Transformational Leadership

Managing in today's dynamic, diverse workplace requires great leaders who must be visionaries, “change agents” and coaches. Leadership is the ability to make sound and timely decisions that reflect the mission and the objective of an organization. A leader can be either “transformational” or “transactional” according to CLQ and either style is necessary to the success of an organization. On examining my leadership skills, I have concluded that I am a transformational leader. The skills I identify with are courage, authority, decisiveness, dependability, judgment, loyalty, enthusiasm, teamwork, and initiative. In order to be a good leader, one must have the ability to motivate and inspire individuals to perform tasks as identified for job completion.

In my leadership style, my focus is that employees should always seek self-improvement, thus “empowerment” is the main concept used. Employees are diverse and each offers something differently to an organization, and allowing an employee to perform tasks as they see fit can lead to increased self and organizational worth/value. In allowing them to make decisions, it raises their morale and confidence level, thus making them work harder on the particular project, because they do not want to fail. In my current shop, I have five new troops, who have expressed the desire for extra task and the need to prove themselves that they can be independent and hard working individuals. Each troop was assigned to a specific section where they were given the task of preparing a desktop procedure and from these procedures give a class on how the section must function effectively for mission accomplishment. The troops plunged into the task immediately because of their high level of confidence.

Employees or “human capital” are the heart and soul of an organization, and without employees, an organization would not be successful. In the military, its objective is mission accomplishment followed by troop welfare. Although, mission accomplishment is number one, troop welfare is important as well, because the mission cannot be completed without employees. Last month, a troop encountered legal problems and I spent about three days trying to alleviate this problem. The troop was more concern with the impending legal litigation than in working on his assigned project. Another example is birthdays. Each troop’s birthday is celebrated with cake and ice cream. This celebration creates a bond among the troops and let them know that I care about their well-being and that work can be fun.

In my current organization I, try to foster a working environment where troops understand why they are performing a particular task. I inform the troops that one day, they will be in a leadership role and they must understand the fundamentals of their job and how to relate to each other in a tem environment. I seek change and or improvement of current job process by utilizing the “proactive” approach, because in order for an organization to remain competitive, innovative ideas, and risk taking are paramount. I invoke the “360 degree” feedback process whereby the opinions and perception of others are compared to identify strengths, and pinpoint the areas of job performance that could be improved. The troops were tasked with submitting their opinion of their leaders style anonymously, the results were evaluated, and a conclusion was drawn. Each leader was made aware of their strengths and weakness from the troops view.

Leadership can be seen as the backbone of an organization, and if the leadership style is not accepted by all employees, then the organization will not be able to function effectively in the industry that it competes.