Transformational Leadership Matters: Tying the Four I's Together

The Four I's of leadership is a framework outlining the key behavioral characteristics of the transformational leadership style (Bass, Avolio, 1994). When used in conjunction, idealized influence, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation (the Four I's) may increase workplace goal achievement and well-being. Often, these four characteristics serve as developmental building blocks toward growing others' trust and building up follower confidence. The Four I's principles come alive in the transformational leadership style to help support others to grow into greatness and empower followers to envision broader perspective.

How Do I Know If My Leadership Style Is Transformative?

Observe the results of the interactions between people and groups in the leadership roles you've had throughout the years. According to Bernard Bass, one way to begin the journey of discovering your leadership style is by asking for formal or informal feedback from followers. Studies suggest that transformational leaders engage and grow with their followers over time (Bass, Avolio, 1994). You may also see your followers and associates emulate your leadership character or model after your behaviors and emerge and develop into great leaders.

Tips on Adopting and Shaping a Transformational Leadership Style

Here are some suggestions you can try at work the next time you have the opportunity to lead a project. Gary Yukl, Professor Emeritus at University at Albany introduced several transformative and influential tips, which he terms transformative implications, for leaders to exercise (Yukl, 1994, 1999):

• Develop a challenging and attractive shared direction and vision.
• Develop the vision, specify it to others, and translate it to actions.
• Tie the vision to a strategy for its achievement.
• Express confidence, decisiveness, and optimism about the vision and its implementation.
• Realize the vision through small, planned steps, and small successes in the path toward full implementation.

Transformational leaders can influence both individual and shared goal alignment by aligning these tips to projects in the workplace. They also develop their vision to inspire people to believe in and trust in it as a shared vision with its own identity. Transformational leaders are notorious for improving workplace culture through goal attainment (Yukl G, 1999).

To provide followers with a sense of internal empowerment, transformational leaders, often using the Four I's characteristics, influence a healthy positive effect on shaping the internal locus of control of others. An internal locus of control is a phycological concept where individuals believe they have internal self-control over what experiences happen around them. For example, a person with a high internal locus of control presumes success and may even be more likely to seek empowerment and be more willing to learn new things.

Transformational Leadership Styles Influence Goal Setting, Goal Congruence, and Workplace Productivity

When all four elements of transformational leadership style (and Yukl's tips) are applied to goal attainment with individuals, groups, and teams, the tendency for increased well-being, productivity, and follower goal achievement rise. When team goals directly or indirectly correlate to personal goals and follower growth, this intersection has the potential to enhance follower-to-leader transformation (Steinmann 2018). The likelihood of followers becoming more robust charismatic leaders increases as their goals and the path toward them are reached.To provide context for this follower-to-leader transformation, Barbara Steinmann et al conducted an employee survey in 2018. "A[n employee] survey investigated the influence of transformational leadership on followers' job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and proactive behavior through their goal attainment" (Steinmann et al. 2018).

Her findings indicate that transformational leaders help followers commit to organizational objectives and "…influence [subordinates] to the extent to which followers evaluate organizational goals as important and perceive them as their own and easily attainable" (Steinmann et al., 2018). However, once goals are set, leaders often do not have direct control over their achievement, so it is essential to work hard to inspire followers to take ownership and view the goals as their own.

Transformational leaders can motivate followers toward achieving objectives. They influence their followers' paths to self-realization and peak performance. In other words, transformational leaders help others take ownership of projects, and in turn, the followers become better, more effective leaders.

In Summary

Over the past thirty years, research has found that transformational leadership contains four key behaviors discussed in this series.

• Individualized consideration (supporting others)
• Inspirational motivation (encouraging, seeing, and accepting change)
• Intellectual stimulation (offering and fostering innovative thinking)
• Idealized influence (the vital link between actions, values, and ethics) (Yukl, 2012).

The ability leaders have to role model highly impactful and influential behaviors in the workplace can be learned through applying the Four I's of transformational leadership. In addition, a leader's ability to build the character of an individual, group, or organizational level has been studied and advanced over the past thirty years. For more current information visit leadership development. Effective transformational leadership can be built up and improved upon by turning to the Four I's leadership framework or inspiration.

References

Bass B. M. (1985). Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations. New York, NY: Free Press.

Bass B. M., Avolio B. J. (1994). Improving Organizational Effectiveness Through Transformational Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Steinmann, B., Klug, H., & Maier, G. W. (2018). The Path Is the Goal: How Transformational Leaders Enhance Followers' Job Attitudes and Proactive Behavior. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 2338. Doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02338. Retrieved on May 24, 2022.

Sussex Publishers. (n.d.). Locus of control. Psychology Today. Retrieved May 24, 2022.

Yukl, G. (1999). An evaluation of conceptual weaknesses in transformational and charismatic leadership theories. Leadership Quarterly, 10, p, 285-305.

Yukl, G. (2012). Effective leadership behavior: What we know and what questions need more attention. Academy of Management Perspectives, 26(4), 66–85. Doi.org/10.5465/amp.2012.0088