Has “transformational leadership” lost its impact as a rallying cry in corporate America due to overuse? Great ideas can wear out if the ignorant overuse them to appear intelligent. Even if the central idea has tremendous value, it loses its ability to inspire. This burnout stems from too many sycophants (or consultants!) wandering around mindlessly blurting it out, not understanding how it has to work to be effective.
Throw away the bath water. Stay with the baby.
A great idea like “transformational leadership” deserves to be recovered and rehabilitated whenever we see it slipping into cliché. It has real value because it accurately describes a truly useful mindset for leaders who want to build sustainable productive cultures within their area of responsibility.
Let’s put aside the meaningless repetition of the phrase as “business language” and take the time to understand the original intent behind the phrase and how to use it correctly. Let’s review the core concept:
Transformation vs. Transaction
We emphasize “transformation” in an effort to distinguish “transactional leaders” from leaders who innovate, engage, encourage, and motivate (the latter two are not the same thing) their teams to perform at higher levels of performance. constant way. Not for a month, or a special project, but all the time.
- The verb “transact” implies performing a series of tasks. Most of the leaders that appear go that far. Transactional leaders drive performance. They focus on results and “get what they can” with limited time and resources.
- The verb “transform” captures what a leader must do to create a fully engaged, highly productive, and innovative workforce. Transformational leaders are also results-focused, but they solve the problem of limited resources by unlocking additional productivity within their team, fully engaging with them to further harness the capabilities, energy, and desire inherent in each team member.
Transformational leaders view employee engagement as “Job 1.”
Transactional leaders get things done. They focus the energy their staff is willing to give (about 60% in most companies) to accomplish the goals assigned to the team. They hit the mark, as an actor would say, but they don’t win any academy awards because they don’t go further. They are reliable, but not inspiring.
A transformational leader must also be trustworthy and hit the mark. But such leaders create a culture that mass-produces results almost as a byproduct of their contribution, constantly moving the organization forward, regardless of specific goals dictated by management, because employees simply want and enjoy the challenge.
Going from “transacting” to “transforming” is the hard part of leadership, and it’s the leap that many assigned leaders (those in official leadership roles) fail to make.
This failure is not for lack of desire to be the best. Most people want to be successful and get recognition for what they accomplish. But if your organization doesn’t provide the training, tools, and permission to build a sustainable productive culture, team leaders won’t make the transition from transactional to transformational.
If you want to become a transformational leader within your organization, start by adopting a more engaging communication style that is grounded in personal responsibility and action-oriented:
Eliminate the “Blame Game”:
- Take the initiative to identify and intervene in conversations that involve blame or adopt “victim status.” Teach your team members to let go of the need to blame and instead embrace your future-focused mindset.
- Redirect energy in the group by asking “What can we do now?” We call this “maintaining a next-action focus.” It’s your job to empower everyone to adopt that mindset permanently.
- Publicly accept personal responsibility for any outcome, good or bad. Challenge your people to do the same and never stop leading by example.
Opening Communications:
- Stop directing, start listening and supporting. If you’re always talking, you’ll never hear about a problem or a new idea.
- Expand your definition of “need to know.” Engaged employees need to know a lot about the company’s goals, its limitations, and the truth behind those energy-sapping rumors. Employees work harder if they know how their piece of the puzzle strategically fits together.
Communicate with a “next action approach”:
- In meetings, define the desired outcomes for each discussion
- Turn every discussion you have about the job of cause of problems what to do next
- End each meeting with a summary of mutually agreed actions
- Tracking based on these actions. You must be reliable and predictable by applying these habits to all interactions with your co-workers.
Every time you meet with your team members (one-on-one or in meetings), relentlessly focus on just these three key communication habits or mindsets, and you’ll find that the conversations between you and your team will steadily improve, usually within minutes. 90 days. Set a goal to make these habits standard behavior within your team and keep that goal at the top of your to-do list forever!
Great leaders, at any level within an organization, are transformational and not just transactional. They work hard to inspire performance through engagement rather than whip oversight. Leaders who adopt a transformational mindset will achieve greater success, simply because the people who follow them will bring more passion to what they do.
