Introduction
Leadership is crucial aspect of the organisation and it determines whether the organisation is going to succeed or not. There are several theories that have strived to expound on the concept of leadership in organisations. Some of the major theories of leadership that have been highlighted are leadership such as the autocratic leadership, laissez faire leadership, charismatic leadership, transformational and transactional theories of leadership. The interest of this essay is to examine the transformational theory of leadership and identify its advantages and as well as assess whether these advantages outweigh its risks.
After introducing this essay, the section that follows defines what transformational leadership is. The third part consists of a critical evaluation of the transformational leadership theory to examine its advantages and risks using various theories and viewpoints and examples. The fourth part examines whether these advantages outweigh the risks. The final section of the essay is the conclusion section.
Transformational leadership
According to Bass (2002) transformational leaders created an ethical climate in the organisation which enabled them to hold their followers to high standards of expectation. Specifically, Bass (2002) argues that transformational leadership is the ability to influence followers into action through inspiration, intellectual stimulation, individual consideration and through idealised form of influence. Inspiration is ability to influence the followers through vision while intellectual stimulation is the ability to influence followers to be innovative and creative. Individualisation is the capacity to have personal understanding of each follower while idealised influence is the leader’s ability to be a role model to the followers. In addition Walumbwa, Avolio & Zhu (2008) noted that transformational leadership involved encouragement of cooperation and teamwork among followers, provision of individualised coaching and mentorship by the leader and allowing followers to make their personal choices. This is thus can be seen that transformational leadership positively influences employees to higher levels of performance through use of persuasive appeals such as reason and emotion. This was unlike other theories of leadership which were transactional in nature and advocated for leaders to use force and power to ensure employees toe to the line (Gardner et al, 2010). In other words, in the transactional leadership theory, leaders were to use their influence, rewards and coercion to make employees do things. However, the transformational leadership uses inspiration, persuasion, intellectual stimulation and individual consideration to influence employees to higher levels of output.
Advantages of transformational leadership
There are several merits that are attributed to the use of transformational leadership in organisations. One of the merits of using transformational leadership is that transformation leadership increases the performance of the employees. Gardner et al (2010) noted that organisations whose leaders were transformational experienced higher levels of productivity compared to other organisations. This is because transformational leaders managed to inspire employees to cooperate with each other and have great team work which helped the organisations to have a good working climate for each employee. This cooperation provided by transformational leaders increased employee productivity due positive working climate within the organisation (Sattayaraksa and Boon-itt, 2017). In addition, transformational leaders have more individual consideration and value the use of intellectual stimulation. This means that leaders care for employee needs and give employees more empowerment (Tafvelin et al., 2011). Walumbwa, Avolio & Zhu (2008) found that employees tended to be more productive when they realised that the leader trusted their capacity to work to be self motivated. One of the companies whose success has been attributed to the ability to inspire employees to cooperate and work together has been Google Inc. It was noted that the leadership focus on inspiring employees to be self motivated created motivated employees who were 12% more productive than employees who were satisfied but not inspired. This has been attributed as one of the critical aspects of their leadership which made Google become one of the most successful companies (Blazek, 2015).
Transformational leadership was also advantageous to organisations because it increased the employee’ loyalty. Barth-Farkas and Vera (2014) note that leaders who provided idealised consideration to the employees made the employees feel that the leaders were considerate and personally interested in their welfare. This increased the employees’ commitment and loyalty to the organisation. In this aspect, the individualised consideration in transformational leadership meant that employees were assigned tasks duties and responsibilities which they were best suited for which encouraged optimum performance from the employees. This is because being assigned tasks that one was interested in resulted in satisfaction, thus high loyalty.
