Transformational Leaders Service and Technology

¶ … Transformational Leaders

Challenges Facing Transformational Leaders: Service and Technology

In the present day, organizations incessantly experience and go through rapid technological changes, decreasing product life cycles, globalization, international global economic setting and also the extensive accessibility to information. As a result, in order for these organizations to continue surviving and being relevant in the market, there is a great need of going after new trends, increasing organizational growth and also being innovative than previously before. This is particularly the case with the technological and service sectors where there is constant change in invention and also preferences from the consumers. Transformational leadership is a substantial approach to motivate supporters beyond prospects and let out the creativity within them. This indicates the importance of transformational leadership in the technological and service sectors as it is the quintessence of generating and sustaining a competitive edge over rivals. Nevertheless, it is imperative to note these transformational leaders do face quite a number of challenges. This analytical literature review outlines and sheds light on the various challenges faced by transformational leaders, with focus in the technological and service industries. By using research papers, literature reviews and theoretical papers, the analytical review takes into account a vast range of information that reveals the various challenges experienced and faced by transformational leaders. Some of these challenges take account of the communication of transformational leaders at the business level and the challenges of the societal intricacies. Another major challenge is the sequestration of accustomed thinking systems and business practices that are engrained in the social order or organizational setting and coming up with new ones against the actuality of informationalism and globalization. In addition, transformational leaders have the challenge of coming up with a relationship with personnel that goes way past their functional and transactional relations. This analytical review might offer contribution to the advancement and further analysis of literature of transformational leadership. This is by coming up with an extensive literal framework that examines the different challenges that transformational leaders face and experience in the different sectors and organizational climates.

Introduction

In the contemporary, conceivably the prevalent challenge facing a person who is endeavoring to fill a leadership role in our present world is in deciding on exactly what the most effective style of leadership will be in the social order. In the present day, organizations place numerous burdens on leaders, demanding them to divulge vision, instigate change, and undertake challenging decisions. In order to cope with these demands, leaders ought to be adjustable and flexible. Transformational leadership best mirrors this adjustment (Bass, 1991). Transformational leadership is defined as a style of leadership in which relations and communications between interested parties are structured around a mutual purpose in such a manner that motivate, transform, and improve the activities and ethical objectives of followers (Simola et al., 2012). More so, transformational leadership is a style of leadership that strives for positive transformations in the followers and that attains sought after changes through the strategy and structure of the organization (Simola et al., 2012).

As initially established by Burns (1978), transformational leadership advances both leaders and supporters to greater levels of motivation and principles, while on the other hand, transactional leadership takes into account an interchange of material or psychosomatic recompense in return for the followers' amenability with the leader's requests, with no sense of any greater purpose. This initial theory was advanced by Bass and Avolio (1994), who state that transformational leadership encompasses four main factors which consist of idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration. Idealized influence alludes to the comportments of a transformational leader, which motivates his or her followers' conviction, esteem, respect, and their desires to imitate the leader. Inspirational motivation and idealized influence are typically united to create leadership that is charismatic-inspirational. Inspirational motivation alludes to transformational leaders sharing a convincing visualization or objective with their followers and continually inspiring them to reach for the objective, while furthering their self-assurance and encouraging them that obstacles faced can be overcome (Bass and Avolio, 1994). Third of all, intellectual stimulation alludes to transformational leaders stimulating their followers' ingenuity and innovativeness by questioning conventions and coming up with new methods and elucidations to difficulties. Lastly, individualized consideration alludes to the individual consideration that transformational leaders take into account with respect to their followers, where the leader functions as a tutor and mentor in distinguishing and developing the followers (Bass and Avolio, 1994). Transformational leaders are pertinent in the present day workplace for the reason that they are flexible and inventive. Even though it is imperative to have leaders with the fitting alignment, outlining tasks and handling interrelationships, it is all the more significant to have leaders who can drive organizations into prospects they have not yet conceived. This indicates the importance of transformational leadership in the technological and service sectors as it is the quintessence of generating and sustaining a competitive edge over rivals (Braun et al., 2012). However, transformational leaders do face quite a number of challenges in these sectors. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the challenges faced by transformational leaders, particularly in the service and technology industries. The paper will present this aspect through an analytical review of different research articles, literature reviews and theoretical articles.

