Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “A leader is a dealer in hope.”
I can honestly say Napoleon was right. When I think of inspirational leaders, I think about leaders who we admire that plant seeds of hope in our hearts, leaders who awaken a sense of expectation inside of us and sees something special in the people they lead. Leaders who believe in working for the greater good whether at home or at work and know without a shadow of a doubt that hope is an essential element of success.
There is nothing more gratifying than leading a turnaround, generating a profit and witnessing a profound change in your employees, however to achieve that level of success, a transformational leader is required. According to Randy Dobbs, there are many kinds of leaders and far too many caretaker leaders. You know, the leaders who keep the business running; perhaps they may even improve performance a little by being a good caretaker, but they do not fundamentally change the company. They do not leave the business exponentially better than when they arrived.
In his book Transformational Leadership: A Blueprint for Real Organizational Change, Dobbs indicated that every great transformation involved changing five key areas; from Apple to Starbucks, Ford to Xerox, all these companies achieve sustainable and long-lasting change because these five key areas were changed and used as the catalyst to provide hope.
What are they? Here are the five key areas.
Build a culture
Every company has a culture, whether the people in that business know it or not. A transformational leader must recognize the organization's current culture and work to make it a better culture that fits the people in the company, the nature of the business, and the customers of the industry serve. There is no one right culture, it depends on the situation but one of the most fundamental tasks of a great leader is to transform the culture.
Improve esprit de corps
We often talk about employee morale in the business world, but I prefer to think of it as esprit de corps—a French term that literally means “spirit of the body,” but refers to the spirit of a group as a single body. This means that everyone in the organization shares the same vision, and feels enthusiastic about being part of that vision and working together toward clearly defined collective goals. In simple terms: Once you establish a culture, you must create esprit de corps so the people in the organization will buy into that culture.
Communicate issues and actions
Every great leader is a great communicator. No organization can follow your lead unless all its members understand where you are leading them and why it’s in their best interests to support you. Clear, consistent, and comprehensive communication represents the single-most powerful tool for a transformational leader.
Change the financial results
Let’s be honest: Businesses exist to earn money for the investors, shareholders, and other stakeholders, including employees. A successful business not only offers a substantial return on investment but also has the capability of providing higher salaries and better benefits for its employees. Therefore, the most straightforward and most precise measure of a transformational leader is the ability to improve financial results. Even if you improve the culture, the esprit de corps, and the communication; you have not transformed the business until you transform the financial results.
Leave behind a cadre of future transformational leaders
No leader stays in the same leadership role forever. In fact, many transformational leaders move on to other challenges on a regular basis. A transformational leader’s final, most lasting mark is that the transformation doesn’t stop when he or she leaves the business. A truly successful transformation proves self-sustaining through a cadre of transformational leaders, trained and mentored by the original leader, who are ready to take the reins and continue the ongoing process of business transformation.
Change is sometimes very, very difficult to accept and you need someone who has the desire and passion to inspire his/her team to believe that the impossible is possible. Changing these five areas are critical towards achieving real change and providing hope but a successful transformation of any company can only happen if the leader has the qualities and characteristics of a transformational leader with noble intention.