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Although interest in Leadership has long been a principal focus of business scholars and practitioners alike, there is little doubt that in recent history, buoyed by globalization and increased competition for scarce markets and resources, the topic has become even more critical. What has changed dramatically in that time is the way that leadership is defined, understood, and discussed. In the original theories of leadership the focus was largely on leaders at the very top of organizations, corporations, and even nations, sects, and societies.

Today the terminology associated with leadership has evolved considerably and so has its application. Where in the past terms like “managers” and “supervisors” (and the accompanying set of adjectives that describe each) were sufficient to cover the positions of individuals that operate the broad set of administrative layers that lie below a chief executive, today the expectation, or perhaps even the imperative is for individuals at many layers in organizations to demonstrate traits, skills, and behaviours that are more associated with what was originally described as transformational leadership.

In organizational scholarship, theories of transformational leadership (and the overlapping concept of charismatic leadership) have emerged as dominant paradigms augmented in both the academic and practitioner press with a host of “niche” leadership sub-constructs, including authenticity, visionary leadership, and the related work on Emotional Intelligence, to name a few.

With the wide array of leadership concepts and prescriptive theories coming to the fore has come a general consensus that leadership – whatever its specific components may be – is distinct from management. John Kotter popularized one such distinction, explaining that the domain of leadership is one of establishing the direction of an organization by developing and communicating a clear vision and the strategies needed to achieve it. In contrast, the key role of management is to plan the processes and organize the structures needed to implement the leader’s vision. Managers, therefore, are seen to serve as the means to achieve the leaders’ ends.

The conception of transformational leadership is contrasted with the behaviours of what are referred to as transactional leaders: transformational leaders increase performance through inspiration and empowerment; whereas transactional leaders, encourage positive performance from followers through the manipulation of specific tangible rewards (money, status, etc.) or the threat of specific punishments (demotion, dismissal, etc). Transformational leaders distinguish themselves by offering an exciting vision or strategy that followers internalize so that successfully enacting their leader’s vision becomes not just a job, but also a path towards self-fulfillment.

Further refinement of the transformational leadership concept include specific behavioral components such as the ability to arouse strong emotions of trust and loyalty, the ability to inspire followers and motivate them to high levels of achievement, a sense of providing new perspectives or ideas for followers to use, and giving followers opportunities to grow through trust and empowerment.

CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP

Related to the concept of transformational leadership is the importance of charisma. Charismatic leaders are characterized by an ability to inculcate followers with a sense of shared mission – one which depends on exceptional levels of performance from subordinates to succeed. Such leaders are marked by strong convictions, high self-confidence, a tendency to dominate, and a desire to influence those around them.

The processes by which followers are influenced by charismatic leaders include an ability to wield great influence over subordinates by creating a collective identity and binding the group’s mission with each follower’s self identity. Meeting the collective objective, then, is elevated from a mere task to a heroic, even moral act, heightening productivity and increasing self-efficacy along the way.

It’s important to note that most descriptions of charismatic leadership do not specify precisely how charismatic leaders achieve their impact on followers. Too often the conventional perception of charisma is associated with a certain flamboyance or flair that would probably make most leaders – whether at a CEO level or at a level of middle management – uncomfortable. Perhaps this is due to some very celebrated charismatic leaders who fly across the globe in balloons (see Richard Branson) or jump up and down, dance, and sweat at employee gatherings (see Steve Ballmer). Indeed, one characteristic associated with charismatic leadership is demonstration of unconventional or out-of-the-ordinary behaviour. There is little doubt that the actions of Branson and Ballmer fit into this category; and their versions of leadership have without question been both successful and charismatic. But that does not therefore convey a necessity of such flamboyance in order to achieve the benefits of charismatic leadership.

What is necessary for leaders, whether regarded as charismatic or transformational, is that they have a compelling vision and that they find a way to communicate it. For some, like Ballmer, that communication style is one that involves raising the voice and creating a lot of physical energy. For someone like Branson, the communication of vision involves building a flamboyant, almost rock-star image around the message. For Anita Roddick, the vision was inextricably tied to specific principles and values that resonated with customers and employees alike, while for results-oriented leaders like Jack Welch or Carlos Ghosn, their hands-on approach involves a straight-talking matter-of-fact communication style that emphasizes accountability and value.

What this tells us is that there is no one best way or secret recipe to attaining charisma and effective transformational leadership. This is both bad news and good news. It’s bad because it doesn’t provide a definitive insight into how any particular leader can be successful. But on the positive side, it suggests that effective leadership doesn’t require just one style or set of traits. Different leadership styles and approaches will be more or less effective dependent on the context – for example, the culture of the organization, the industry, or even country. And further, leadership success is more dependent on individuals’ ability to capitalize on the strengths of the skills, styles and personalities that they possess more than trying to emulate the skills, styles or personalities of others that they might lack.

