Leadership Project

This project examines the concept of transformational leadership, its key aspects, and how it helps leaders overcome contemporary challenges. It analyzes the leadership style of Peter Drucker, a renowned management expert, and demonstrates how his behavior exemplifies the principles of transformational leadership. The project also discusses the positive outcomes of applying transformational leadership in organizations.

LEADERSHIP
PROJECT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
a) Identifying and explaining main aspects of Transformational Leadership with discussing
how it helps in overcoming challenges faced by contemporary leaders.....................................1
b) Discussing the way in which behaviour of a leader illustrates key aspects of theory
considering outcomes of leadership style....................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Leader is that person who is directing, motivating, organising and controlling group of
people in order to help them in achieving team and individual goals along with objective within
organisation. Leadership is that process that helps in influencing people to maximise efforts of
team in way of achievement of objectives of individuals as a team and as whole organisation.
This report includes aspects of transformational leadership theory and will also discuss ways to
overcome all challenges that are faced by leaders in current society. Further, this report will
include example of Peter Drucker who is taken as a transformational leader and so, his leadership
style will be discussed.
MAIN BODY
a) Identifying and explaining main aspects of Transformational Leadership with discussing how
it helps in overcoming challenges faced by contemporary leaders
Leadership is that process which enables people to work as a team with jointly
understanding each one of them supporting with motivating and guiding in such a way that will
be leading them towards set goals and objectives (Northouse, 2018). There are many types of
theories based on leadership like that of Great-man, situational, servant, authentic, charismatic
and transformational leadership. All these types of theories of leadership will be having different
factors and elements of leaders and challenges which are faced by leaders.
Among all these theories, transformation is one which must be implemented and used by
all leaders of the world so that they could be transforming their way of motivating and directing
people. Transformational leadership will be defined as that approach which enables change or
modification in societies and individuals as well. It is very much important and essential that
leaders are formulating many types of changes in society or individuals by creating values and
positive environment. These types of leaders will always be working for identifying areas of
change and then implementing it according to the needs and wants. Transformational leader will
create certain vision for society with motivating, improving job morale and performance of their
fellow workers.
Transformational leaders need to follow certain points while they are motivating people
like they need to be the role model for society by inspiring them to raise interest in project and
identifying strength of all members (Effelsberg, Solga & Gurt, 2014). This concept was
1

introduced by James V. Downton and then developed by James MacGregor Burns. As per the
views of Burns, transformational leadership means that leaders and followers are making each
other more advanced in motivation and morality. There are some important aspects of this type
of leadership theory like that of idealised influence, individualised consideration, inspirational
motivation and intellectual stimulation.
Idealised influence- This includes that leaders must be setting themselves as an example of role
model for society as they need to try their ideas first then spread it to others ( Berkovich, 2016).
The role model for people which is a leader needs to have ethical behaviour, respect and trust
from others. Like for instance: Sir Henry Parkes who is one of the most idealised
transformational leaders of Australia always tried his idea on himself and then spread it to other
people.
Individualised consideration- It refers that leader must be following need and wants of each and
every member as a coach. It is important to empathise with team members so that leaders could
identify that what their aspirations or goal of individuals are (Banks, Gardner & Guler, 2016).
Like that of Malcolm Turnbull who is also an individualised leader of Australia.
Inspirational motivation- It says about the extent to which leaders indicate vision to their
followers in every inspiring way so that they will get motivated. Example of Tony Abbott who is
inspirational leader of Australia.
Intellectual stimulation- This will be including all challenges which leaders are assuming and
taking ideas so that they will be communicating with all members within team.
All these aspects are helping leaders of team to interact, motivate, guide, inspire, set
targets and help in achieving goals and objectives of both group and individuals (Lussier &
Achua, 2015).
Some of the challenges which are faced by in this current society and certain ways to
overcome them are given as below:
Dynamic nature of organisation- This is one of the biggest challenges which are faced by
leaders as there is rapid growth taking place within society and organisations need to adopt them
all (Challenges Faced by Transformational leader and suggestions to solve the challenges,
2018). If transformational leader is open about all sorts of information then this problem could be
sorted out as with traditional organisational structure, there will be limit in flow of information.
2

Communicating and operating across teams- This is also a challenge which is faced by leaders
especially if organisation is having rigid structure to incorporate proper sort of communication
(Ghasabeh, Soosay & Reaiche, 2015). So, if transformational leader is distributing all
responsibilities, it will be easy for them to communicate with supervisors of each member about
their opportunity and increasing adaptability.
Information overload- At the time when there are too many information to be communicated
throughout organisation and they are having access to extensive database, it will be creating
challenge for leaders to include each and every single information to be distributed effectively.
So, for this, transformational leaders must be creating multiple paths so that they could lower
down the impact or burden of too much information to be communicated to team members.
Challenges Way to overcome them
Dynamic nature of organisation Open about information
Communicating and operating across teams Distributing all responsibilities
Information overload Creating multiple path
This table clearly indicates challenges faced by transformational leaders in this
contemporary society along with the ways to overcome them all.
b) Discussing the way in which behaviour of a leader illustrates key aspects of theory
considering outcomes of leadership style
Peter Ferdinand Drucker or just Peter F. Drucker is the leader and founder of field of
management and well known for his concepts of self-control and management by objectives. He
was Austrian born American who was a consultant, author, philosopher and educator as well and
his contributions serve as the foundations of modern business corporations (Ghasabeh, Soosay &
Reaiche, 2015). Most of his writings have given the correct prediction of developments like that
of rise of Japan as world power, decentralisation and privatisation in 20th century, advent of
information technology and increasing importance of marketing.
Drucker believed that management must be concentrating on its employees so that they
will be able to achieve their operational and managerial tasks and objectives. His behaviour also
reflects many qualities and characteristics of both; leader and manager in terms of effectiveness
and performance. Behaviour of Drucker is mostly demonstrating the key aspects of
3

