Transformational leadership is passionate about achieving excellent results through extraordinary actions taken by others in the organization. Transformational leadership also acts to alter the organizational context and culture in order to sustain the remarkable accomplishments. Transformational leadership is crucial to creating breakthroughs in financial performance, revenue growth, innovation, and other forms of organizational transformation.

Transformational leadership begins with intense commitment to achieving the results needed to create value for the organization. This intense focus on value creation is a core commitment of the transformational leaders. Transformational leaders know that a key element in creating value begins with predictably delivering results with their organization. Further value is created when results are achieved far beyond what is expected and what competitors are achieving. When extraordinary results are being achieved, leaders have excellent opportunities to speak with their various stakeholders regarding the exciting future of the organization.

Observing the Consequences of Transformational Leadership

The popular comedy Seinfeld was described as the “show about nothing”. It may sound like transformational leadership is similar when answering the question “What to Look for in Observing Transformational Leaders”? There is no single right answer since there is not necessarily any one personal attribute or characteristic that identifies the person as a transformational leader. However, if the question is reframed as “What is probably going on around a transformational leader”, then we have something to talk about. When I look to see the consequences of transformational leadership, I consider the following:

1. People are inspiring and in action.
2. The organizational context is changing.
3. People are working to expand the quality of communications, both personally and organizationally.
4. Things are happening and there is a high energy among the people.
5. The intense commitment to improving performance of the organization is readily apparent.
6. Leadership development is happening on a large scale.
7. Employees and other stakeholders are enrolled in the changes and are organized and active.
8. Innovation is happening.
9. A solid foundation for the future is being built.

Author's note: This is a long-form article. If you prefer, download the entire PDF including a Study Guide here.

Choice is a critical element in being a leader. This choice is made daily, during challenging times, moment to moment. The choice to be a leader can be thought of as choosing between the comfortable and familiar vs. potential discomfort and unfamiliarity. Articulating this choice so as to be understood is challenging.

Robert Frost gives us a wonderful analogy for this choice, and the journey which follows in his classic poem, “The Road Not Taken”. This poem describes the story of a person walking in the woods who comes to a fork in the road and has to choose one of the two paths. The choice is between the familiar and comfortable vs. the less familiar and therefore less comfortable. This poem speaks to the heart of the matter for being a leader. The poem reflects a personal choice that is faced, like a fork in the road. The road less traveled is the only one that will create sufficient possibility for enrolling and inspiring others. The road frequently taken is the comfortable, familiar road that will feel good but not produce the desired outcomes.

The starting point for talking about business transformation is leadership. Leadership is the lifeblood of transformation. Transformation simply will not happen without leadership. This leadership begins with executives and senior managers. For this leadership to be successful, there are 7 hurdles which executives must overcome for success.

They involve understanding and accepting the following:

1. Importance of Personal Involvement

2. Leadership and Management are Different

3. Embrace Feeling Odd or Strange

4. Commit to Being a Team

5. Engage and Unleash Informal Leaders

6. Importance of Inspiring and Mobilizing People

7. Prepare Your Team for a Breakdown

Writing in the Financial Times, Simon Caulkin asked a powerful question: “Have we created an unachievable myth of leadership?” His opening paragraph said:

Leadership is possibly the most written, lectured, TED-talked and blogged about topic in management. Companies in the US alone are reckoned to spend $14bn-$20bn on leadership development and training every year. It is a staple of business courses. Yet despite the confidence with which formulae are dispensed for success in transformational, authentic, servant or level-five leadership, to name some current varieties, it may also be the least understood.

Not only are the concepts of leadership misunderstood, but confidence in leaders is also low. Calkin wrote:

Consider: never has public trust in corporate leaders been so low. That may be no surprise. Among contributory causes to the crash of 2008, leadership failure ranks high, as it does in the rule of greed and the rise of inequality. Other leaders do not trust them: witness the increasing speed with which boards push peers out of top office. That is no surprise either, given the finding of a survey of research studies of leadership compiled by the Center for Creative Leadership, a training provider, that half of all managers and leaders are seen as “a disappointment, incompetent, a mis-hire or a complete failure” in their current role. In another study, 35 percent of US employees said they would forgo a pay raise to see their direct supervisors fired.

