I recently finished my Doctor of Education degree by writing a dissertation on transformational leadership. I won't bore you with all of the details of social science research, just suffice it to say that after years of studying the topic, I did come away with some practical ideas. I'd like to share them across the next five posts.
My career in various leadership positions has taught me a lot of things. One of the larger lessons is that being 'all in' has a lot of layers to it. A leader can be intensely passionate about the objective (what we're after), the mission (why we're after it), the process (what we're doing), or the people (who you're doing all of this with). And just because a leader is passionate about one of these does not mean they are passionate about all of these. Being passionate about each of these areas has various return on investment (ROI). What I've experienced is that being passionate about the people you were working with, working for, or leading has the most return on investment.
And here's where transformational leadership comes in. If you're unfamiliar with it, it is a research-based way to lead people. Some say it's the most effective way to lead people that are highly informed like if everyone had a device in their pocket that gives them unlimited access to all of the world's information. Hypothetically speaking, of course. That would be crazy, wouldn't it?!?!
A working definition would be attending to the individual needs of people and in return they lay aside individual goals in favor group goals. In order to utilize transformational leadership well, quite simply, you have to be all in for the people you are leading and they'll go all in for the goals you are presenting.
And here's where transformational leadership comes in. If you're unfamiliar with it, it is a research-based way to lead people. Some say it's the most effective way to lead people that are highly informed like if everyone had a device in their pocket that gives them unlimited access to all of the world's information. Hypothetically speaking, of course. That would be crazy, wouldn't it?!?!
A working definition would be attending to the individual needs of people and in return they lay aside individual goals in favor group goals. In order to utilize transformational leadership well, quite simply, you have to be all in for the people you are leading and they'll go all in for the goals you are presenting.
There are four ways that leaders demonstrate they are all in for their people that I'll cover over the next four posts: intellectual stimulation, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, and individualized consideration.
I'd encourage you to consider how to transform others, but first you'll have to transform your view on how to lead. There is definitely more than meets the eye. (see what I did there?)
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