It’s a question I get asked a lot. At first, I thought the ability to transform was an inborn quality, only certain people possessed the genetic make-up to be transformative through their leadership.
I could develop leader’s ability to speak with confidence and competence and to coach staff or clients. Yet the ability to truly transform others with words —well, that eluded me.
Transformational leaders are people who possess the ability to create big shifts in their audiences’ thinking, which leads to big shifts in their behavior, which enables them to achieve extraordinary results. Many leaders are superficial at inspiring their audience or getting them on board with a big initiative, but that isn’t the same thing.
Then, I began to study the masters, from former GE CEO Jack Welch, Jokowi, to Oprah Winfrey. Each of these transformational leaders may have a tendency towards transforming others. They also, and just as importantly, have many similar habits.
There are two key behaviors (that through practice become habits) that empower transformational leadership. Let’s begin to put into action today in order to activate or dial up your transformational leadership abilities.
Keep Asking Questions and Keep Funky
Transformational leaders are constantly asking questions of their people and of themselves: What do I want? What do you want? How can we try things differently? What will it cost us to maintain status quo? Whether they are asking questions introspectively or actually interviewing the people they are seeking to lead, transformational leaders don’t get attached to the first answer that comes up or take themselves or their work too seriously.
Identify and Tell Relevant Stories
The idea of telling stories is certainly not new, but many leaders fail to use storytelling effectively. Transformational leaders are masters at using relevant stories to connect with and move their people to action.
And that is the defining characteristic of a transformational leader: the ability to accelerate lasting, meaningful change. While the journey to good or even great leadership may appear more straightforward than ever before, and there are no shortage of resources showing you how to do so, leaders today have a more potent opportunity before us. We can invite our audience to adopt the mindset and the moves to play to their edge and capitalize on their potential, to create not just extraordinary but rather epic results. It starts by transforming ourselves and cultivating the habits true leadership requires. (aha)
