Leadership Is the Ability of Influencing Individuals

Leadership is the ability of influencing individuals or groups for attainment of particular goals. It is the ability of managing interpersonal behaviour by motivating others. There are a number of approaches to leadership, but these can broadly be categorized as Behaviouristic theory, Traits theory, Charismatic theories of leadership and transformational leadership. For the purpose of this assignment, we have chosen transformational leadership approach.

Transformational Leadership

The process of transforming and changing individuals is termed as transformational leadership. In simple terms, transformational leadership can be defined as the ability to make people improve, change and led. Transformational leadership involves assessment of subordinates' needs, motives and giving them due value. Thus, it can be said that a leader having characteristics of transformational leader has the ability to increase the performance of company by giving due value to the employees/subordinates. (Hesselbein and Cohen 1999)

Transformational leadership has four factors which are commonly named as "four I's." These are inspirational motivation, idealized influence, individual consideration and intellectual stimulation. Following is the description of each of these factors which will help the leaders to use transformational leadership approach in the organizations effectively and efficiently.

Inspirational motivation is the ability of leader to successfully motivate his subordinate to get connected to the vision, mission and values of the organization. The goals of market growth and increased revenues are achieved by encouragement of team spirit by leaders having inspirational motivation.

Leaders who can be quoted as exemplary role models are the description of idealized influence. It is a fact that subordinates have a greater degree of respect and trust for these types of leaders.

Individual consideration can better be defined as those leaders who are advisors and coaches to their subordinates. Leaders having individual consideration help the subordinates to achieve goals that are fruitful for organization as well as the subordinate.

There are certain type of leaders who challenge the pre-conceived views or beliefs of a group through creativity and innovation. These types of leaders promote problem solving and critical thinking skills which are crucial for the success of an organization. (Northouse 2001)

Proper execution of transformational leadership can not only meet but beat the organizational performance benchmarks. If the leader has all of the above-mentioned traits, there is no doubt that organization will be a success.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths and weaknesses are a must for any approach or theory, same is the case with leadership approaches. The transformational leadership approach has the following strengths and weaknesses, as identified by Northouse (2001):

Of many strengths, one of the major strengths of transformational leadership is that it is highly effective for subordinates on all levels of the organization, whether it is one-to-many or one-to-one. Additionally, this approach of leadership is widely researched and is related to well-known leaders of the business world. Transformational leadership gives a very strong emphasis on values and needs of the subordinates.

A weakness of transformational leadership approach is the broadness of its horizon having too many components in it. Additionally, transformational leadership approach do not treat leadership as learned behaviour, rather it treats it as a personality trait. Transformational leadership also possess potential for the mis-use of power as well. (Northouse 2001)

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