Blog Post One

As we navigate the turns, barriers and junctions along the road of leadership, the more distant the old guideposts of traditional leadership appear in the rear-view mirror. Even more so beyond contemporary thought and theory, modern-day businesses and organizations are beginning to recognize the value in performance, and to the bottom-line, when working with leaders that employ greater transformative versus traditional leadership approaches. By no means does this new paradigm make the task of motivating other towards a common goal any easier, but in a “dynamic external environment where employees are empowered with greater responsibility and are encouraged to take initiative and risk” (Smith, Montagno, & Kuzmenko, 2004, p. 89), re-humanizing the measure and approach when influencing others is creating many positive exceptions to the old rules.

To paraphrase Peter G. Northouse (2015) in his book titled Leadership, transformational leadership offers some very broad appeal emphasizing the importance of morals and values in a process which influences followers to not only accomplish more than what is usually expected of them, but demonstrates success in what can be achieved as a group when minimizing the role of individual self-interest (p.161). Apart from drifting uncomfortably close to what some would consider trait-like qualities, transformational leadership is personally appealing to me because its approach is, in a sense, mission-like, tethered to a perspective which places value on nurturing change and inspiring positive growth in others over one-self.

As an approach used by many, transformational leadership is woven throughout public, private, for-profit, not-for-profit and institutional sectors the world over. Once lawyer, turned airline pioneer and co-founder of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher developed a vision to challenge the status quo, rooted in orientating attention towards the needs of others from a purpose-driven perspective, while swimming in the mire of a highly risky industry fueled mainly by hardened profit-driven perspective. With a strong charismatic style, Herb believed and developed “a process of influence of reciprocity in relationships that benefit both parties” (Cote, 2017, p. 5); and apart from his clarity of vision, Herb created all hierarchal points in the company to behave as “transforming contexts” (Northouse, 2016, p. 180). Not only did he implement a process of job-exchanging, so that each employee could benefit from experiencing each other’s roles and tasks, but Herb expressed a desire that all Southwest employees would get treated as their first, and only best customer; which ultimately, as a subsequent mechanism of this investment, generated a sense of ownership producing service levels for their flying customers beyond anything ever encountered in commercial air travel before.

Matt

Cote, R. (2017, September 13). Vision of effective leadership. International Journal of Business Administration, 8(6), 1-10.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (Seventh ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Smith, B. N., Montagno, R. V., & Kuzmenko, T. N. (2004). Tranformational and servant leadership: Content and contextual comparisons. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 10(4), 80-91.