He went on to ask, “Have we created unrealistic expectations that those at the top will never be able to match?” Clearly, Caulkin presents impressive data about disappointments with leadership and raises an interesting question about myths regarding leadership.

Why does it matter what the word leadership means? What difference does it make to people who are already too busy doing their “day jobs”?

That’s a great question. Let’s see if this sounds familiar:

In business organizations around the world the tempo continues to increase to the point that it seems like there is not enough time to do the basics, much less worry about leadership. Further, the magnitude of challenges in markets and the competitive landscape are accelerating. The digitization of many industries and other forms of disruptive changes is altering the landscape. Technology, which was intended to make our lives easier, seems to have made it more complicated. There are endless meetings which, if well done, produce an array of action items. The challenge is to become more disciplined and organized in order to stay on top of things, because it seems we never have enough time.

Did at least some of those statements sound familiar? I hear them all the time. When I’m listening to executives and managers say these things, I listen patiently. Then, when the other person has finished talking, I say “Yes, you have just given an excellent description of the challenges facing management”. Then I ask, “So what’s missing?” Slowly the answer turns to, “We are so busy dealing with the day-to-day that we have little time to think about growth and innovation”. For most organizations, growth and innovation will not happen naturally. It requires attention and interventions to promote change.

In short, it requires leadership.

“What is Leadership?” is an interesting question.

At first this may seem like a dumb question, since “everyone knows” what leadership is. That is, each person knows how they use the term leadership. In spite of our confidence that we all know the answer to “What is Leadership?”, in reality the best answer might be “It depends”. To be thorough, the most accurate response is “It depends on the context in which the word leadership is used”.

Let’s explore that further. Each of us uses a word like leadership inside of a context in which we are thinking at that moment. To better understand the word context, think of it as assumptions, beliefs, and experiences which, while in the background, actively shape how a person perceives events and phenomenon as they occur. While we are largely unaware of our contexts, these contexts shape our experiences, perceptions and thinking. As example, if you are in a business conversation, the term leadership will be shaped by your experiences in business as well as how the organizations with which you are engaged use the word leadership.

The context in which words are used clearly shapes the meaning of that word. As example, consider how the word beauty takes on very different meanings given the specific context. “Beauty” can be used to describe an attractive woman as well as “beauty products”. However, the same word (beauty) can be used to describe a physical injury to the eye (a black eye as expressed as “that shiner’s a real beauty”), and many physical objects such as an auto, classic sailboat, etc. Same word, but very different meanings given the context in which the word is used. 

Leadership is crucial for business. Leadership is a starting point of strategy. It’s the magic elixir for achieving sustainable growth and value creation. Leadership is at the heart of engaged employees, innovation and vibrant cultures. It is what makes organizations thrive and prosper. Yet for all its importance, leadership is widely misunderstood because many people consider leadership and management to be the same. This confusion is evident as these two terms are routinely used as if they were interchangeable.

While they are both very important for a business, they are not the same. Management and leadership are different, though both are important. Most businesses will not be successful over time without the contributions of both management and leadership. But make no mistake, they are different.

(Author's note: this is a long-form (7,500 word) thought leadership article on the importance of transformation in the execution of growth strategies. To download the PDF version, go here.)

 Summary

Growing a business is a daunting task for many, if not most, executives. While growth is considered fun, and what executives dream of being engaged in, achieving sustainable growth is another story. For example, meaningful growth requires leadership skills, not simply management know-how. While executives may bristle at this assertion, their angst is based in the assumption that they are already skilled leaders—typically, nothing could be further from the truth. They likely are skilled managers, but they equate management capabilities with leadership capabilities. Therein lies the problem.

Successful growth strategies, by definition, require transformation of the organization, which can only happen with strong leadership. Strong leadership is ultimately needed throughout the entire organization and must start as a model from the very top.

By Larry G Hoelscher, Partner & Bob Chapman, PhD, Managing Partner of KingChapman

Leadership is the starting point for strategy, execution and transformation. Building a cadre or core of leaders is a critical success factor. Yet too often leadership is thought to be exercised only by executives and a few other chosen individuals. We say that is not only wrong, but it robs organizations of a most precious resource for executing strategic change and transformation. How then does this mistake keep occurring?