transformational theory as it will be creating value and positive change among followers. The
main elements of this transformational theory is 4I’s which are idealise behaviour, inspirational
motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualise consideration (May, Frey & Kerschreiter,
2014). All these basic components are witnessed within Drucker which clearly show that he is a
transformational leader. According to his quote, it was mentioned that “Management is doing
things right. Leadership is doing the right things”. There are basically 5 principles of
transformational leader which all were portrayed within Peter Drucker’s personality as well.
Some of the qualities and behaviours that reflect upon characteristics as a leader and successful
manager as well like that of:
Influencing team- This is one of the most important roles of leaders which they are performing
so that their team and individual targets will get effectually achieved (Qu, Janssen & Shi, 2015).
Drucker was also a leader who influence his team members by motivating, guiding, inspiring and
leading them all in specified and correct directions as well (10 Traits of a Drucker-Like Leader,
2018). With this, it is also required that objective of individuals should be matching with that of
company’s overall objective so that each employee is performing in proper manner. In this way,
team will be motivated to use and implement changes that are happening in the overall industry
and market as well.
Setting as role models- Drucker was himself a role model for his subordinates in way of setting
an example by working with workers rather than only guiding or giving them instructions. This
is one of the major qualities of a transformational leader which enables them to represent
themselves as role model. These include that Drucker believed in working with employees by
going at ground level and then talking about their problems so that it could be easily resolved.
Considering need of individuals- This is also important as per achieving the targets of company
as Drucker said that managers or leaders should be making certain alignment with goals of
individuals with mission of company (Miner, 2015). Considering needs of individual workers
must be a step from the manager’s side that they are allowing employees to talk about their
goals. It is because; it will be necessary that managers and leaders are emphasising with need and
wants of each and every worker of company so that targets can be effectually achieved.
Taking challenges- This is also one of the qualities that were there in Drucker as he used to take
challenges so that changes and modifications will be made as per the need of organisation.
Working in traditional manner and not adopting new or modified methods of operating and
4

managing people will not allow company to work properly. This will be focusing on
opportunities that are prevailing within market and not only on threats, so that their future goal is
achieved.
If all leaders of company are applying transformational theory then it will be making a
great difference within working and performance of employees. It is noticed that company will
be able to accumulate valuable and non-substitutable resources in a way of achieving targets and
goals of management. This is also includes as positive outcome of transformational leadership
within the company, that they are been able to achieve targets on time. Performance of
employees and their quality of working will also be improved (Bottomley, Gould‐Williams &
León‐Cázares, 2016). With this, measurement of their performance is also implemented in a
proper and correct manner so that management could notice that whether their employees are
improving or not.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the project on leadership that transformational type of
leadership approach is best suited in this contemproray world where there is a critical need of
changes. In this type of approach, it will be the duty of leader to motivate and guide people who
are working in organisation to achieve their targets and mission of organisation. Peter F. Drucker
is that transformational leader who is known for his ideas and managing people so that he could
inspire them to work.
5

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Antonakis, J., & House, R. J. (2014). Instrumental leadership: Measurement and extension of
transformational–transactional leadership theory. The Leadership Quarterly. 25(4). 746-
771.
Banks, G. C., Gardner, W. L., & Guler, C. E. (2016). A meta-analytic review of authentic and
transformational leadership: A test for redundancy. The Leadership Quarterly. 27(4).
634-652.
Berkovich, I. (2016). School leaders and transformational leadership theory: time to part
ways?. Journal of Educational Administration. 54(5). 609-622.
Bottomley, P., Gould‐Williams, J. S., & León‐Cázares, F. (2016). The impact of
transformational leadership on organizational citizenship behaviours: The contingent role
of public service motivation. British Journal of Management. 27(2). 390-405.
Effelsberg, D., Solga, M., & Gurt, J. (2014). Getting followers to transcend their self-interest for
the benefit of their company: Testing a core assumption of transformational leadership
theory. Journal of Business and Psychology. 29(1). 131-143.
Ghasabeh, M. S., Soosay, C., & Reaiche, C. (2015). The emerging role of transformational
leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas. 49(6). 459-467.
Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2015). Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development.
Nelson Education.
May, D., Frey, D., & Kerschreiter, R. (2014). Follower Perspectives on Transformational and
Transactional Leadership. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2014, No. 1, p.
11795). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
Miner, J. B. (2015). Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership.
Routledge.
Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Qu, R., Janssen, O., & Shi, K. (2015). Transformational leadership and follower creativity: The
mediating role of follower relational identification and the moderating role of leader
creativity expectations. The Leadership Quarterly. 26(2). 286-299.
Online
10 Traits of a Drucker-Like Leader. (2018). [Online]. Accessed through:
<https://www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan/10-traits-of-a-drucker-like-leader.html>.
6

Challenges Faced by Transformational leader and suggestions to solve the challenges. (2018).
[Online]. Accessed through:
<http://euroasiapub.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/5IMMay-4852-1.pdf >.
7