Transformational Leadership is the Key to Success
“A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.”
John Maxwell
What does it take to achieve career success and demonstrate the type of transformational and collaborative leadership that is so needed? It use to be that you came to work motivated to demonstrate your leadership and make a difference. Now you find yourself checking the clock more than you ever have throughout the morning just waiting for the lunch period. What happened? Let’s be honest. You are experiencing one of the most challenging work environments of your career.
Organizations are experiencing an unprecedented rapid pace of change and the uncertainty about the future seems to linger like a dark cloud over most people within the organization. As a result, some leaders feel you are in the fight of your life to hold on to all that you have worked so hard to achieve.
You are still doing your best despite the often negative environment to create opportunities for success for you and those you may lead. Yet, it can be difficult to implement a plan of success when you don’t know from one day to the next what unknown situation may surface that will cause you to shift your plan. If you are not careful, it can become easy to get caught up in the doom and gloom of not knowing if your efforts are having the desired effect. So what steps can you take to transform your mind and your actions to ensure you remain focused and successful?
First, you must always remember the reason you were initially so passionate about taking on the responsibility you now hold. What did you want to transform when you got first got your current assignment or role? In order to get to the next level of success you must identify what you initially hoped to accomplish and then measure the gap in where you are now with those leadership goals today? The next step is to identify the style of leadership that will best help you achieve your desire for success despite the challenging environment. When you consider the best type of leader, what comes to mind? There are collaborative leaders, change leaders, transformational leaders, results focused leaders, thought leaders and the list goes on and on. I have discovered that some of the best leaders are those who are collaborative and thus stive to transform the environment into one where everyone’s contribution is appreciated and valued.
To be a transformational leader as well as a leader who values creating collaborative opportunities for others, requires having certain success perspectives. Here are some additional areas to consider:
- Successful leaders understand that you can’t get today’s nonstop workload done trying to be the long ranger. Identify three areas where the organization is not meeting the goals and create turnaround strategies by collaborating with others to reverse the results.
- Successfulleaders understand that organizational transformation requires committment and follow through. Volunteer for both short and long term projects you can lead that you know you can complete while still conducting your other work tasks at a high level of performance. Leaders who can produce results despite the current challenges are the leaders who will be viewed by senior leadership as the “A” players of the future.
So do you have what it takes to transform your career out of the doldrums and into the direction of success you know you are capable of achieving?
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