In the 3rd and final of our short blogs, Leader-Connect defines “Transformational Leadership”.
Transformational Leadership is a form of leadership that seeks to achieve positive change. This is likely to involve cultural and structural change in pursuit of a clear and compelling purpose and may involve overcoming significant internal and external challenges. In reality most, if not all good leadership is to some degree Transformational as effective leaders constantly review and where necessary make changes in order to keep the efforts of their teams relevant and focused. In Transformational leadership the purpose (or objective, or aim – they mean the same thing) serve to energise and focus effort.
A well-defined and inspiring purpose serves allows and encourages a large numbers of people to contribute to a project with relatively little co-ordination. An example of Transformational leadership would be establishing and running a local charity or pressure group to improve conditions for young people. The footballer Marcus Rashford demonstrated transformational leadership in his efforts to combat child poverty by compelling the UK government to extend free school meals making them available in the school holidays, and the actress Joanna Lumley had a similar impact with her work to challenge unfair pension conditions for Gurkha veterans in the British Army.
Transformational leadership often emerges in response to an unfair, difficult or challenging situation, and transformational leaders may have little previous leadership experience. The energy for transformational leadership usually comes from the definition of a meaningful purpose.
For leaders wishing to have a transformational impact within or beyond the workplace, a useful aide is Neil Jurd’s bestselling ‘The Leadership Book’
