Comparing and contrasting transformational and charismatic leadership
February 27, 2015

Table of contents Leadership 3
Background 4 What is transformational leadership? 5
Nelson Mandela 6
What is charismatic leadership? 7
Mahatma Gandhi 9
Compare and contrast 9

Leadership

“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it (Eisenhower).” Leadership is about mapping out where you need to go to succeed as a team by influencing relationships between followers and leaders whom share the same purpose. What is the key elements leadership involves? Optimism, honesty and self-confidence are characteristics leaders need to posses in order to inspire people to reach their maximum potential. Self-confidence is the assurance of ones own self by being assured in their ideas and decision-making skills. Self-confidence can be a positive trait and yet can be negative if one exceeds too much self-confidence it may result in making them look cocky or arrogant. As a leader staying confident and calm will help your team feel the same way. Optimism is to always see the positive outlook in any given situation. As a leader there will always be some type of bump in the road but in order to see great possibilities one always has to be optimistic. Honesty and integrity is the truthfulness of a person who acts in accordance with solid ethical principals. Your business and its employees are a reflection of yourself and if you carry honesty and ethical values for yourself your employees will mimic. A survey conducted on over 1,500 managers was asked the values most desired in leaders and integrity and honesty were at the top of the list (Hunt, 2010). By creating a shared vision leaders can inspire and motivate people for their purpose. As well should find a mentor for feedback, complete a leadership course, emulate successful leaders and work to develop patience and empathy. Everyone is born to lead one just has to acquire the leadership characteristics and explore their personal development. According to Adair (2003) leadership may be learned and a person can become a successful leader through successfully applying all the leadership skills and characteristics. The leader giving direction, providing inspiration, building teams, setting examples and in turn gaining acceptance from team members can aid leadership learning (Mullins 2010). Bennis and Thomas (2002) interviewed 43 leaders and found that they became leaders after a transformative experience in their life, and maintained their condition as leaders thanks to their adaptive capacity, ability to relate to others, and sense on integrity.
Background
Transformational leadership is substantially interactive. Leaders and followers reach a high degree of interconnectedness from which they are able to achieve the desired changes (Burns, 1978). The great James MacGregor Burns (1978) was the first to present the idea of transforming leadership in his research on various political leaders. He created two different concepts since he was having difficulty differentiating the behaviors and characteristics between leadership and management and this is