Importance of transformational leaders in an organization

By on May 17, 2012

Transformational leaders are those who continually strive towards improving their leadership qualities and also stimulate their followers to exhibit outstanding performance (Bass, 1985). Narayanamurthy, the founder of Infosys, is one such example. It is not because of exercising control but because of inspiring people through his excellent values, he has attained this position.

Transformational leaders eliminate communication barriers existing in an organization and enable effective functioning of the organization. Change is unavoidable in any enterprise and the biggest challenge encountered by any organization is to manage the change effectively. Change when managed poorly can deteriorate an organizations’ performance and lead to its decline.  People who are driven by inspiration perform well when compared with people driven by control. That is exactly what the transformational leaders do. They make their followers understand the purpose of the change that is being introduced and make them adopt the same (Dvir, Eden, Avolio and Shamir, 2002). They are high risk takers and do not hesitate to fight against injustice and unethical conduct present in an organization, if any. They are highly talented, however, very down-to earth and open in nature (Tichy and Devanna, 1990). They have an in-built power to attract people towards them. They inspire their followers to a great extent in such a way that the followers support all their endeavors whole heartedly without any regret or hesitation. Another great advantage of having a transformational leader in an organization is improvement of its overall productivity.

As seen before, transformational leaders motivate their followers to a great extent to bring the best out of them (Burns, 1978). This in turn makes every employee working in an organization to put his or her fullest effort with personal commitment and a sense of ownership, thereby improving the overall productivity, performance and profit of an organization

References

  • Bass, B.M. (1985), Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations, Free Press, New York.
  • Burns J M (1978), Leadership,  Harper & Row, New York
  • Dvir T, Eden, D, Avolio B J and Shamir B (2002), Impact of transformational leadership on follower development and performance, Academy of Management Journal, pp 735-744, USA.
  • Tichy N M and Devanna M A (1990), The Transformational Leader, John Wiley & Sons, New York

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