideas can sometimes lead to reverse result for hinder the success potentiality of the organisation. In such situation, it can be said that overemphasis on the charismatic power may often lead to bad impact on organisational success.

Individual Needs and Demands of Followers

Transformational leaders have strong personality, which have high level of influence on their followers. According to Engelen et al., (2015), transformational leaders do not need much direction from others and can manage themselves effectively. Moreover, the leaders are highly motivated internally and direct themselves towards right way without any assistance. On the other hand, McCleskey, (2014) opined that transformational leaders have the courage and willingness to take new and difficult challenges. Furthermore, they are also highly capable of taking the calculated risks and making tough decisions for getting high level of organisational achievements. Such strong personality of the leaders also encourages the others and their followers towards pursuing challenging tasks for high level of organisational achievements. However, Nijstad et al., (2014) argued that overemphasis of the transformational leaders on the courage towards taking challenging task may also hamper the success of their organisations. Moreover, excessive risk untaken by the transformational leaders can be detrimental and disruptive to the organisation.

Transformational leaders believe that success in team effort and growth of the team is derived from the readiness to be open and listen to the ideas from all levels of the organisations. Boehm et al., (2015) pointed out that transformational leaders are always open to the unique ideas and inputs of the employees. In this way, such leaders are effective problem solvers in real sense to the complex organisational problems. The leaders incorporate wide range of solutions and insights to the complex organisational problems. In this way, transformational leaders can provide the best solution to the difficult situation in organisations.

As per social learning theory, the work group members repeatedly observe and interact with the leaders for interpreting the company practice and perception about the work. In this way, such leaders nurture a trusting climate among the work group members (Shih et al., 2012). On the other hand, Zhang et al., (2014) argued that abundance of alternative solutions to the complex organisational situation may sometimes enhance the complexity level of the situation. In this way, rather than solving the problems, the flexible personality may sometimes hamper the success of their organisations. However, while considering the example of Bill Gates, it can be seen that the leader always had the courage towards to undertake challenging task for getting high level of success over the competitors in the market (Tyssen et al., 2014).  Furthermore, the entrepreneurial and transformational leadership qualities facilitated him in gathering adequate alternative solutions towards dealing with complex organisational situation. On the other hand, the alternative solutions from the employees also used to reduce the complexity level of the organisation. In this way, transformational qualities within the leader made him to stand out in the market unique.

Importance of Balancing Needs of Group Members

Transformational leaders are always proactive in making their organisational decisions. They never depend on others for making decisions and then react. Moreover, such leaders are always willing to take risks and innovative approach for organisational growth. As per Jin et al., (2016), the proactive personality of the transformational leaders facilitates them towards managing the uncertainty of an innovative decision proactively. In this way, they can effectively manage organisational risks and protect their organisation from any kind of disruption. However, Moriano et al., (2014) opined that small oversight on the detail challenges by the transformational leaders can ruin long-term vision of their organisations.

Transformational leaders are highly accountable and have high level of emotional intelligence towards understanding the inner motivational drive of their followers. Moreover, such leaders understand the motivational needs and demand of their followers. Therefore, the transformational leaders can motivate the followers through satisfying their core needs and demands. However, Dong et al., (2017) argued that overemphasis of transformational leaders on emotional intelligence may make them more relying on too much emotion and passion. In this way, they can sometimes overlook the actual truth of their followers’ weaknesses. Furthermore, overreliance of transformational leaders on enthusiasm may restrict their willingness to much research, study and logical reasoning of organisational situation. In this way, lack of truth about the organisational situation can disrupt organisational success with high level of uncertainty.

Transformational leaders highly focus on setting company standards, which each and every employee is to adhere for behaving and performing in right manner. Moreover, Herman and Chiu, (2014) opined that transformational leaders is highly capable of communicating the company standards, expectations and visions among the followers. The leaders set organisational vision and standards based on the long term success factor of their organisations. Furthermore, Nijstad et al., (2014) stated that clear vision and organisational standards also clarify the clear role and responsibilities of the employees. In this way, the clear vision and roles set by the transformational leaders leads them effectively towards right direction for fulfilling their job roles. While considering the example of Doug McMillon, the CEO of Wal-Mart, it can be seen that the leader set effective vision of delivering the best quality retail goods to the customers. Moreover, the leader has also become able to clearly communicate their vision with their followers (Men, 2014). In this way, the followers have aligned their individual effort with the organisational vision towards achieving the overall success of their organisation. However, Van    Dierendonck et al., (2014) opined that flexible approach of the transformation leader can sometimes be misused by their followers. Moreover, the followers can disobey the principles set the leaders due to their friendly and flexible approach in behavior. Therefore, the overall effectiveness of the organisational standards may be disrupted with the flexible personality of the transformational leaders.

Social Identity Leadership Theory

Conclusion

While concluding the study, it can be said that transformational leaders are highly effective in the dynamic changing business world. The leaders always emphasizes on innovative and unique approach towards making organisational decision. Furthermore, with friendly and flexible approach, such leaders can allow their followers towards participating in organisational decision making process. In this way, the innovative and alternative decisions from the followers solve complex organisational situation easily. Apart from that, the courage of the transformational leaders also leads them to take challenging tasks for bringing high level of organisational success. Furthermore, transformational leaders are also having high level of emotional intelligence, which facilitates them in understanding the inner motivational drive of their followers. Therefore, such leaders can effectively motivate their followers towards better performance through satisfying their needs and demands. However, the flexible approach of the transformational leaders may be misused by their followers. Moreover, the followers may sometimes disobey the standards and principles set by such leaders because of their flexible approach. Furthermore, the abundance of alternative solution to the complex organisational situation may enhance the complexity level of the situation. Therefore, transformational leaders should undertake balanced approach towards marinating their followers and their performance.

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