Essay on Transformational Leaders

Submitted By shaynewick1991
Words: 644
Pages: 3

There are five different characteristics that really define a transformational leader: creativity, interactive, visionary, empowerment and passionate. The two characteristics that I noticed during our readings where, interactive and empowerment. An interactive leader is a master of communicating. In our leadership book, it states that being interactive and managing by walking around is a great way to get involved with followers. It also says that: to communicate successfully, you need to be aware of needs and motivations of the followers. So managing by walking around is a great way to interact and find out what the followers need. Leaders like this don’t play the role of a cop on patrol but act as a coach, whose primary objectives are listening, teaching and helping followers with problems. No great leader can accomplish anything without capable followers. You must encourage participation and involvement in everything you do. This is where empowerment comes into play. Great leaders empower their followers. On pages 173 and 174, a brief description of an incident between Rob and Doug took place. Close to 27,000 feet above sea level, while trying to reach camp four, Doug steps out of line and said that he was cold, feeling bad and heading back down. Rob, who at the time was bringing up the rear of the group, caught up to him and had a brief conversation with him. It was explained that no one could hear what was discussed between the two, but when the discussion ended, Doug fell back into line and continued his ascent. I see involvement and empowerment from Rob in this situation. Although we don’t know what was said, we could come to the conclusion that Rob had to know how to empower Doug to keep going. The reason Rob know how to empower Doug was because he is an interactive leader. He knows what his follower’s goals and motivations are. In my opinion, he uses what he knows of Doug to empower him to push on, to not give in. The first power I wanted to identify was legitimate power. On page 174, Rob is quoted, “I will not tolerate no dissension up there,” talking about the importance of obeying him on summit day. “My word will be absolute law, beyond appeal. If you don’t like a particular decision I make, I’d be happy to discuss it with you afterwards, but not while we’re on the hill.” A little later, on the same page, Rob ordered his group to stay within a hundred meters of each other. They were climbing