Literature Review

Tracey and Hinkin (1994) provide a research paper that analyzes the challenges faced by transformational leaders in the services industry and, in particular, the hospitality industry. The study uses a quantitative research design. In assessing the behavior linked with transformational leadership, the authors acknowledged a hospitality organization that had been successful over the previous several years. The study sample included principal partners and forty-five corporate staff members who operated in the same offices as the partners. These members were thereafter asked to rate how effective each partner was under the criteria of interpersonal skills, communication, technical competence, objective clarification, bureaucratic justice, and organizational impact. For each of the aforementioned criteria, every leader was ranked on a scale of 1 to 7 with the former being highly ineffective and the latter highly effective. Transformational leadership was measured with respect to accredited personality, intellectual incentive, individualized contemplation, venerated influence, and inspirational leadership. On the other hand, transactional leadership was measured with respect to the employment of conditional rewards, active and passive management by exemption, and laissez-faire leadership. The results of the study indicated that the measure of transformational leadership had a strong and positive correlation with the different result measures. On the other hand, transactional leadership had no significant relationship. Tracey and Hinkin (1994) indicate that establishing niches, entering unexploited markets, and sustaining any control at the entire external environment are some of the challenges faced. Transformational leaders in the industry face the challenge of having an impact on external forces.

Leonard and Grobler (2006) present a research paper that explores a challenge facing transformational leadership with regard to communication. In particular, the paper assesses the communication of transformational leaders at the corporate level and the challenges of the societal complexities. It encompasses the challenge that transformational leaders face in applying communicative normative ideals so as to link the seeming agendas and the negative societal opinions and attitudes towards aspects of change and corporate transformations. The research study makes use of a multiple qualitative research design, which also encompassed the gathering of empirical evidence. The collection of data in the study encompasses the use of semi-structured interviews (Leonard and Grobler, 2006). With respect to the research in hand, Leonard and Grobler (2006) highlight the challenge that transformational leaders experience in the complexity of communication of different aspects and also encompassing the strategic value of communication. This is for the reason that more often than not, internal communication does not attain plenty of strategic emphasis compared to external communication. In addition, the other leaders within the organization also present a challenge in the sense that they consider communication to be a strategic implement and not a strategic manner. This causes the transformational leaders not to appreciate and take into consideration the intricate nature of transformation change communication in itself (Leonard and Grobler, 2006). In general, the challenge perceived and experienced by transformational leaders are the societal and commercial complexities, which hampers the communication of management of change (Leonard and Grobler, 2006).

The paper presented by Laubscher (2008) is a research paper. The study uses a qualitative research design. The research paper focused on transformational leadership and the general challenges faced by transformational leaders. In general, transformational leaders are anticipated to undertake actions that would result in expected change. However, as a result, this brings about different transformational challenges that they experience and which necessitate democratic and apparent facilitation. Transformational change encompasses the altering of ones' being. In other words, this is the generation of something that is presently not conceivable in ones' reality. In essence, change is the alteration of what one is doing and more so is the improvement of an aspect that is already conceivable in one's reality. The main challenge that transformational leaders face in both of these industry is the management of change. Transformational leaders are perceived as agents of change and individuals that take part in risks. They are individuals who are open and eager to gain knowledge and learn from experience. However, the management of this change is a major challenge faced by transformational leaders (Laubscher, 2008). In relation to challenges in transformational leadership, the author states that the main challenge for South African transformational leaders in organizations encompasses the retirement of customary thinking systems and business practices that are entrenched in apartheid. The other challenge is coming up with new ones against the actuality of informationalism and globalization that is fast-paced and increasingly more related networks (Laubscher, 2008). In a technological industry that is incessantly changing, the challenges that transformational leaders face is the uprooting of the obsolete mindsets and thinking systems and coming up with new ones and encouraging everyone else to be on board.

