Four practices of transformational leaders

- A leader is someone who inspires others toward a shared mission or goal. You don't need a fancy title or even direct reports. I believe each one of us has the potential to be a transformational leader and I believe that your leadership is very much needed in today's world so we can work in environments that inspire us and together, solve the most pressing issues of our time. As a transformational leader, how do you have impact? Research shows that those who work with transformational leaders are more motivated in their jobs. The teams they lead have better results and less burnout. That is because transformational leaders use four practices that help the people on their team perform at their best. Let's explore each of the four practices. The first practice is to lead with a purposeful vision for change. You work with your team to co-create a motivating vision of what great looks like. This is a change that you're, together, willing to drive. When you create a shared vision that inspires people, they bring more energy and enthusiasm to the work. The second practice is to role model integrity. You're clear about your values and have high standards of integrity. Your actions are consistent with those values and this inspires others to trust and follow you. The third practice is to stay curious and inspire innovation. You invite your team to bring their very best ideas. You get curious about different points of view. You encourage open debate on solutions. This encourages others to feel like their ideas matter and they contribute more. The fourth practice is to empower each to be their best. You create a personal connection with team members that lets them know that you care about their goals and aspirations. You're willing to get to know their unique talents and adapt to their ways of working because you believe they have a powerful contribution to make. As I write about in my book Wired For Authenticity, the best leaders lead adaptively from the core of who they are. They inspire others to contribute their best. Let me share the story of Ana. In this course, we will follow Ana as she practices transformational leadership. She's a team member whose team, The Apollo Project, is under pressure with tight deadlines. She sees that people around her are trying their best, but they're stressed out. There's no trust on the team and their boss seems to be disengaged. Our friend Ana has a choice. She can disengage or she can decide to make a difference. Of course, Ana, our hero, decides to make a difference. She loves a good challenge. She's inspired to grow herself as a leader because she knows that to make a difference, she has to start with herself first. To grow as a leader, there are five important steps. First, discover the impact you want to have. This will keep you motivated because change can be hard. Second, understand your current mindsets. Some of these prevent you from making that impact. Third, discover and start to practice new mindsets that will help you create impact. Fourth, create new practices or behaviors that will help you make the shift. And fifth, reinforce the new practices until they become habits and are almost effortless. They start to become part of who you are. We will follow these steps in this course. To help you in this process, we have a self-assessment questionnaire called Transformational Leader Mindsets in the exercise file. Take just five minutes to go through that self-assessment so you can better understand where you are today and what mindsets you can shift. After all, we need your impact in our workplaces.