There are several forms of leadership styles followed in organizations and transformational leadership and situational leadership are two of those leadership styles. This article explains what these two leadership styles are, and the difference between transformational and situational leadership.
What is Transformational Leadership?
James MacGregor Burns introduced the concept of transformational leadership. Transformational leaders always encourage their subordinates to put more effort and to do more extra work than the expectations of the superiors. When practicing this type of leadership, the subordinates are motivated and encouraged to offer their maximum contribution towards achieving the ultimate objectives of the organization.
According to Bass, there are four major components in the Transformational Leadership style as illustrated below:
1. Intellectual Stimulation – This means that the transformational leaders are always encouraging their followers to be more innovative and creative and appreciate new initiatives.
2. Individualized Consideration – Transformational leaders listen to their followers and provide opportunities to share ideas and discuss certain factors as they value the ideas of everybody.
3. Inspirational Motivation – Transformational leaders are working towards a particular vision, and they make their followers work towards a common goal.
4. Idealized Influence – The Followers respect and trust these leaders and, therefore, they can be considered as role models.
What is Situational Leadership?
According to this leadership style, the leaders are guiding their followers considering the type of the situation. Successful leaders have changed their style of leadership concerning the maturity levels of their followers and each of the tasks they involved in.The main objective of these leaders is to produce a quality output on time. Therefore, they may not create strong bonds with their subordinates in order to effectively achieve his objectives.
In this leadership style, the leaders are considering on developing the competencies of their followers. Leaders are changing their style according to the situation and the followers need to adapt with the changes. These changes may frequently occur in order to match with the current situation.
What is the difference between Transformational Leadership and Situational Leadership?
• Both these leadership styles can be considered as effective approaches to organizational leadership based on the work environment and situation.
• Transformational leaders act according to the vision and inspiration and situational leaders act according to a particular situation.
• Transformational leaders are charismatic personalities, which have been useful to inspire and motivate the workers to change their behaviours and develop them up to expected levels of quality standards.
• A number of factors are linked with situational leadership, including resources, external relationships, organizational culture and group management but the transformational leadership style does not have any link with the organizational culture.
• Transformational leadership can be considered as a single preferred style while situational leadership can be applied with leadership skills in order to motivate and inspire the employees to act according to the given situation.
Photos By: Kumar Appaiah (CC BY 2.0), Orange County Archives (CC BY 2.0)
Further Reading:
- Difference Between Transactional and Transformational Leadership