The study presented by Raja (2012) is one that employs a qualitative research design. The research study is descriptive in nature, elucidating in-depth the conceptions, philosophies and researches linked to transformational leadership. The population of the research study encompasses all of the firms in the service industry of Pakistan. More so, the sample structure is churned out from Islamabad Chamber of Commerce with regard to all of the service sector companies that are listed in the country. This set is employed to attain the location, addresses and also names of the service sector companies. The data used in the study was gathered with the help of a structured questionnaire and making use of the stratified random sampling technique from different kinds of service companies in Pakistan. In total, 150 participants were used to gauge the data provided. The population was initially split into various service sector companies with operations in baking, educational establishments, hotel and telecommunication & networking. In addition, the primary data utilized in the study consisted of middle level managers from each of the chosen service companies. The study presented employee work engagement as one of the major challenges faced by transformational leaders in the service industry. Raja (2012) points out that is the business world of the present day; transformational leadership faces numerous challenging aspects, such as worldwide competition, layoff, decreasing markets, economic turmoil, amassing disparagement and wariness. Therefore, the transformational leaders of the present day are presented with the challenge of staying true to their individual beliefs and convictions and also being accountable for their work. At the same time, they have to provide inspiration to their subordinates and meet all these necessitated demands (Raja, 2012).

The research undertaken by Taflevin (2013) employs a mixed research design. To begin with, the article outlines the transformational leadership theory. This theory was conceived by James MacGregor Burns in 1978. However, since then, several other theories have evolved with the most famous one being by Bass (1985). His theory varies from that one presented by Burns in the notion that transactional and transformational leadership are perceived as not being at conflicting wings on a scale, but as two dissimilar magnitudes where a leader can be both transactional and transformational all at once, but to dissimilar notches. In addition, in contradiction to Burns, who contended that leaders ought to make every effort for a transformational leadership solely, Bass maintained that leaders can and ought to be both transactional and transformational and that an amalgamation of these two is the most efficacious one (Taflevin, 2013). In addition, according to Bass (1985), transformational leaders display four different kinds of behaviors. These include: inspirational motivation, idealized influence, intellectual stimulation and individual consideration.

On the other hand, the paper also employs both qualitative and quantitative methods of research design. The sample data included 2700 personnel in a major municipality in Sweden. The collection of data was undertaken in two phases with a year interval. A stratified random sample of personnel was carefully chosen from staff records and requested to take part in the study. The questionnaire was propelled to each worker's home address by mail together with a letter elucidating the purpose of the study. There was a response rate of forty eight percent as 158 of the total 342 participants retorted to the questionnaire. These individuals were requested to take part in the second phase through another questionnaire and 101 out of 136 of them responded (Taflevin, 2013). In the first study, the author employed regression analysis in SPSS. In this case, the main impact of transformational leadership, continuity of the leader and support from co-workers were all analyzed as dependent variables. On the other hand, on the second study, structural equation modeling was used. In this case, the authors analyzed the direct impact that transformational leadership has on well-being and what challenges hamper such welfare over time (Tafvelin, 2013).

The article presented by Chaudry (2013) is a theoretical paper that seeks to indicate the challenge of ensuring employees are committed to change that is faced and experienced by transformational leaders. Transformational leaders undertake manifold functions, such as the instigation of a vision, providing strategic bearing, sustaining sensitivity to setting, constructing a network, incessant decision-making and the engagement in communication. Nevertheless, it is imperative to point out that despite all of these actions they do not necessarily bring about affective commitment of the personnel to the change implemented by transformational leaders (Chaudry, 2013). Transformational leaders have the challenge of coming up with a relationship with personnel that goes way past their functional and transactional relations. The implication of this is that they have to give personnel individual attention and incessantly stimulate them to be innovative and distinctive as well as gain their trust and loyalty. In essence, transformational leadership encourages workers' sentimental commitment to change by impelling their perception of change benefits and anticipations self-actualization and constructing trust in them. This impacts the outlook of the top management personnel concerning objectives and makes them devoted to the change that brings about their active participation, sustenance and administration of the change (Chaudry, 2013). The challenge is that kindness and receptiveness of transformational leaders to worker emotions and their own dedication to change intensely impact personnel commitment to change. Therefore, this implies that weak transformational leadership can bring about disparagement, district and skepticism with regard to the change being enforced in the organization (Chaudry, 2013). Transformational leader communication might not straightly impact personnel to react positively to change. This is for the reason that personnel are disseminated and circulated across various ordered levels, subdivisions, places and roles, in addition to facing such transformational leadership challenges. As a result, it may be challenging to make communication pertinent to all apprehensive (Chaudry, 2013).

