What are the 4 elements of transformational leadership?

We know what makes leaders effective. It’s all about relationships. Transformational leadership theory is the most widely studied of all theories of effective leadership.

Originally focused on leaders who "transform" groups or organizations, transformational leaders focus on followers, motivating them to high levels of performance, and in the process, help followers develop their own leadership potential. They transform organizations and transform individuals. But how do they do this?

The first element is to Be a Positive Role Model. In leadership jargon, this is called “Idealized Influence.” The leader serves as a positive role model for followers (“I want to be like my leader”). Moreover, the leader is admired because she or he “walks the talk”—in other words, the leader wouldn’t ask followers to do something that he or she wouldn’t do, and the leader never says one thing and does another.

The second element is Inspirational Motivation. Transformational leaders have the ability to inspire and motivate followers. Combine this with Idealized Influence, and this is the source of the transformational leader's charisma.

The next two elements are about the leader-follower relationship.

Individualized Consideration is when transformational leaders demonstrate genuine concern for the needs and feelings of followers. This personal attention to each follower is a key element in bringing out their very best efforts, and in developing the follower’s leadership potential.

The final element is called “Intellectual Stimulation.” The leader challenges followers to be innovative and creative. A common misunderstanding is that transformational leaders are "soft," but the truth is that they constantly challenge followers to higher levels of performance.

These last two elements are also the keys to good parenting—meeting the individual needs of each child, and stimulating each to rise to life’s challenges.

Research evidence clearly shows that groups led by transformational leaders have higher levels of performance and satisfaction than groups led by other types of leaders. Why? Because transformational leaders hold positive expectations for followers, believing that they can do their best. As a result, they inspire, empower, and stimulate followers to exceed normal levels of performance. AND, transformational leaders focus on and care about followers and their personal needs and development.

This speaks to leaders best exerting their influence within a group. When a leader is practicing “idealized influence,” it means they are deeply respected by their team and provide a sense of vision and belonging long-term. Their teams tend to understand the long-term objectives of both that team and the bigger organization. These leaders are, essentially, role models.

Element 2: Intellectual stimulation

This is about the creation of an open and diverse environment, so that employees can propose different, innovative, or even “off-the-wall” ideas that might someday represent a new best practice or revenue stream. It’s the freedom to explore and be curious under a specific leader. 

Element 3: Inspirational motivation

Leaders practicing inspirational motivation drive true morale and accountability in their teams, but it’s not a fear-based accountability (i.e. being scared of messing up a project). It’s based on a personalized approach, meaning the leader knows what motivates each person on the team, and then the leader digs down and works directly with each direct report to motivate towards both individual and group goals. 

Element 4: Individualized consideration 

This also speaks to a personalized approach, and those practicing transformational leadership along this continuum create diverse, supportive environments for their teams. Many leadership articles of the last few years have talked about Google’s Project Aristotle, or its quest to build the perfect team.

While they didn’t quite hit that goal, what they landed on was “psychological safety,” or the idea that differing viewpoints and individual connections back to work can all find respect in one team. A transformational leader helps teams achieve that across four elements. 

35,000-foot ways to conceptualize transformational leadership

Phrased in bigger picture-terms, transformational leaders:

1. Identify individual strengths and weaknesses
2. Develop an inspiring vision for the future
3. Motivate everyone to buy into the vision
4. Manage and involve yourself in delivery
5. Reinforce your relationships with the team: trust, loyalty

CIO Magazine has defined a transformational leader as one who:

• Encourages the motivation and positive development of followers
• Exemplifies moral standards within the organization 
• Fosters an ethical work environment with clear values, priorities and standards
• Builds company culture by encouraging employees to move from an attitude of self-interest to a mindset where they are working for the common good
• Holds an emphasis on authenticity, cooperation and open communication
• Provides coaching and mentoring but allowing employees to make decisions and take ownership of tasks

Psychology Today has taken all the elements of research over the past 47 years and condensed it into four big buckets:

• Be a positive role model
• Inspire and motivate your team
• Personal attention to each team member
• Challenge team members to be more innovative and creative

Now that we’ve considered some of the research base and higher-order thinking on transformational leadership, the next logical question is: How does a leader “get there?” How does one practice transformational leadership? Let’s tackle this by each of Bass’ four big concepts.

Transformational leadership: Idealized influence

This one is about being a positive role model. So, at the most basic level, your team needs to see you working hard but also having a degree of work-life balance. When there are ethical or moral decisions, i.e. some of the health vs. profit concerns that the pandemic showed us, you need to come down on the moral side. 

To gain influence with your team, you can also sit them down once per month and talk about your biggest challenge, i.e. what’s being discussed at your level of the hierarchy or above. Invite their opinions on how to solve that challenge. You’re showing respect and more than just an adherence to hierarchy. 

Zenger-Folkman has framed this up as “bold leadership,” where you want employees to feel a desire to “go the extra mile” for you and the overall team:

Much of “idealized influence” within transformational leadership comes down to walking the walk and talking the talk. Show employees, through your actions, how they should model their work behavior. Engage with them. Make them want to work harder for you and the team. 

Transformational leadership: Intellectual stimulation

This can admittedly be hard for some leaders, especially those conditioned around the idea that work is predicated on achieving and completing tasks (goals, KPIs, ROI elements). It can feel to some leaders that “intellectual stimulation” would come from reading books, listening to podcasts, attending museums, etc. in your spare time. Work is about achievable results, no?

Well, no. 

