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Top Managers Are Transformational Leaders?

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Top Managers Are Transformational Leaders?
Introduction
In any organization, top managers are important persons to lead the company as a whole like Chief Executive Officers. A large amount of managerial researches has suggested that a firm’s top manager is the fundamental variable in determining whether the firm would succeed or fail (Torres, Harrison and Kukalis, 1988; Koene, Soeters Vogelaar and 2002).

There are also many findings on the duties of being the top of the management hierarchy O’Toole, Galbraith and Lawler (2002) suggests that abilities of top managers include setting organizational objectives, making strategic decisions and long-term planning, and formulating general policies for the whole organization.

As the top managements would have a significant impact towards the benefits of the stockholders, employees and the organization as a whole, the top manager must show the ability that can lead the organization as a whole and be trusted by his followers, according to Martin and Eisenhardt (2010).

Here the spotlight comes to the question of which leadership style would a top manager usually have. The main argument of this paper is that while fulfilling the criteria and abilities of being a top management, the leadership style of the top managers is similar to that of transformational leaders, that is, the higher the management hierarchy one is belonging to, the more likely that he is a transformational leader.

The theory of transformational leadership shows that leaders who exhibit positive leadership behaviors like idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation which can achieve better employee performances, satisfaction, effort and organizational effectiveness (Lowe, Kroek, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996). And these four attributes will be studied with the characteristics of a top manager in this paper.

Transformational leaders being the top management

Idealized influence
First comes to the attribute of idealized



References: Hamel, G. 2000. Leading the revolution. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press Daily, C.M Pfeffer, J. and G.R. Salancik. 1978. The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective Hitt, M.A., R.D. Ireland, S.M. Camp and D.L. Sexton. 2001. Guest editors’ introduction to the special issue - Strategic entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial strategies for wealth creation. Strategic Management Journal 22(6/7): 479-491 Harrison, J.R., D.L. Torres and S. Kukalis. 1988. The changing of the guard: Turnover and structural change in the topmanagement positions. Administrative Science Quarterly 33: 211-232 Lowe, K Ancona, D. G. 1989. Top management teams: Preparing for the revolution. In J. Carroll (Ed.), Social psychology in business organizations: 99 –128. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Martin, J. A., & Eisenhardt, K. M. 2010. Rewiring: Crossbusiness-unit collaborations and performance in multibusiness organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 53: 265–301. Roberto, M. A. 2003. The stable core and dynamic periphery in top management teams. Management Decision, 41: 120 –131. O’Toole, J., Galbraith, J., & Lawler, E. E., III. 2002. When two (or more) heads are better than one: The promises and pitfalls of shared leadership. California Management Review, 44(4): 65– 83. Mom, T. J. M., Van Den Bosch, F. A. J., & Volberda, H. W. 2007. Investigating managers’ exploration and exploitation activities: The influence of top-down, bottom-up, and horizontal knowledge inflows. Journal of Management Studies, 44: 910 –931.

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