Using transformational leadership to improve job satisfaction and empowerment.

Abstract

JAVMA, Vol 245, No. 10, November 15, 2014 S business owners use a variety of leadership styles. In veterinary clinics, the most common styles are reportedly either autocratic or paternalistic. However, these leadership styles can prevent staff members from working in a truly collaborative manner, limiting their effectiveness, causing them to become demotivated, and resulting in decreased job satisfaction and performance. Decreased job satisfaction and job performance, in turn, can adversely affect patient care, client satisfaction, client perception of value, and business revenues. Transformational leadership, in contrast, is a leadership style that focuses on the motives and needs of employees and seeks to emphasize employee empowerment, thereby improving job satisfaction, job effectiveness, and, ultimately, patient and client care. The concept of transformational leadership was first developed in the mid to late 1970s, and the approach is based on the idea that focusing on employee motivation will help leaders better guide employees toward the company’s stated goals. In contrast to the transformational leadership style are the transactional leadership and pseudotransformational leadership styles. The transactional leadership style focuses on providing rewards for appropriate employee behavior and punishments for inappropriate behavior. It is similar to the paternalistic style of leadership common in veterinary medicine. The pseudotransformational leadership style, similar to the transformational leadership style, focuses on the connection between leaders and employees. However, rather than focusing on employee needs, pseudotransformational leaders tend to be self-consumed, exploitive, and power oriented and tend to focus on their own interests, rather than the interests of their employees. Such a style is similar in some ways to the autocratic style of leadership. With the transformational leadership style, leaders are attentive to the needs of employees, are aware of how employees are motivated, and use this knowledge to help employees reach their true potential while achieving the company’s goals. Transformational leaders act as role models, articulate their goals, communicate high expectations to their staff, and focus on task-relevant motives. They are able to help employees transcend their own self-interests for the sake of the team, while still providing individualized considerUsing transformational leadership to improve job satisfaction and empowerment