Four Key Characteristics Found in Transformational Leaders

Transformational Leaders practice employee engagement at the beginning of discussing change rather than “selling” the change upper management has determined without employee collaboration.

Even in the military Transformation Leadership has proven to be more successful than transactional leadership (where the leader emphasizes the giving of rewards if subordinates meet agreed upon performance standards)–yet most leaders still rely on transactional because it’s easier to implement and apply.

While specific applications will vary as much as the personalities of all transformational leaders, here are four common characteristics found in all of them.

Individualized Consideration

Members of any group have specialized and specific needs, wants, and desires. Specialized means that while two people may both be motivated by money, each may view how that motivation is inspired differently. One may want a secure salary and another incentivized payouts providing an opportunity to earn more. Successful transformational leaders recognize and responds to these needs.

Additionally, transformational leaders know that having an untrained workforce is a greater risk than training and losing high quality people. As a result, they spend quality time coaching and mentoring their employees. In addition to addressing needs and concerns in their beginnings, this also allows for more customized training for each team member.

Inspirational Motivation

Articulate and communicative are not the same. It is possible for a leader to possess the skill of articulating clearly to those they lead, but still fail to communicate clearly to their followers.

To motivate employees and inspire both confidence in the stated vision, and motivate them to achieving them, a transformation leaders needs to clearly articulate his/her vision of the future and be creative in establishing constant communication between them and their engaged workforce.

Idealized Influence

Transformation leaders can’t avoid the responsibility of being a role model for the behavior he or she wants in their employees–no matter how much personal charisma they exude.

This requires that the leader display (and live up to) high standards of moral & ethical conduct. This doesn’t remove the ability to take risks, but rather allows for better risk taking as she or he takes risks while following a core set of values, convictions, and ethical principles.

Intellectual Stimulation

Transformational leaders seek and encourage “spontaneous innovation.” Spontaneous innovation occurs when the leader’s followers are allowed creativity and autonomy. It is nourished by involving them in the decision-making process and creating dynamic and meaningful feedback loops.

With the empowerment of autonomy and feedback loops the leader is able to challenge assumptions and receive and review ideas from his/her employees without ensuing candid discussions stifling their creativity and participation.

When corporate leaders focus more on employees meeting metrics than on employee growth and development overall corporate growth will eventually decline. Successful leadership requires employee engagement far more than employee management.