Great Transformational Leaders Of The Time

History has produced various dynamic transformational leaders that have changed the course of the history and gave human being an undeniable exemplary leadership lessons. The great leaders transformed the ideals of the people into the realities by having an attainable yet, transformed vision, in harmony with the demands of the people and adopted the diverse strategies to accomplish the organized goal.
Transformational Leadership, as defined by Burns (1978) is “it recognizes and exploits the existing need or demand of a potential follower....and looks for potential motives in followers, seeks to satisfy higher need and engages the full person of the follower(cited in Changing Minds.org.n.d).”
Burns has further classified the transformational leaders in to four major categories i.e.charismatic, revolutionaries, reformers and intellectuals based on varying characteristics but over all the impact are to influence and transform the strategies and plans to get beyond what the situation possibly appears to give.
According to burns, Charismatic Leaders are the one who inspire and motivate others through their heroic alluring acts; The Intellectual Leader is a person with a vision that can transform society by raising social consciousness; Revolutionary Leaders bring complete and pervasive transformation of an entire social system and, the Reformer Leaders transform parts of society to realize moral principles.
Charismatic leaders
• Muhammad (PBUH) As A Transformational Leader
Muhammad (PBUH) is the great transformational leader for all time to come. He with his character and manners steered the ill nation of the Arabia out of the darkness and showed them the path full of promised success, peace and love.
He gave humanity a moral set of conduct and the laws in all the aspect of life. From eating to drinking, from dressing to traveling, from behavior at home to behavior in dealings and with the neighbors, friends and relatives, from state laws to foreign policy and rules in war in peace; in short he, through his actions, he presented himself as a perfect model in moral, spiritual, economics, political and social areas of life. He transformed the whole humanity for all times to come through his exemplary teachings and actions.
http://makkah.wordpress.com/leadership-and-islam/
Revolutionary Leader
• Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King is the illustrious revolutionary transformational leader as he brought the revolution in the social life of America through his words and actions.the equal civil rights for all irrespective of the acts creed and was the aim of this eminent leader and his efforts bore fruit when for the first time the Afro-American President “Barack Obama” was elected as the 44th president of United States Of America.
His famous speech “I have a Dream” has taken as the way to transforming the society. It shows just what kind of leader he was; a man who was very effective at what he did. He transformed the thoughts of the masses and kindled the light of universal equality on the land of “world Super Power.”
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/JonestownReport/Volume10/Parrish.htm
Reformers
• Alexander The Great
Alexander the young, invincible leader had the simple yet intriguing vision to win and rule the vast world. This leads to the commencement of many conquests. It includes the battle of Persia (now known as Iran), the most successful heroic tale in history. Alexander led the army of t35, 000 soldiers and confronted the deadly weapons of Persians, resulting in the lasting triumph. His victory opened the way to many Asian countries for him. He continued his quest and marched along the coast of Syria, then d to Phoenicia in south and captured Tyre. Further, captured Gaza in just three months. Alexander then captured Egypt, which was ruled by Persian ruler King Darius.
He continued the conquests to satisfy his thirst of ruling the world and, brought the whole world under his strong, dynamic control.
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/11-24-2004-62075.asp
Intellectuals
• Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham had been the renowned intellectual leader of the Europe as he waged war for the true social and legal laws irrespective of status quo. Bentham's life work was the advocacy of a clear, coherent, humane, and simplified legal system. He put constant stress to the undeniable fact that the purpose of the law is to bring everyone to their justified end by rewarding and punishing them for their actions.His all efforts revolve around the famous phrase by Hutcheson "the happiness of the greatest number."
http://www.historyhome.co.uk/people/bentham.htm
These famous and worth-praising leaders are the examples for today’s generation, each exposing the real sense and meaning of life and, motivating the individuals to attain their visualized life by living for their dreams.

Six Simple Steps For Good Communication

“Communication is the real work of leadership,”-Nitin Nohria
The effectiveness of any leadership style and approach wholly rely on the leadership vision and, if only the leadership vision is communicated properly to the team, the best can be expected by the team mates for the success depends upon the communication where the leader is able to properly unveil his views, ideas and what he is thinking and feeling.
There are several ways of achieving the best communication between leaders and team mates that would lead to mutual understanding as well as good, friendly relations between the leader and team mates. When such a supporting and conducive aura for work has been created, the subordinates will always feel like being motivated and inspired and would work harder to give the best.
The effective communication is the one where receiver has got the message what the transmitter intend to communicate.
There are some easy yet effective steps that if implemented by the leaders ensure the good communication between the leaders and subordinates.
• Knowing Your Followers
Knowing the intellectual, mental level of the followers is a prerequisite for the helpful communication. The authentic leader successfully smells the fragrance of abilities, surrounding the individual follower. The leader is the able to accentuate the fragrance by polishing his abilities through the proper conveyance of his ideas.
The more deeply the leader is aware of the abilities, the knowledge and the mental level of the followers, the easier it would be for him to simplify his leadership vision for the effective communication to the team workers. This promises the welcoming breeze of success ahead.
• Writing Down Your Vision
The tasks and the important aspects of the vision should be given in black and white to the subordinates. The more the vision is in writing form, the concrete the existence is and the attainable the goals would be.
Having this in writing would first of all give the best idea of the goals and the path planned for it. Secondly, the subordinates could relate their progress by looking and reading the written goals. Thirdly, the message of the leader could be explained to the followers in the simpler form that could be approached by the mind of even those who are not having any prior knowledge. Moreover, the verbally said thing is least effective and lasting as compared to the written thing. It gives a very firm look and succeeds in getting the required result across the board.
• Presenting The Ideas
A session should be arranged a day or two after the written form of the vision is handed to the subordinates. The purpose of the session should be to allow the subordinates to come up with the fascinating and creative ideas that make the task livelier and worth achieving. The leaders himself must provide the different ideas too. This would result in the influx of the challenging yet alluring ideas and would ensure the healthier and well-structured communication between the leaders and the team workers.
• Actively Listening
“With the fluidity of information in business today, leaders need to be masterful listeners; they need to be able to receive as well as send.”- Badaracco
Good communication can not be ensured as long as one is not the good listener. The more the leaders pay heed to the subordinates ideas and problems, the closer he would be to them and understandable communication would stem from it. Only the good listening would produce the good response by the leader and a clear logical answer, too.
Listening is the basic model for the integrity in communication that facilitates mutual understanding and increases the chances of the victory.
• Clarifying the Queries
During the course of the task, it is logical that the subordinates would come up with some confusion when a cloud of confusion hovers around their mind. Therefore, the task of leader is to arrange a question-answer session where it should be the utmost endeavor of the leader to clarify the queries of the subordinates either by displaying slides or by giving examples and by verbally explaining it. The higher the exchange of words and ideas would, the stronger the communication knot would be.
• Exchange Of Feedback
Feedback is immensely imperative for the successfully good communication between the leader and the subordinates. The leader is supposed to give feedback on the activities and work of the subordinates. However, the importance of this very feedback demands the greater care in the selection of words for the negativity can hamper the skills of the follower. It does not imply that the mistakes should not be told to the follower but, it could be done so by the very aptly chosen supportive and optimistic words.
Though the feedback by the leader is important, the essence of the feedback could not be ignored either. At the end of the day, the subordinates should be spurred to give feedback of the activities and come up with any possible suggestions, too. It would improve the working aura and would promise the success too.
The greater the exchange of ideas would be and more properly the problems would be addressed, the healthier the communication would be and finer the chances of selection. This highlights the importance of the communication and the good communication skill can be attained by simply following the above-mentioned techniques. Happy successful leadership!