an icmr-iipm think tank publication - Cycbth.org

EXCLUSIVE COLUMN
THE 'HOW' OF TRANSFOR-
MATIONAL LEADERSHIP
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP FOCUSES ON
LEADING CHANGE AND MOTIVATES FOLLOWERS
TO WORK FOR THE LARGER GOOD
A
mother once brought her child to Mahatma
Gandhi, asking him to tell the young boy not
to eat sugar, as it was not good for his diet or
his developing teeth. Gandhi replied, “I cannot
tell him that, but you may bring him back in a month.
The mother was frustrated as she had expected the great
leader to support her parenting. Four weeks later she
returned, not too sure what to expect. The great Gandhi
took the child’s small hand into his own hand, knelt
before him, and tenderly cautioned, “Do not eat sugar,
my child; it’s not good for you”. Then he embraced the
child. The mother, grateful but perplexed, queried,
“Why didn’t you say that a month ago?” Well, said Gandhi,
a month ago I was still eating sugar myself.” Gandhi
knew that to effectively lead others he must first lead
himself. Gandhi wrote “How can I control others if I
cannot control myself?”
Gandhi believed that an ounce of practice is more
than tons of preaching. This subject could not have
started without above example, the illustration which
is so simple in reading but so in depth and complex that
it may take some time before some of us absorb the essence
of transformational leadership practice which is
“Be the change you want to see in the world” as well
defined by Gandhi who gave definition to Transformational
leadership style. It will also be important to note
that transformational leadership is required at its maxima
when you are leading volunteers and is not supported
by any external mechanism except to follow the
principles yourself, otherwise, for example in Industry/
Corporate its comparatively easier to implement this
style with very high productivity because of support
from external factors such as employee’s salary, perk
growth and security which is absent when you are leading
volunteers.
In simple words, let’s define transformational leadership
as: "Leadership that motivates followers to ignore
self-interests and work for the larger good of the organisation
to achieve significant accomplishments; emphasis
is on articulating a vision that will convince subordinates
to make major changes." These leaders have
a profound effect on their followers’ beliefs regarding
ASHOK MALHOTRA
CEO Spark Leadership Inc
count your chickens before they hatch 32 april 2012
what the organisation should become and also on their
subordinates’ values. Some examples of individuals who
are considered transformational leaders include Bill
Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, Michael Dell of
Dell Computer Corporation, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com,
Lou Gerstner of IBM.
It is also true that people who have the potential to
become transformational leaders can easily lose this opportunity
by making serious mistakes. Indeed, President
Clinton may be an example of an individual who botched
the opportunity to become a highly successful transformational
leader, because of several mistakes. Though in
between a course correction was done to some extent.
There is a significant amount of evidence that transformational
leadership is more effective than transactional
leadership in achieving higher productivity,
higher job satisfaction, and lower employee turnover
rates. To explain this further, we need to reiterate here
that one of the most comprehensive leadership theories
of organisational transformation is the theory of transformational
and transactional leadership as quoted by
Left to Right:
Mahatma Gandhi,
Bill Clinton
& Dalai Lama
– the epitome of
transformational
leadership