The Challenges Of Transformational Leadership

In order to survive in a seemingly weak economic environment, multinational organizations need to grow and adapt. They have to continually try out and adapt to new ideas. That is the reason why they need new transformational leaders (Johannsen, 2009). Transformational leaders, as Burns (1978), Bass (1985, 1997, 1998), Bass and Avolio (1994), Bass and Riggio (2006) have defined them, are those who stimulate and inspire followers to apply and explore existing as well as new horizons. In other words, transformational leaders provide a perfect fit for challenging organizations or complicated work groups, where followers really need an inspirational leader; who can motivate and encourage them through a complex or uncertain situation and also make them feel empowered (Bass and Riggio, 2006).

From such a perspective, in the recent years, many case studies have revealed a trend that 80% of the total sample of leaders demonstrates the transformational leadership style (Kazmi et al., 2015). Surprisingly, in a real business environment, for example, in a multinational company, the term of transformational leadership still seems to be unknown to many mid-level leaders. This is even though nowadays almost every profitable multinational company tries to invest in leadership training, and to make sure that all leaders have the right skills to take the company to the highest level of performance. So the question is, what do leaders have learned? The transformational leadership style can