It would be hard to imagine Carlos Ghosn behaving like Steve Ballmer, Steve Ballmer behaving like Anita Roddick, or Anita Roddick behaving like Jack Welch. For any of them to try to do so would probably come off as inauthentic – it just isn’t who each of those people are. Far more important (and effective) is for individuals to know and understand their own personalities and styles, reflect on the potential strengths and shortcomings associated with their dispositions, formulate an approach to capitalize on the strengths while tempering the weaknesses, and communicate them effectively. In this manner, charisma becomes less a singularly defined personality trait than a strategic way for leaders to identify how they are best able to connect with followers, empower them, gain their trust, and have their vision internalized and supported.

This implies a set of pre-conditions for successful leadership that must be met before a leader can successfully devise a vision and communicate a strategy to achieve it. While a great deal is written about these tangible activities that a leader must complete, much less attention is devoted to the more intangible, introspective tasks that facilitate the completion of those material duties. Self-Awareness and Reflection

It is often said that individuals cannot effectively lead others unless they are able to effectively lead themselves first. And it is difficult to lead the self if one does not really know and understand the self. Self awareness – knowing one’s motivations, emotions, and personality, what one enjoys and dislikes, what comes easy and what poses challenges, etc. – is therefore a key precursor in developing effective leadership ability.

For many, knowledge of the self is often taken for granted. We wake up with ourselves, we eat, we bathe, we work – we even sleep with ourselves. So how could we possibly not know who we are? And could anyone know us any better? This sort of misguided assumption that psychologists have challenged for decades has taken business leaders a tad longer to overcome.

In fact, we often have very limited self-awareness and understanding. This is most particularly the case about negative information. There is actually a functional basis for what are typically referred to as self-serving biases; after all, confidence is very important to career development and it’s hard to be confident if we are constantly being harped upon about our weaknesses. But it is through understanding our needs for professional development that we learn, we grow, and we become more effective performers in our organizations. Resolving this paradox is one of the critical steps in being effectively self-aware.

Often young executives are in a better position to gain insights into self-awareness at the earlier stages of their careers – when they receive regular formal and informal feedback from superiors. But as managers move up the chain of command into higher leadership positions of organizations, the opportunity to receive valuable feedback can become increasingly scarce. And even feedback systems typically used in formal appraisal processes have considerable limitations in providing a full picture of useful information to its recipients.

So how do executives, particularly ones at more advanced stages of their careers, gain self-awareness? As the old saying goes, it’s lonely at the top. One of the ongoing challenges senior managers in corporations across many industries face is the need to overcome the isolation that goes with the territory of leadership. Fortunately there are both developmental skills and activities that leaders can undertake to enhance their self-awareness and improve their ability to lead others.

One of the primary ways that seems simple enough (but can actually be quite difficult in practice) is to develop the skill and habit of reflection. Reflection, simply put, is the act of reviewing data – experiences, situations, and actions – in order to better understand and learn from them. The importance and value of reflection has been gaining sizable acceptance in business literature and organizations, but it is difficult for many managers to fit regular reflective activities into their hectic schedules. This isn’t too surprising given the nature of today’s global business environments which are overwhelmingly action-oriented and short-term focused.

Self-awareness reflections can take many forms, some private and others involving other individuals or groups. At a private and most basic level is actually setting aside reflection time at regularly scheduled intervals (the more frequent the better). This is best done either at the beginning or at the end of a workday, when the action has either not begun or has subsided. Another simple method is to write. In times past it was quite common for people – all people – to maintain a journal of writings and memoirs and this lost art has begun to see a resurgence facilitated by e-technologies. For others who are more adventurous, Eastern-based contemplative practices such as meditation and yoga are growing in popularity as activities to facilitate personal reflection.

At an interactive level, there are things that organizations can do to facilitate personal reflections. Although organizations routinely send senior managers on leadership and other training courses in order to expose them to specific in-class knowledge, one of the side benefits of an off-site programme of this nature is to provide a chance for managers to literally get out of the action and spend some time reflecting on their leadership approach. And while formal and informal feedback processes have always provided a useful opportunity for managers to self-reflect, the growth in popularity of 360-degree feedback programmes (which collate impressions from multiple individuals both up and down the hierarchy chain) provide a significantly richer source of reflection data.

Executive coaching has also emerged as a very effective tool for providing data for self-reflection for executives, particularly those more isolated at the top of organizational hierarchies. Augmenting a coaching session with one of several useful self-assessment tools can facilitate a coaching process. Psychometric questionnaires such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or Cattel’s 16PF have been used extensively by organizations and coaches alike to assist executives in gaining better self-understanding and personal data to reflect upon.

All of this suggests that effective leadership, whether you label it transformational, charismatic, visionary, or just plain leadership, is most dependent on one factor: the individual him or herself. Great leaders are not born any more than great scientists, great mathematicians or great athletes. While natural abilities have always varied between individuals, to achieve greatness in any sphere requires a great deal of hard work – hard work that includes self-awareness and self-discipline to make positive change and improvement.