Leadership, its roles, and the theories associated with it are subjects that were covered in the literature for many decades, and despite the various theories and models introduced, the main essence of the term remained the same. In that regard, with the unifying idea of leadership, there are still many different styles, which despite focusing on the same idea of leadership, i.e. influencing people, have distinct features and attributes. These features are accordingly used in different situations and with different outcomes. The transformational leadership style implies that the transformational leaders, through communication, create “a relationship between leaders and followers that help followers reach their full potential and has the potential for transforming both the leader and the follower” (Miller, 2008). There are other characteristics and attributes intrinsic to transformational leadership, and in that regard, this paper’s purpose is to describe a role-play activity, which demonstrates the aforementioned leadership style.
Description
The main idea of the activity is to outline several characteristics, which will be associated with variations of certain actions in different proposed settings. The proposed settings will be as follows:
- Rescheduling of the course at the institution, due to the unavailability of the professors. One student is the leader.
- A discussion between the students on the need to help foreign students in the course with learning the language. One student is the leader.
- A meeting in a company discussing the problems of the latest marketing campaign. The executive manager is the leader, and one employee is the leader.
In the first example, the flow of the activity will be demonstrated to the students by the teacher or the professor. The class will be divided into two groups, where everyone from the group will demonstrate the next two settings. After the demonstration, each group will be asked about the key factors and the key actions in the setting chosen by the other group, and what possible other actions could be taken, in order to demonstrate the transformational leadership style. In that regard, the activity will end with a discussion, in which the key points of the transformational style will be repeated.
Preparation
A short overview of the transformational style will be explained to the students, after which the key characteristics of transformational leadership will be written on the board. The proposed characteristics might include the following:
- Injecting enthusiasm and energy
- Exemplification –Do as I do (Miller, 2008).
- Raises the level of awareness
- Gets the people to transcend their self-interest in the sake of the team
- Alters the need level (Doyle & Smith, 2009).
Accordingly, several actions will be given as examples, which will represent the aforementioned characteristics. Such actions might include propositions to take action, explaining to others, being the first to do an action, suggesting innovative ideas, and others. It should be mentioned to the students that, there are no particular limits to the way these characteristics could be represented. After the preparation, the activity should start.
Discussion
The discussion of the activity will mainly revolve around the key elements that should be linked by a transformational activity. An example of such discussion can be seen through making a quiz, where the names of known transformational leaders will be told to the group, while each group will propose a characteristic, which contributes to the fact that a particular leader implemented a transformational leadership style. Examples of transformational leaders might include Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, Michael Dell of Dell Computer Corporation, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, and others (Friedman & Langbert, 2000; Hay).
References
Doyle, M. E., & Smith, M. K. (2009). Classical Leadership. Infed. Web.
Friedman, H. H., & Langbert, M. (2000). Abraham as a Transformational Leader. Journal of Leadership Studies, 7(2), 88-95. Web.
Hay, I. Transformational Leadership: Characteristics and Criticisms. Leading Today. 2009. Web.
Miller, K. (2008). Organizational communication : approaches and processes (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.