In accordance to Townley (2009), despite the fact that there is a consent and unanimity that transformational leadership is vital to efficacious service innovation behavior, the association between these two aspects continue to be questionable and lacking. This particular research study takes into account a twofold perspective approach that takes into consideration the challenges of social-political perspectives and motivational outlooks. This is with the main purpose of eliciting the impact of transformational leadership on the frontline personnel with respect to service innovation (Townley, 2009). The research study makes use of data from multiple sources and multiple phases from 1,396 consumers of hair beauty salons and also 269 personnel from the same. This takes into account the challenges faced by transformational leaders in terms of the perceived organizational environment for innovation, the creation of self-efficacy and also anticipated image gains. The outcomes of the study, however, indicate that these different aspects completely intercede and intervene, the association between transformational leaders and the efficacious service innovation behavior of personnel (Townley, 2009). In accordance to the outcomes of the article, transformational leadership has a positive and constructive impact on the perceived organizational environment for innovation for the employees. More so, this as a result, increases the service innovation behavior of personnel by means of both motivational and socio-political facilitating structures.

Wright and Pandey (2009) present a literature review that offers a significant contribution to the understanding of transformational leadership in the organizations within the public sector. The research study makes this possible by examining the impact that organizational structure has on the practices undertaken by transformational leaders in the form of municipal chief administrative officers. The research study employs data collected from a national survey of senior managers who are positioned in the local government. The outcomes of the study are indicative or point toward a number of conceivable elucidations as to why public sector organizations display greater or superior levels of transformational leadership in comparison to what researchers anticipate or expect, in tradition. As indicated by Wright and Pandey (2009), the outcomes of the study hint toward the notion that the structure of these organizations set in the public service sector might not be inflexible and unbending as generally perceived. In addition, the outcomes showed that a number of bureaucratic features and individualities had very minimal, if any, adversative effect on the pervasiveness or practice of transformational leadership activities and conducts. More so, the research study by Wright and Pandey (2009), show that despite the fact that organizational hierarchy and insufficient lateral or upward communication were considered to be challenges to transformational leadership, there was no correlation obtained between the two sorts of organizational red tape and the behaviors of transformational leaders (Wright and Pandey, 2009). In addition, the research study showed that different from anticipations in the conventional leadership literature, nevertheless, the use of performance measurement by public service organizations was linked with a substantial increase in reported transformational leadership behaviors (Wright and Pandey, 2009).

Jacobsen (2015) presents a qualitative research design study that takes into consideration and analyzes whether publicness is a challenge to transformational leadership. A great deal of empirical studies have indicated and displayed an extensive variety of constructive effects of transformational leadership, which has been debatably the leading leadership model in the past twenty years or so. In this particular research study, Jacobsen (2015) contemplates whether this kind of leadership is as effective in public organizations as in private establishments. The research study undertakes a survey in which there was a mapping out of the styles of leadership for 2,488 leaders in organizations in Norway and having more than 10 personnel involved as well. A great emphasis is placed to consider whether publicness is a challenge to the efficacy of transformational leadership. In particular, Jacobsen (2015) considers whether the manifestation of transformational leadership varies conferring to an organization's publicness. In accordance to hypotheses, it is proclaimed that the impact of publicness on transformational leadership will be interceded through bureaucratization, centralism, professionalization, pro-social incentive and sexual category conformation. The outcomes of the study show that publicness cannot be considered a significant challenge to transformational leadership taking into account the size of the organization, the sexual category of the leader and the main tasks being undertaken at hand (Jacobsen, 2015). A point of clarification outlined by the article is that different challenges for transformational leaders might be more strongly associated to basic individualities and features, for instance, the size of the organization and also tasks and not whether the organization is based in the service sector or not. More so, transformational leadership in the two considered sectors is not in any way dissimilar compared to transformational leadership in other sectors and industries (Jacobsen, 2015).