Major aspects of transformational leadership

Discuss About The Visionary Leadership Strategic Management.

Without the implementation of the leadership, all the business activities lie dormant. With the help of strong leaders, a business can maximise its productivity and the employees can become motivated to work in proper way. In the words of Emery & Barker (2017), leadership style means an approach taken by a leader that may have some of the factors like sensing, intuitive, judging, perceiving, feeling, thinking and preferences. In this study, transformational leadership style is chosen in order to show the major aspects of this leadership style along with the implication of transformational leadership that may help to overcome the challenges faced by contemporary leaders. In addition, Steve Jobs, the former visionary leader of Apple Inc. is taken to show his characteristics of transformational leadership style.

As stated by Choi, Kim & Kang (2017), transformational leaders have clear opinion and grasp of the team’s objectives and they are very skilled at expressing these objectives to the team members. The transformational leaders in the business can convey the steps and ways necessary to achieve these objectives for the team as well as the team members. These leaders can inject the palpable faith and compassion that can become transformative and infectious for the team members. According to Banks et al., (2016), transformational leaders are filled with enthusiasm and unparalleled energy at the workplace which can enhance the motivation for the team members and individuals in the team can maximise their efforts to reach the goal. The transformational leaders allow the team members to impact their perceptions and beliefs for the good of the firms and they ensure the individual success as well (McCleskey, 2014).

Transformational leaders like to challenge the organisational culture for improving the organisational procedures and practices. Transformational leadership has the aspect of intellectual stimulation from the side of the leaders to augment the organisational working ethics. The leaders try to shake the norms and they question the status quo (Nguyen et al., 2016). This leadership style can amplify the members’ level of creativity and transformational leader can foster open-mindedness to create a new avenue for thinking and learning. In addition, transformational leadership provides extra regard to the significance of open communication within a team as these leaders always give extra effort to take individual feedback. Individualised consideration is one of the aspects of transformational leadership as each of the team members get to know that their voice is important. Moreover, transformational leadership provides clear communication to the employees within the organisation and they can delegate the tasks to the employees as well (Goswami et al., 2016). Transformational leaders believe that each of the team members must have the same level of passion in order to work in an enthusiastic way and it can ensure the high productivity and efficiency. Transformational leadership provides inspirational motivation to the team to support the expertise of team members. Additionally, transformational leadership does not deal with predetermined command as they lead the team by setting examples. As pointed out by Choi, Kim & Kang (2017), transformational leaders gain the respect and faith of the team members that can provide idealised influence. This may influence eventually encourage the team members to surpass their admirable qualities. 

Implications of transformational leadership

In today’s organisation, technologies cannot support all the needs, the leaders must be visionary that can able to communicate to the team members. Transformational leaders must have diversified thoughts that must support the innovation as well (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt & Van Engen, 2013). Transformational leadership style must think about the stakeholders’ values as well and the leaders must be honest to care about the peers and stakeholders. Transformational leaders must find out the good team members who can understand the different perspectives of the transformational leadership and bring out with new ideas. In order to solve the organisational issue, they are strategic from the very beginning stage of planning and objective (Emery & Barker, 2017). Transformational leaders are good communicator and orator that’s why they can communicate their views to the team members well. Strong communicator is easy trusted by the people; focused and passionate leaders bring the change in any business issue from the inception to the strategic conclusion (Banks et al., 2016). Transformational leaders take time to individualise and they try to be role model for the employees. If the business is running through issues, transformation leaders take the role of mentors and they provide empowerment, motivation and morale to the employees in order to survive in the condition and to come out from this. As stated by Anderson & Sun (2017), transformational leadership challenges to long-term beliefs and assumptions to think the matters and strategies in different ways.

In crucial business condition, transformational leaders use the command-and-control approach in leadership to get the work accomplished. The transformational leaders in tough time use the short-term objectives to get the success and the leaders let the employees solve their issues on their own. As stated by Bass & Avolio (2013), transformational leaders treat the employees the way the employees want to be treated in order to motivate the employees to bring out the great revenue of the business. In addition, transformational leadership style always focuses on the strategy or vision as well as passion and optimism in order to solve the issue. The leaders get into the minds when they solve the issue and they take the decision for the greater good of the business.

