Transformational leadership: Steps to unlocking your team’s potential

James MacGregor Burns coined the phrase “transformational leadership” in his 1978 book Leadership. Ever since, the idea and ideal of this leadership style have been studied, talked about, and sometimes misunderstood. At its core, transformational leadership is a style that focuses on inspiring and motivating people to achieve their highest potential while fostering significant desired change within an organization.

When you look at it that way, it’s hard to argue with the dual goal of helping team members while supporting organizational goals—a win-win approach.

How do we get there?

The foundation of the style points to four characteristics or skills:

1. Idealized influence. Transformational leaders act as role models, gaining the trust and respect of their followers.
2. Inspirational motivation. Transformational leaders articulate a clear and compelling vision, inspiring and motivating followers to strive towards shared goals.
3. Intellectual stimulation. Transformational leaders encourage innovation and creativity, challenging followers to think critically and solve problems in new ways.
4. Individualized consideration. Transformational leaders provide personalized support and mentorship, addressing each follower’s unique needs and aspirations.

While transformational leadership is about helping others grow and helping the organization reach its goals, it takes a transformed leader to make this happen. The first step to transformational leadership is a transformed leader.

5 questions

If you want to support transformational leadership in your organization, use these five questions to help you think about what is needed. But don’t stop there. Consider these questions for yourself first:

1. What do we expect of our leaders? Does it match and align with the principles and skills of transformational leadership?
2. What is the mindset of our leaders? Do they see the ideals and behaviors of transformational leadership as desirable?
3. How willing are our leaders to embrace change? We’re not talking about organizational change, but personal change. Are your leaders willing to work on themselves?
4. What are the habits of our leaders now? Are there approaches, skills, and habits that have developed (or that we have trained) that don’t support transformational leadership?
5. How can we support our leaders in their personal transformation? Individuals must decide and do the work, but what can you do to support and encourage that choice?

You won’t get to a team of transformational leaders until you look at these questions and have answers supporting the needed changes.

The power of personal proficiency

The organization can have a vision, outline the leadership style, and set expectations, but the transformation must start with individual leaders. Organizations must support this development since individuals are the first step towards transformational leadership.

You have likely seen programs create significant change for just a few, while most change very little after attending. Why is that? Some are ready and willing to adapt, change, and grow, while others aren’t. That’s why “leadership development” isn’t enough and likely doesn’t come first.

If we want to create more transformational leaders, we must support and encourage them to transform themselves. That means providing them with individual training, coaching, and other opportunities to help them build their personal skill set.

Kevin is the chief potential officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a leadership and learning consulting company that has been helping organizations, teams, and individuals reach their potential since 1993. He is also the cofounder of The Remote Leadership Institute, formed in 2014. Kevin’s specialties include leadership, remote/hybrid work, teams and teamwork, organizational culture, facilitating change, organizational learning, and more. He is the bestselling author of several books and hosts The Remarkable Leadership Podcast.