Kim Scott, who built successful teams at both Facebook and Google, has noted:

They want to work for you because they want to work with you. “Keep your top performers top of mind. Literally, top of mind — as in, in your thoughts. What you want to be is a thought partner. This is not just an abstract title, like ‘thought leader.’ It means approaching their work with curiosity and with an aim to be equals in discussing it. They know when they need to know more. You are thoughtful. And you are a partner,” says Scott. “From a reporting point of you, you may still be their manager, but, for these high-performers, you help manage their curiosity, not their work.”

You can apply this beyond just top-performers as well. Ask your employees questions. Push them on their problem-solving approach. Encourage them to partner with another silo or learn what another division does and bring back relevant best practices. Push them to think differently about problems. 

Ask questions like:

• How could meetings be more effective? 
• How could the team bond better during the pandemic? 
• What blind spots are we not considering as we try to hit goals every week and month? 

Be a partner, and a sounding board, for their intellectual journeys into work and productivity. 

Another factor in intellectual stimulation can be constructive criticism (which can also apply to the next tier we’re going to discuss, inspirational motivation). Offering specific criticism or adjustment of process or practice can be a great way to push forward discussions and explore new opportunities and potential ideas within a leader-employee dynamic. 

Transformational leadership: Inspirational motivation

We often frame this as “rah-rah” speeches and think of it in sports terms. That is certainly one approach to inspiring and motivating employees. There are bigger ways to consider it, though.

Mark Leslie is a good example. He took a company with 12 employees and $95,000 in revenue and made it a company with 6,000 employees and $1.5 billion in revenue. His advice?

“In a company, that means sharing information and decision-making with people beyond what is normally expected.” Leslie himself once initiated a thoughtful discussion with his engineers about the pros and cons of reverse-splitting the company’s stock — and then left the decision up to them. In the end, “they made exactly the right decision, for exactly the same reasons that we would have,” he recalls. “There’s no doubt that had we said, ‘We’re reverse-splitting the stock,’ and then given them exactly the same information, some of those people would have walked away feeling like somebody had picked their pocket.” 

At this point, you can see how the big buckets of transformational leadership all come together. Inspiring and motivating others often means involving others, giving them the right information, being transparent, not hoarding information further up a hierarchy, and more. 

Inspiring employees involves letting them take on other responsibilities, grow into new roles, evolve as professionals, and more. Everything within the idea of transformational leadership is very connected. It all begins with truly engaging with your employees and what they have to offer.

Take a cue from the experts

We reached out to Timothy Carroll of Carroll Consultancy when crafting this article, and he underscored the interconnectedness of transformational leadership elements. 

“It’s about understanding what drives employees and leveraging that for top performance,” he said. “A transformational leader will start with themselves, being an example of what they want to see in the work and the world, and then make sure that reflects and drives through the people in the organization.”

In the age of COVID, we’ve also put together 13 unique team motivation ideas specifically geared at remote teams. Take a look. We’ve also organized some major motivation theories, which can help you understand best how to approach individual employees and the entire team in the name of transformational leadership. 

Transformational leadership: Individualized consideration

Tribe mind

Because of social and racial unrest globally right now, “belonging” has become a rallying cry in HR departments and leadership teams. Now, admittedly “belonging” without action items can feel like a buzzword, and that’s exactly where this element of transformational leadership would lie. People are social animals. They evolved in tribes. 

Much has changed about that mentality in modernity, but people still gravitate towards a sense of bigger purpose or belonging, or a group they are part of. Make your employees feel like you care about them 1-on-1 but that they are also part of something bigger, as in your whole team. 

The friend zone

A challenge for leaders here is “The Friend Zone.” Some traditional leaders are afraid of becoming friends with direct reports, for fear the relationship will go off the tracks and discipline and accountability may suffer. That is a valid concern. It is possible to get to know your employees more personally without being happy hour friends, though. 

You could even make a simple chart of your employees, akin to this:

It’s more to update, sure, but it also ensures a personalized approach to leadership and team development -- and that’s going to be more successful. 

A lot of personalized leadership approaches do come back to emotional intelligence within the leader, which thankfully can be developed with time and practice. And remember this above all: relationship-building will future-proof your career, and the only way to effectively build relationships at work is to give people the individual attention and focus they seek. 

If you do that down a hierarchical chain, i.e. to your employees, you may find yourself in 3-5 years in a situation where they’re running a scaling company and they come find you because of that relationship. It can pay off. 

How can Fingerprint for Success help you with transformational leadership?

We asked expert coach Tim Carroll this same question, and he came back with:

1. Use F4S to better understand the individual motivations of your teammates.
2. Assess talent and create development plans.
3. Leverage what the leader learns to create 1-on-1 scripts, future development plans, conversations among top leadership, and more.
4. Look at your critical teams, what drives them, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and where blind spots reside. How can the talents of different individuals be maximized for team performance?
5. Model success factors from the top teams and, if they would work within the framework of other teams, use them as team-development guidelines and benchmarks internally.
   

We know that transformational leadership increases engagement at work significantly. We know that it deepens organizational commitment as well. And now, above, we have some ideas how leaders and teams can arrive at truly transformational leadership as well. 

There are admittedly buzzwords all around the leadership space these days, but transformational leadership does work when rooted in individual feedback, employee motivation, inspirational decision-making, trust, and more. Get to know your people and get to work on inspiring them. You deserve the outputs from transformational leadership, and your team deserves the ability to work in a place that they’ll care deeply for. 

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