Leadership and Professional Development is Changing.

Originally Published as an article on Linkedin, October 2017.

We live in an increasingly complex and demanding world. Today the leadership qualities we desire are agility, mental resilience, innovation, creativity, mindfulness, self awareness, emotional intelligence and authenticity. The way we do business is shifting dramatically, and only those leaders who train and adapt to this new world will thrive and create meaningful impact in it.

Gary Hamel has a great YouTube Video on the Future of Management. He demonstrates very well what most of us are sensing in the daily business grind of trying to get it all to work together. The conclusion is that something has got to give in the way we currently think and do business.

What got us here will not get us there!

We have two leadership styles in business: Transformational and Transactional

The leadership qualities that transformational leaders exhibit are compassion, consideration, creative thinking and comprehensive problem solving. They create engaging environments for their followers and empower them to reach higher productivity and personal satisfaction. They inspire, motivate, and develop those around them.

Transactional leaders supervise, monitor, reward and punish their employees according to their compliance or deviation from expected standards and policies. Their role is to control and utilize the employee resource towards a better bottom line in the drive for results. The transactional method of leadership is what brought us to the present day way of doing business, but it is becoming obsolete.

“This type of leadership (transactional) has a time and a place, but when it is done all of the time and is the Modus Operandi of the leader, it is destructive and affects the culture of the organization negatively. Over time this results in demotivating the people and causing low engagement in the staff and ultimately poor performance and results for the organization…

Transformational leaders lead companies through the transformation of the people, culture, and its leadership. The result is the positive transformation of the business resulting in positive growth and a high-performing culture that is engaged and self- motivated.”

-The Evolutionary Leader by Timothy J. Carroll

We are experiencing a paradigm shift. Transformational leadership is the key component that will take business and leadership effectiveness to the next level. This will happen as we learn to value and develop human beings to their full potential both individually and professionally.

Why should an executive’s level of individual development matter for leadership?

According to research, it allows them to think and act in more creative and complex ways. Studies have shown that leaders at higher levels of personal development perform better in more complex environments. They demonstrate superior communication and problem solving skills that originate from the core person inside the professional. This is why personal development today plays a key role in effective leadership.

This is in direct correlation to the ability to engage the whole mind, putting individual development at the core of leadership development. This requires training and development of the mind, both emotional and intellectual.

There are a couple of basic steps to becoming a transformational leader:

• Get back to you and get a personal development/self mastery plan with focus on your core being, not your professional persona or technical skill set
• Find a coach or mentor who will continually put you back in the driver’s seat of your individual human evolution and the realization of who you truly want to be as a leader
• Expand your mind by developing the creative and constructive thought processes that align with your whole person beyond linear problem solving or the accumulation of competencies

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Dr. Teri Baydar works with high performance and high potential individuals who seek to step up to the next level of effective leadership in their organizations and communities. She provides a coaching and training program (the Constructive Thought method she developed) that puts personal development back into leadership development and grows the individual human qualities needed for any leader to become an effective, impactful transformational leader.

Learn more about Dr. Teri's services on her AceUp coaching profile.