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 \u201cdynamic external environment where employees are empowered with greater responsibility and are encouraged to take initiative and risk\u201d (Smith, Montagno, & Kuzmenko, 2004, p. 89), re-humanizing the measure and approach when influencing others is creating many positive exceptions to the old rules.<\/p>\n
To paraphrase Peter G. Northouse (2015) in his book titled Leadership<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u201ca process of influence of reciprocity in relationships that benefit both parties\u201d\u00a0(Cote, 2017, p. 5); and apart from his clarity of vision, Herb created all hierarchal points in the company to behave as \u201ctransforming contexts\u201d (Northouse, 2016, p. 180). Not only did he implement a process of job-exchanging, so that each employee could benefit from experiencing each other\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Matt<\/p>\n Cote, R. (2017, September 13). Vision of effective leadership. International Journal of Business Administration, 8<\/em>(6), 1-10.<\/p>\n Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice<\/em> (Seventh ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.<\/p>\n 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<\/em>(4), 80-91.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 … <\/p>\n