The Process of Transformational Leadership in Achieving High Performance Workforce that Exceeds Organisational Expectations: A Phenomenological Case Study

Transformational leadership theory has acquired the interest of many researchers in the discipline of organisational leadership since the last three decades. The main foundation of the transformational leadership theory is the leader’s aptitude to stimulate the follower to accomplish more than what the follower planned to accomplish. This study will focus on the main components of transformational leadership namely, idealised influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualised consideration. However, for this study, Islamic perspective was added to this research. This addition is mainly because in light of new literature on leadership in Islam, it was found that most of the teachings of Islam embodies many of the concepts of modern leadership theories which are transformational in nature. A number of studies have investigated the effect of transformational leadership on the performance of organisation. However, there is an extensive gap in the research literature regarding the processes through which a transformational leader applies this impact to change his followers to be the best performer that are extremely dedicated to the organisation hence this study will be based on the issue stated above. The qualitative phenomenological case study methodology was chosen based on the objective of conducting this particular research study. The purpose of this study was to explore the process actualised by transformational leaders which will eventually lead to the effectiveness of transformational leadership in accomplishing to support a high-performance workforce that will exceeds the organisational expectations. The data collection was obtained from ENI Gas Company in Libya. The target audience for this study was nine (9) respondents. The findings showed different practices of transformational leadership by the leader of ENI Gas Company in the usage of the four I’s and Islamic perspective. In this regard, from the respondents feedback, it was discovered that the leader practiced the characteristics and behaviour, moral standard and leadership style in idealised influence; demonstrating commitment, future envisioning and risk management for inspirational motivation; innovative and creative and motivation for intellectual stimulation; coach and mentor and communication for individualised consideration; good example of Muslim leader, Islamic tools and ethics life principles for the Islamic perspectives.