Garg and Krishnan (2003) study found that organisations whose leaders were empathetic and accorded each employee individualised attention had lower employee turnover rates compared to organisations where there was no individualised attention. However, Cho and Dansereau (2010) held that provision of personalised attention was not possible in large organisations hence transformational could not effectively influence employees loyalty since the chief executive could not meet all employees in a large company. Irrespective of this, Erkutlu (2008) highlighted that transformational leaders do not need to meet all employees but to embed the culture of individualised consideration among top executives so that all functional leaders within the organisation could provide their subordinates with individualised attention. For instance Sayyed (2017) noted that Apple’s founder was a transformational leader because he would meet most of his executives and managers every week. Every manager was also expected to meet the subordinates and interact with them personally each week. Apple founder would also meet the marketing team at face to face meeting each week. This made the employees value feedback provided by leader and increased their personal confidence as well as employee loyalty to the organisation because they knew that they had the chief executive’s consideration.
The third advantage of transformational leadership theories had on the organisation was that it attracted talent that resonated with the leader’s vision. Barth-Farkas and Vera (2014) argued that companies which had transformational leaders attracted people who were inspired by the mission and vision of the organisation because transformational leaders easily articulated their long term plan for the organisation. This meant that the organisations hired employees who had long term commitment to the organisation. Similarly, Erkutlu (2008) noted that recruitment and selection in companies which had transformational leadership was easy because transformational leaders more use team spirit and inspirational appeal to motivate employees. According to Cavazotte, Moreno and Bernardo (2011) such softer power tactics are more effective to attract and retain talent than harder power tactics. This ensured that organisation with transformational leaders had employees who all worked collectively towards the attainment of the organisational vision. For example companies such as Tesla hire people with engineering background irrespective of the position which they are undertaking within the company. This enables them to understand the technology and the vision of the company.
The fourth advantage of transformation leadership is that transformational leadership aspect of idealised influence results in the high level of ethics within the organisations. According to Ng (2017) idealised influence meant that the leaders commanded a lot of respect from their followers. They were highly idealised by the employees and followers due to the legitimacy of their power, expertise or high level of integrity. In addition, Cho and Dansereau (2010) noted that transformation leaders were usually people of high moral and ethical integrity. In addition to having ethical and moral integrity they were competent in management of their organisation which earned them admiration of their followers. As a result, the followers trusted the transformational leaders and their decision because they knew that the leaders would act not only in their personal interest but also in the organisation’s interest. Trust increased the employee engagement in their work as employees could fully focus on their work when they knew that the leaders were acting on their interest (Kokemuller, 2017).
In addition having high level of ethics enabled the leader to set high standards of performance and integrity. For instance Amazon Company which has transformational leadership is known for setting standards in regard to product shipping and e-commerce. Amazon employees emulate their leader Jeff Bezos ability to keep overhead costs low. For instance coffee and reception tables in Jeff Bezons offices are made of recycled wood as way of keeping costs low and all employees in Amazon have emulated this attribute. This act has influenced employees to cut costs down because they know that the leader not only tell s them to cut costs but the leader actually walk the talk. This has made Amazon to be the leading electronic commerce website due to its reliability (Sayyed, 2017).
Creativity and innovation was the fifth advantage that was availed by transformational leadership. According to García-Morales, Jiménez-Barrionuevo and Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez (2012) transformational leadership attribute of intellectual stimulation meant that leaders in organisations that practiced transformational leadership positively empowered their employees. The empowered them to think beyond the norm and find solutions to the organisational problems. The leaders challenged the employees to go perform highly and better. In other words, transformational leaders inspired and led their employees towards creating of better products, processes and solutions for their customers and stakeholders. As a result, high levels of innovation and creativity are created in organisation (Armelius & Westerberg, 2011). One example of a successful organisation with a transformational leader who inspired employees to be innovative and to think beyond the norm is Elon Musk of Tesla. The company has created robots for automobile manufacturing which are autonomous and did not need human intervention. The company’s leader is able to intellectually stimulate followers by setting innovation targets for the company where very employee is expected to contribute ideas or towards innovative projects within the organisation (Padgett, 2015). The company also celebrates people who come with innovations every year by awarding hefty bonuses to innovators. This has enabled the company to be a pioneer of electric cars in the globe.
