Effective leadership is critical for success in organizations. Various factors influence leadership. Different ways of leadership have different advantages and drawbacks. Transformational leadership is one such type of leadership, and it the most suitable for leading groups or teamwork. It refers to leadership that aims at changing the thinking and behavior of others to accomplish a common objective. It allows the management of different individuals while maximizing the collective effort of the group.
Emotional Intelligence in Transformative Leadership
Emotional intelligence (EI) influences transformative leadership. EI has a positive relationship with work performance, and transformative leadership moderates the relationship between worker's EI and work performance (Chen et al., 2015). Emotional intelligence involves the recognition of one’s emotions and those of others. The emotions are identified correctly and analyzed to influence behavior and response to various situations. Elements of emotional intelligence associated with leadership include self-awareness, self-regulation, social skills, empathy, and motivation
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Self-awareness leads one to identify their weaknesses, strengths, and goals and their impact on others. This helps them make better-informed decisions that are in line with their strengths leading to higher chances of success. Self-regulation, on the other hand, involves the ability to control negative and disruptive behaviors and emotions. This prevents one from allowing personal issues to disrupt group performance. Self-awareness and regulations make leaders contribute to the group's objectives by aligning decisions with one's positive characteristics and reducing the impact of negative traits.
Emotional intelligent leaders have good social skills. This enables them to relate well with others and manage different group dynamics. They can help the group members work together and thus create unity and harmony in achieving the group’s goals. This is also aided by empathy. Leaders with empathy are compassionate to others. This makes other people feel valued, and they can connect better with decisions made. Emotionally intelligent leaders also possess a motivational character. They are aware of what motivates them and, in turn, what motivates others. This ensures that they can keep their group members focused and motivated when things get tough. Therefore, emotional intelligence is used to boost group performance by taking into account the social structure of groups and factors that keep the social harmony of the group intact. This keeps everyone focused, happy, and content with the decisions made by leaders.
Types of Leadership Models
Transactional leadership involves the use of rewards and punishments to motivate workers. It is optimal for ensuring that tasks are performed in a specific way or during a crisis. This is because problems are resolved in the shortest time frame. Situational leadership is where the leader practices no single style of leadership but adapts with the function, individual, or group being managed. This type of leadership is very flexible and, therefore, can be used to respond to different challenges that arise or to handle the various members of the team who are different as individuals. Transformational leadership is one where the leader inspires and motivates the team members to change their attitude towards the task and ensure performance beyond their perceived capabilities (Barth-Farkas & Vera 2014). This brings about a cultural change that sets higher standards for the team to achieve.
Cultural and Ethical Influences
Good leadership promotes an ethical and positive culture among followers. Leadership shapes culture, and a culture of effectiveness increase readiness to change among employees, but ethical leaders aid this by offering certainty (Metwally et al., 2019). Transformative leaders are ethical and raise moral standards among followers. This inspires followers to emulate them. Leaders' culture influences the direction in which the whole team follows and affects the achievement of goals. Lack of ethics by a leader leads to a negative culture that ultimately ruins the whole team.
Conclusion
Transformational leadership involves the inspiration, motivation of followers, and connecting them to the team's goals. This makes employees be self-driven and perform beyond their expectations. Transformative leaders uphold ethics that inspire followers. Followers emulate their leader, and this brings about a change in culture that promotes work performance.
References
Barth-Farkas, F., & Vera, A. (2014). Power and transformational leadership in public organizations. International Journal of Leadership in Public Services , 10 (4), 217-232. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijlps-07-2014-0011
Chen, A. S., Bian, M., & Hou, Y. (2015). Impact of transformational leadership on subordinate’s EI and work performance. Personnel Review , 44 (4), 438-453. https://doi.org/10.1108/pr-09-2012-0154
Metwally, D., Ruiz-Palomino, P., Metwally, M., & Gartzia, L. (2019). How Ethical Leadership Shapes Employees’ Readiness to Change: The Mediating Role of an Organizational Culture of Effectiveness. Frontiers in Psychology . https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02493,
