TITLE:
Six Things Transformative Leaders Do
AUTHORS:
Allan Doyle Mududa Bukusi
KEYWORDS:
Transformative Leaders, Transforming Culture, Turbulence, VUCA, Afrocentric Business Leadership, Dynamic Strategy, Empowered Followers, Transcendent Change, Creative Tension, Ubuntu
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.11 No.8,
August
25,
2023
ABSTRACT: This
paper is a synopsis of six things transformative leaders do to ensure a
business survives and progressively advances towards its long-term goals amid
the volatile, unstable, complex and ambiguous environmental conditions of the
21st century. The author draws this synopsis from previous research
reviewing, 1) scholarly published papers, academic literature and empirical
studies accessed through online scholarly search engines and knowledge bases,
dated 2010 onwards, documenting and offering theoretical, conceptual and
philosophical frameworks on the emergence of transformative leadership to help
leaders profitably navigate the challenges of a chaotic, crisis ridden world,
and 2) analysis
of published case study data on African CEOs celebrated for successfully
turning around failing businesses and posting outstanding outcomes in depressed
local economic conditions. The paper suggests that business survival calls for
higher skill sets than simply outsmarting the competition, keeping up with
evolving customers or managing the bottom-line. Rather, transformative leaders
facilitate irreversible transcendent change
to ensure business survival, sustainability and long-term success. While
conventional theory suggests that apex leaders should take direct control of
business operations, transformative leaders install a vibrant business culture
where leadership responsibility is shared with empowered followers. They keep
the business abreast of the evolving economic environment by maintaining a
profitable, responsive and creative tension between the business readiness to
change and the impact of external forces altering the environmental landscape.
In this paper the researcher uses classic, contemporary and current leadership
theory to anchor its findings.