Steve Jobs, the former CEO and co-founder of Apple Inc died in 2011. Steve Jobs was born in the year 1955 in San Francisco. Steve Jobs was removed from the Macintosh team and Steve Jobs resigned from the post in the year 1985. In the next year, Steve Jobs founded NeXT and he also bought Pixar. In the year 1996, Apple bought NeXT and Steve Jobs became an employee of Apple. Jobs helped to launch iPhone in the year 2007 and he launched iPad in the year 2010 (Isaacson, 2015). Therefore, Steve Jobs is taken as the revolutionised leader as Steve Jobs enabled Apple to become the market leader within one decade. Steve Jobs is a great innovator as his entrepreneurship behaviour changed the way the people work, play and live.

Steve Jobs had the ability to focus on the business as Steve Jobs wanted to take a few projects and they assisted to propel Apple to become a successful brand. Steve Jobs as Chairman of Apple helped the team members to focus on smaller product line not the dozen of Macintosh versions (Sharma & Grant, 2015).  In addition, Steve Jobs was adaptable to different situations and he learnt the lesson to handle the abrupt changes. Steve Jobs left the Apple in the year 1985 and he used that to polish his skills. Steve Jobs was treated as difficult boss as he showed a little empathy for the staffs of the company. Moreover, Steve Jobs made a slogan for Apple called ‘Think Different’ as it was the vision of Steve Jobs that he wanted to make the products different from the ordinary or existed brands. Vision can challenge the employees to bring out their best and to create something that is completely new (Westley & Mintzberg, 2017). Steve Jobs has passion towards making a different platform for i-devices and his passion was for perfection. As stated by Isaacson (2015), Steve Jobs was a great orator as his speech can draw the attention of the listeners and he provided management by inspiration. His charismatic leadership came out when he launched the iPhone for the first time as the way he communicated the benefits of the products in efficient ways. Steve Jobs has made a unique organisational structure and it looks like a circle; all information has to reach to him.

Challenges faced by contemporary leaders

Steve Jobs believed in personalised leadership that the leaders must serve his own interests using their power. Steve Jobs did motivate the people by storytelling; however, some of the critics mentioned Jobs as boorish and manipulative as well (Deutschman, 2015). In later years of his life, Jobs showed less vindictiveness towards the staffs of Apple and he believed in simplification of work. Steve Jobs showed the entrepreneurial spirit as he repeatedly came with new products and these products brought disruption in the traditional market. He had made a revolution in the IT and entertainment industry. Steve Jobs introduced iTunes, iPhone and iPod that led the market. Therefore, Steve Jobs brought major changes in the industry and these are the positive changes in the society as well as consumer behaviour as well. As stated by Young & Simon (2016), Steve Jobs attributed empowerment and he showed the aspect of personal encouragement to the employees. From the scratch of Apple, he had made Apple a brand that is known to all as he showed the building of trust among the minds of the customers. One of the major motives of Steve Jobs is possibly the power motive, socialised power to do something for greater good. Steve Jobs could control the experience and he had reinvented the IT industry. Self-confidence is high, trustworthiness is medium and authenticity is high and true in case of Steve Jobs. As pointed out by Deutschman (2015), transformational change in business can create conflict; however, Steve Jobs had to master the role by measuring out to get all these people to work with the leader.

Conclusion

Leadership style is the personalised approach of the leaders to control and manage their team. Transformational leadership in business allows the leaders to formulate the vision and promote the enthusiasm among the employees. Transformational leaders use inspiration to motivate the team members by communicating effectively. Steve Jobs, in general, shows the characteristics of transformational leader even if he might not share all the features of a transformational leader. He made Apple a renowned brand by taking the risks and designing the innovation. He focused on transforming others within the organisation to assist each other and to look out each other. His brilliant and idealistic vision makes the Apple Inc. a global name> Steve Jobs created a valuable and positive change in IT and entertainment industry. 

Reference List

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