The sixth advantage that was brought about by transformational leadership was organisational change. Cavazotte, Moreno and Bernardo (2011) noted that transformational leadership was characterised by change. Transformational leaders easily influenced change in an organisation as the leaders easily influenced others to embrace changes in the organisation because they were change oriented and were not for status quo. More specifically, leaders’ capacity to intellectually stimulate enabled employees to form change coalitions that easily executed change in the organisations (Deinert et al., 2015). Therefore effective transformational leaders were effective organisational change agents in their organisation. Some of the most effective change leaders included Jack Welch of General Electric who transformed the organisation from a bureaucratic company to a modern organisation which deals with the development modern technological equipments (Cobo, 2017). This was done through effective communication about the need for change and how the employees could cope with the upcoming changes. The effective communication disseminated by the leader to all stakeholders helped to minimise resistance to change and influence more people to support change within the organisation (Marshall, 2012).
Risks of transformational leadership
One of the challenges of transformational leadership was that transformational leadership required a lot of emotional intelligence especially intercultural competencies. Transformational leaders were expected to work in multicultural team which had different perceptions of how leader should behave. Different cultures have differing ideas on ideal leadership. Some cultures especially masculine and paternalistic cultures perceive transformational leaders as weak leaders (Deinert et al. 2015). They expect leaders to be dictatorial and all knowing while transformational leadership is the opposite. These cross cultural differences make it difficult for transformational leaders to influence employees from such cultures. This could also create conflicts in the organisation as the people from paternalistic may undermine leaders who are transformational or refuse to be delegated roles and responsibilities. As a result, in some cultures, transformation could not increase productivity because transformational leaders were soft on employees and expected employees to be self motivated which was not always the case. This meant that the productivity leaves were very low because the leaders did not use coercion or punishment as way of increasing employee productivity (Cavazotte, Moreno and Bernardo, 2011). Cho and Dansereau (2010) agreed that cultural differences withheld the advantages of transformational leadership if it was applied in cultures that do not have transformational model of leadership. Ng (2017) indicated that this risk could nevertheless be overcome by increasing the leaders cross cultural competencies.
The second challenge with the transformational leadership is that in many instances the individualised consideration of the leader is directed to certain individuals and groups within the organisation (Cho and Dansereau, 2010). This creates perception that some individuals and groups are favoured by the leader. This may result in jealousy or feelings of envy among the employees which have negative consequences with the organisation. Feelings of inequality within the organisation create envy, jealousy and organisational politics which may involve activities such as sabotage (Tourish, 2012). This negatively affects the work environment and consequently reduces employee engagement and productivity in the workplace (Garg and Krishnan, 2003).
The third challenge of transformational leadership as decentralisation of power to employees which eliminates accountability from the leader. Cho and Dansereau (2010) argued that transformational leadership has its limitations especially in instances where the leader decentralised power to employees as a means of individual consideration to employees. Walumbwa, Avolio & Zhu (2008) noted that while decentralisation of power helped the organisation to make decision quickly. It noted that decentralisation was not effective because it eliminated accountability from the management. Leaders could blame failures on the subordinates and excuse their personal failures. In this sense, transformational leadership tended to create various centres of power which negatively affected the organisation especially in regard to decision making (Sattayaraksa and Boon-itt, 2017).
The fourth demerit of transformational leadership was transformational leadership inclination towards innovation and creative endeavours which were unrealistic. Wartzman (2015) argued that the transformational leaders do not meet the reality or may have ambitions that not in line with the reality. The transformation leaders tended to get immersed with innovations at the expense of financial security as a lot of resources were spent in innovation oriented projects. For instance Tesla has not been making profits for the last five years since the company has been burning cash in research and development which is very frustrating for shareholders who invested for dividends. Some of the expensive projects undertaken by Tesla such as rocket explorations are delusional and may not yield fruit in the short term (Cho and Dansereau, 2010).
