Inspirational Leader: you lead through shared vision and example

You lead through shared vision and example: you want your team to grow and feel part of something meaningful, beyond just getting tasks done.

You’re not satisfied with things simply getting done: you care that whoever does them understands why it’s worth doing.

From transactional to transformational leadership

Historian and political scientist James MacGregor Burns introduced the concept of transformational leadership in 1978, which psychologist Bernard Bass later developed within organizational research: a leadership style that mobilizes people by appealing to values, purpose and personal example, in contrast to transactional leadership, centered on clear exchanges of effort for reward.

This profile’s inspirational leadership fits that model: the driving force isn’t compliance with rules, but a shared sense of where things are headed.

Bass broke transformational leadership down into four components, which his MLQ questionnaire measures separately:

• Idealized influence: the leader acts as a role model and earns trust and respect.
• Inspirational motivation: they communicate an appealing vision and high expectations with optimism.
• Intellectual stimulation: they invite people to question assumptions and look for new solutions.
• Individualized consideration: they attend to each person and their development, often as a mentor.

The inspirational profile shows up above all in the first two: example and vision.

How this style shows up

• The “why” behind tasks gets communicated often, not just the “what” that needs doing.
• Personal example carries as much weight as instructions: leading by your own behavior, not just your words.
• The team tends to feel part of something bigger, not just executing isolated assignments.
• Time gets invested in people’s development, not just in the immediate delivery of results.

When the vision needs structure

This style’s risk is that the vision stays just talk without a minimal structure to hold it up: clear goals, concrete deadlines, regular follow-up.

Research suggests that inspiration and structure go together more than it seems. Judge and Piccolo’s (2004) meta-analysis, with 626 correlations from 87 sources, found that transformational leadership had the strongest relationship with effectiveness criteria (overall validity of 0.44). But contingent reward, the core of transactional leadership, came very close (0.39) and outperformed it on several criteria. On top of that, the two styles correlated 0.80 with each other: in practice, the leaders who inspire tend to be the same ones who make clear what’s expected and recognize it when it’s delivered.

Nor does the whole team move equally well on shared purpose: some people also need very explicit expectations.

If a style more centered on structure and clear expectations interests you, check out the organizing leader profile.

The blind spot Marshall Goldsmith identifies in this profile

Executive coach Marshall Goldsmith, in his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, raises an uncomfortable idea for any leader who’s gotten far thanks to their charisma: the very traits that made you stand out (strong opinions, confidence speaking, always having an answer ready) tend to turn, without you noticing, into the obstacle holding back your next step as a leader.

Goldsmith describes very specific habits that tend to accompany successful people: wanting to always win the conversation, adding your own spin to every idea even when it was already good, speaking before fully listening.

None of these habits seems serious on its own, but over time they signal to the team that their ideas only count once they’ve passed through the leader’s filter, exactly the opposite of what an inspirational style is trying to achieve.

The hard part, Goldsmith notes, is that accumulated success makes these blind spots harder to see: if something has worked for someone so far, it’s harder to accept that the same behavior starts working against them as their responsibility grows.

As a concrete exercise, Goldsmith suggests actively asking the team what behavior of the leader’s own they’d like to see stop, not only what should start, to surface these blind spots before they take a toll.

You can go back to your full result in the What’s My Leadership Style? test.

Sources

• Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations. Free Press.
• Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. Harper & Row.
• Judge, T. A. & Piccolo, R. F. (2004). Transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(5), 755-768. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.5.755
• Goldsmith, M. & Reiter, M. (2007). What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful. Hyperion.