After a time man finds that it is not happiness, but knowledge, towards which he is going, and that pleasure and pain are great teachers. As pleasure and pain pass before his soul they leave upon it different pictures, and the combined impressions is called man’s “character”… it is really but the aggregate of tendencies, the sum total of the bent of his mind… In studying the great characters the world has produced, I dare say, in the vast majority of cases, it would be found that it was misery that taught more than happiness, it was poverty that taught more than wealth, it was blows that brought out their inner fire more than praise.
Swami Vivekananda
Last week, we presented some thoughts on the important subject of leadership. We noted that leadership is about creating opportunities and providing incentives for people to give of their best. It is about winning hearts and minds, and empowering and motivating them to rise to their full potential. It is about influencing ordinary people to perform extraordinary feats. It is about creating and sharing a vision that followers or subordinates enthusiastically embrace. As Warren Bennis puts it, leaders create shared meaning, have a distinctive voice, have the capacity to adapt, and have integrity. Abraham Zaleznik considers them both inspirational and aspirational.
Transformational leadership is about people and relationships. It involves possessing charisma, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration, as discussed in last week’s article. On the other hand, transactional leadership provides for followers to be motivated by the leader’s promises, praise,