The fifth disadvantage of transformational leadership was that of abuse of inspiration and charisma. The transformational leadership aspect of transformational leadership meant that the leaders could easily motivate employees. Kokemuller (2017) however noted that employees seeking to please their leaders usually overworked and became burnt out very quickly. For instance Facebook employees indicated that it was ordinary for the company to inspire the employees to work for long hours sometimes more than eighteen hours a day in order to meet the organisational targets. Cohen (2013) argued that this led to burnout and low employee engagement in the longrun.
The sixth demerit of transformational leadership was preoccupation with the organisation’s mission and vision so that it incapacitated the organisations capacity to identify trends and changes in the market. Ewan (2010) agreed that not all instances where transformational leadership yielded positive fruits especially if there were no mechanisms of listening to alternative voices from those of the leader. Blackberry is the one of the companies whose failure has been mostly attributed to the transformational leadership inability to identify changes and trends in the market (Marshall, 2012).
Do advantages outweigh the risks?
Despite the demerits of the transformational leadership it is evident that the transformational leadership has its main merits. This is because the identified challenges and demerits of transformational leadership could be resolved in such way that they do not hamper the merits of transformational leadership (Gardner et al, 2014). This means that the risk of transformational leadership can be controlled by the organisational leadership by taking various actions. One of the actions that can be taken concerns dealing with the cross cultural differences that hamper effective transformational leadership. Kokemuller (2017) noted that leaders could overcome this intercultural incompetence through cross cultural learning and training. According to Tourish (2012) this could be done through expatriate training programs that should be undertaken by the leader. Such training would help the leader to perceive how other cultures perceive various leadership styles and identify the best leadership style to use when dealing with people from different cultures.
The other reason why advantages outweigh risk is that the limitation of favouritism which threatened transformational leadership can be controlled through appropriate organisational structures (Garg and Krishnan, 2003). According to Gardner et al (2010) organisational structure was essential in highlighting how the leader should communicate and deal with subordinates. The organisation should clearly state the power structure so that it is evident to everyone about who has access to the leader and who does not (Tourish, 2012). This eliminates feelings of favouritism and organisational politics. In addition there should be defined human resource management policy that spells out the criteria that should be used to promote and reward employees.
The risk of unaccountability due to decentralisation can be controlled through effective job description and definition of jobs roles (Cho and Dansereau, 2010). Job description that indicates responsibilities that can be delegated to a subordinate is effective in ensuring that there is accountability in the organisation as responsibilities are clearly defined and assigned (Kokemuller, 2017).
The transformational leadership limitation of setting and pursing unrealistic goals could be contained by having a team or board members undertake a reality check on company’s innovation. This can guarantee that innovation projects pursed by the company are realistic (Gardner et al, 2014). In order to deal with group think and inability to identify new trends in the market, transformational leaders should ensure that their boards have outsiders and consumer representatives to provide perspective and new information from the market and the industry (Garg and Krishnan, 2003).
Conclusion
This essay identified that transformational leadership was leadership that entailed inspiring the employees and followers to higher levels of performance. Transformational leadership was identified in the essay as based on four pillars leadership which are idealised influence, inspirational motivation, individual consideration and intellectual stimulation. The main merits of transformational leadership that were highlighted in this study included high employee productivity, high standards of ethics and performance among the employees, increased employee innovation and creativity and organisational change. Some of the demerits of the organisational motivation were need for intercultural competencies due to different perceptions that different cultures had on transformational leadership. There was also tendency for leaders to prefer some people over others which created organisational jealousy, envy and politics which affected the organisation negatively. There was also distribution of power within the organisation which affected accountability negatively. However the benefits of the transformational leadership outweighed the downsides of transformational leadership. This is because the limitations of transformation such as cross cultural incompetency in applying transformational leadership could be dealt with through cross cultural training. Favouritism could be contained through clear organisational structure. Decentralisation problems could be addressed through clear job descriptions and unrealistic innovations could be contained through assessments done by the boards. Inability to identify trends could be addressed by including outsiders in the company’s board of management.
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