¶ … Leadership in Organizations Transformational Leadership in the 21st Century

It is often said a manager is what one does, and a leader is who one is. Leadership theorists, experts and practitioners agree that leadership, especially the turbulent 21st century, is more driven by unanticipated change that strict, formal execution. Leaders who are effective today have the ability to keep their organizations agile, goal-focused and moving forward to attaining challenging objectives despite formidable obstacles and uncertainty.

Transformational leaders in the 21st century nurture and foster creativity and a high level of autonomy, mastery and purpose on the part of their teams (Cheung, Wong, 2011). The growing reliance on virtual teams and the need for creating and sustaining trust within them, transformational leaders are called upon to do more than just accomplish tasks, they are expected to lead entire teams beyond their current levels of performance to higher levels of achievement (Andressen, Konradt, Neck, 2012). The combining forces of greater economic pressure on organizations and the need for greater accuracy and speed in new product development is leading many organizations to create virtual teams that are thinly staffed with highly qualified professions, with many having over a decade of experience in their own fields (Andressen, Konradt, Neck, 2012).

The role of the transformational leader has also changed markedly in the 21st century as well. Now, leaders are expected to maintain teams at high performance levels while also ensuring they stay agile enough to respond to market fluctuations and changes in direction of their firms. To attain this level of agility, the best transformational leaders infuse a very high level of autonomy, mastery and purpose into their organizations, creating a culture of self-driven motivation and long-term learning (Cheok, Eleanor, OHiggins, 2012). It takes a transformational leader to be able to attain this very high level of performance however, a manager acting in an authoritarian or even transactional leadership style will not be...

The prerequisites and foundational elements of a transformational leader enable and accentuate a very high degree of autonomy, mastery and purpose. These foundational elements of transformational leadership have been proven through decades of research and empirical study, and have been underscored in importance due to the pace of severity of change occurring in the 21st century with teams and what they are expected to accomplish.
Transformational leaders have the ability to lead more effectively than others based on their Emotional Intelligence (EI) and ability to accurately analyze and assess complex situations and device strategies for making the most of them in terms of accomplishment. Combining EI-based insights and a very high level of authenticity, transformational leaders earn and keep respect and trust, two critical catalysts for leading teams forward to accomplish their objectives (Moynihan, Pandey, Wright, 2012). Transformational leaders may also be considered by many to be above the transactional leaders in terms of their value to an organization. This is not the case, as a balance of leadership styles are critical for any organization to move forward to its objectives, with transactional leadership styles being best used on short-term projects (Searle, Hanrahan, 2011).

Given how varied and complex tasks are for many virtual teams today, the need for having a solid foundation of leadership that can flex to meet the needs of tasks and conditions is critical to its success (Zhu, Avolio, Riggio, Sosik, 2011). The four components of an effective transformational leadership are idealized influence, individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation and inspirational motivation (Moynihan, Pandey, Wright, 2012). These four attributes are what enable transformational leaders to stay agile in the midst of significant change while also ensuring their teams stay focused on their objectives. It is the ability to selectively move across these four areas quickly to ensure a high level of effectiveness as a transformational leader. The EI level of a given leader contributes…