Transformational leadership involves a leader’s organization or position, experience developing a persuasive transformation game plan, aligning the transformation game plan with a mission, centering the game plan with an innovation process, strategically transforming, and designing implementation to sustain the transformation which are the steps of transformation. Transformational leadership follows the steps of transformation to help advance team members to larger levels of values and motivations to reach the organizational mission. Transformational leaders use charisma, inspiration, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration to achieve large-scale change within their organizations. These leaders learn to articulate the problems in the current system and have a compelling vision of what a new society or organization could be. Transformational leadership also will uncover inconsistencies and contradictions between individual team members’ values and practices to realign them with the leader and the organization. A transformational leadership team should create a clear, practical, uplifting vision and strategy for an organization to follow while amidst change. The transformational leader motivates team members to do more than they originally expected to do by broadening and changing team members’ interests and generating awareness and acceptance of the organizational values and mission. After creating the vision and strategy, the communication channels are important to develop commitment and gain positive energy from the employee workforce because an empowered employee workforce will support the organizational vision and create short-term wins during the transformation. A transformational leader has a well-managed process toward a large-scale transformation to create success and nurture the newly transformed culture. The transformational leader’s strategy looks beyond self-interest and focuses on organizational goals by transforming the values, attitudes, and motives to team maturity. Transformational strategies are the result of transforming leadership to the relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into agents, thus resulting in a transforming effect on both leaders and followers.
Transformational leadership gives less emphasis on the service of, and the service to, followers. Transformational leadership gains influence through followers supporting the organizational change within a transformation. Transformational leaders set up their organizations to meet their futuristic goals and have an innovative mission. Critics of transformational leadership claim transformational leaders can gain unethical behaviors or act immorally towards their followers. The pressures of changing the status quo and balancing external pressures to the organization’s changing environment can cause a transformational leader to fold into using unfavorable tactics to achieve success.
Transformational leadership is true visionaries that produce high echelons of trust serving as role models. Transformational leaders show consideration for others, delegate responsibilities, empower followers, teach, communicate, listen, and influence followers. Since transformational leaders use their good vision and impression management skills, focusing on organizational objectives, to develop strong emotional bonds with their organizational followers. Transformational leaders operate with the key behavioral components of idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration to increase employee satisfaction, organizational commitment, effort, retention, and overall performance from followers.
Transformational leadership is a dynamic leadership theory that offers a conceptual framework for development. Transformational leadership has extensive research in its field and encompasses positive leadership attributes to develop emotional bonds with their followers. Leaders in different industries must closely evaluate the leadership model that is going to best fit the needs of their organization to their employees' skill sets. Transformational leaders are highly qualified to lead development and change within organizations.