How devoted are your followers? Paul Russell considers how you can develop leadership skills that will bring others on board, inspire and motivate.

When it comes to defining concepts, leadership is a slippery one, some consider it a term interchangeable with managing, using one’s authority to get things done but this is to miss the magic within, focusing on the outcome and not the process. Yes, good leaders accomplish, but not by cracking a whip held from afar, but by getting into the trenches and inspiring others to push on, to achieve, sharing a vision for a future that followers want to reach for, making them believe that they are capable of more. Effective leadership can effect attitude and behaviour change, not confining team members but giving them the space to grow. Whilst we can put meanings to one side, what cannot be side-lined is the feel of leadership, its contribution to how employees experience their working environment under the direction of their leader and the influence of leadership to the culture of the firm. Followers may reach blindly for a precise definition of their leader’s preferred style, but they will almost certainly be able to tell you how relaxed they feel at work, how appreciated, how motivated.  In this article, we look at how you can develop the skills that will make others want to march for you.

Leadership behaviour, synonymous as it is with workplace feel, often dictates pressure at work and it follows that those in charge can impact greatly upon stress levels for employees. Stress is considered to be physiological or psychological strain or tension as a response to circumstances which imply threat. Psychological climate is a term used to describe employee emotions and thoughts towards working environment. It is down to the leader to develop a positive environment that minimises perceived threat that employees feel, through for example, a fear of being reprimanded for poor performance. It follows too that there is a physiological climate, with workers potentially becoming physically drained through workplace stress. Serious issues, with serious consequences, clearly it is important for leaders to get the balance right and know how to recruit followers to the mission, to ensure mental and emotional well-being coupled with a motivation for firm objectives.

There are many camps of leadership thought, the situational camp that advocates surveying the scene, providing a measured, rational and appropriate response. Sounds good, and perhaps one that could be considered more akin to a traditional army general, cool and composed but lacking in essential charm. We may then wind past the behavioural camp with its focus on what leaders do, and finally we arrive at the traits camp which is more concerned with how leaders change the behaviour of their followers. What is immediately obvious in traits camp is that there are two officers vying for power, transactional and transformational with a gulf of difference between.

Staking out one corner, transactional leadership is all about bartering and exchanges; the followers do what the leader wants to enable fulfilment of organisational goals and they are rewarded through minimised workplace stress and leave to pursue their own personal objectives. This strategy keeps risk low and focuses on efficiency but criticisms levied are that this approach is old-fashioned and doesn’t develop strong leader-follower relationships; as the name suggests it is based upon many insignificant transactions rather than long term co-operation. Followers can quickly become jaded with the approach and take steps towards the beacon that is transformational leadership.

Charisma is, debatably, an aspect of transformational leadership and is the style that ties in most neatly with our idea of leadership as a process which can transform the goals and aspirations of followers. Transformational leaders are the sort that followers want to do well for, the type of leader who inspires loyalty and devotion- desirable on the battlefield, in the workplace, and in any other setting for that matter. And how do they achieve this? Through a command to emotions and consciousness, an appeal that hits at the heart and compels followers not to settle for the safe and secure but to strive for the previously unspoken, the self-actualisation needs sat on a dusty shelf pulled down and unleashed. In this environment of self-efficacy, there is no blame if things do not pan out as expected and this inspires followers to be creative, to try, to fail. As transformational and transactional set out at a march, it is quite plain to see which has the most devoted followers trailing in their wake.