Glossary

Adaptive Changes are small, gradual, iterative changes that an organization undertakes to evolve its products, processes, workflows, and strategies over time.

The power to shape their work environment in ways one would be allowed to perform at one’s best.

Burnout is an occupational problem brought about by a stressful working environment characterized by features like high job demand and low job resources.

In the context of organizations, competencies are the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors that contribute to individual and organizational performance.

When competencies are behavior-based, that means that they are defined in terms of the behaviors that are needed to be successful, or to perform the associated roles effectively.

Behavior-based competencies are useful for a number of functions, including defining job roles, identifying training and development needs of individuals and organizations, and setting measurable performance goals and objectives.

"Diffuse reciprocity is an attitude, a willingness to give without demanding a precise accounting of equivalent benefits for each action, albeit because others in the community do so as well" (Kramer, 2014).

Feedback can be understood as information delivered with the sole aim of improving performance, regardless of the current level of performance.

A habit is something you do regularly, often without even thinking about it. Habits can differ in many ways, like how complicated they are, whether they involve other people, and how important they are to you.

Some habits are minor and go unnoticed, while others reflect your core values and become key parts of who you are. Your personal identity is made up of your memories, traits, beliefs, emotions, motivations, and how you see yourself. This identity is always evolving.

"Identity-based habits" are regular behaviors that are seen as important and central to who you are. These habits become part of your identity as they get woven into your beliefs about yourself, your self-esteem, and how you manage yourself. This happens through actions that you are motivated to repeat, which help with self-control, and through seeing yourself perform these behaviors often, leading you to view them as key parts of your identity.

Leadership is a social process that happens within the context of a group and influences others to attain shared goals.

Mentoring is "a reciprocal learning relationship in which mentor and mentee agree to a partnership where they will work collaboratively toward achievement of mutually defined goals that will develop a mentee's skills, abilities, knowledge, and/or thinking."

Source: Zachary & Fain

 In the context of work organizations, Peers are those relations between employees working at the same level of the organizational management and governance structure with no formal authority over each other. 

Self-Determination Theory (SDT), developed by Deci and Ryan (1985), is a psychological framework that emphasizes the role of intrinsic motivation and psychological needs in driving human behavior and well-being. According to SDT, people are most motivated, effective, and fulfilled when their basic psychological needs are met. These needs include:

Autonomy: The need to feel in control of one’s actions and decisions.

Competence: The need to feel capable and effective in achieving goals.

Relatedness: The need to feel connected and valued by others.

When these needs are supported, individuals are more likely to engage in behaviors that are intrinsically motivated, leading to sustained effort, growth, and satisfaction. Conversely, when these needs are undermined, motivation diminishes, leading to disengagement and lower performance.

Social Capital is a public good that exists in the relations between and among persons; it represents the accumulation of various types of social, psychological, cultural, cognitive, institutional, and related assets that increase the amount (or probability) of mutually beneficial cooperative behavior and makes possible the achievement of ends that would otherwise not be possible.

The socioecological model is a theory-based framework that takes into account the complex interplay between individual, relationship, community, and societal factors to understand how the social determinants influence a range of social problems, such as occupational burnout.

A team can be defined as (a) two or more individuals who (b) socially interact (face-to-face or, increasingly, virtually); (c) possess one or more common goals; (d) are brought together to perform organizationally relevant tasks; (e) exhibit interdependencies with respect to workflow, goals, and outcomes; (f) have different roles and responsibilities; and (g) are together embedded in an encompassing organizational system, with boundaries and linkages to the broader system context and task environment.

Transformational changes are larger in scale and scope and often signify a dramatic and, occasionally sudden, departure from the status quo.

Transformational leadership is commonly referred to as a "leadership style" characterized by inspiring and motivating followers to achieve exceptional outcomes and surpass their own expectations. It involves creating a compelling vision, fostering a positive organizational culture, and encouraging individual and collective growth.

The term “transformational leadership” was coined in 1973 by sociologist James V. Downton (Barnett, McCormick & Conners, 2001; What is Transformational Leadership? How New Ideas Produce Impressive Results). The idea of transformational leadership gained little currency until 1978 when James McGregor Burns’ work on political leaders was published.

The idea of transformational leadership was further developed further by Bernard Bass, a Professor at the State University of New York (Binghampton). Bass (1985) challenged Burns’ conception and juxtaposition of transactional and transformational leadership as residing on opposite ends of a continuum. Bass suggested instead that they are separate concepts and that good leaders demonstrate characteristics and behaviors of both. His work identifies a number of subdimensions of transformational leadership including idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Bass named his theoretical approach the transactional-transformational paradigm (Khanin, 2007).

Transformational leadership is a widely studied and influential leadership style that has garnered attention for its positive impact on organizational outcomes at organizational, team, and individual levels. These benefits include enhanced performance, increased commitment and satisfaction, ethical leadership behavior, and positive effects on innovation and creativity. Our extensive research and empirical evidence from professionals and educators show that Transformational Leadership is more than a “style”; it is an essential capacity for leaders, and crucial for organizational long-term success.

As an approach to leading transformative change in complex organizations, Transformational Leadership goes well beyond inspiring and motivating individuals and teams to reach their full potential. Effective Transformational Leadership drives meaningful change by impacting not only individuals and teams, but also social systems and workplace cultures by fostering alignment, open communication, growth, autonomy, collaboration, and creativity. As such, Transformational Leaders draw upon and leverage a wide range of mindsets, skills, and interpersonal and organizational behaviors to drive change through interpersonal connections and formal and informal networks, daily workflows and interactions, and organizational systems as an intentional and ongoing process of their leadership.

In 2023, the team at B Optimal initiated a systematic review of the scholarship on Transformational Leadership. Inspired by the work of Bernard Bass and other contributors to the research on Transformational Leadership, change management, and socio-organizational psychology, the team at B Optimal set out to advance scholarship and practice on Transformational Leadership in two important ways:

1) enhance the operationalization of concepts and principles from Bass's theory on Transformational Leadership to facilitate their application to leadership and its development; and

2) develop more comprehensive, integrated framework for Transformational Leadership by identifying, defining, and integrating the roles and behaviors for effective Transformational Leadership that operate beyond individual and interaction levels, to have a broader influence on organizational systems and cultures.

Their research culminated in the the B Optimal (2024) 7 Habits for Transformational Leadership (7-HTL) Framework, a proprietary behavior-based model for Transformational Leadership that includes 49 competencies that clarify the scope of the comprehensive framework and broadly describe the behaviors that demonstrate and distinguish the seven habits of a Transformational Leader.

The 7 Habits for Transformational Leadership are divided into two clusters:

--Cluster 1 includes 4 Habits
Be the Example, Motivate Through Inspiration, Give Personalized Support, and Propel Continuous Learning - are grounded in Bernard Bass's four factors to transformational leadership, (commonly known as the "four I's"): idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration, and build upon these concepts and principles by integrating important understandings and fresh insights based on our review of the literature.

--Cluster 2 includes 3 Habits
Cultivate Empowering Systems, Facilitate Goal Alignment, and Enable Psychological Empowerment- are original concepts developed by the B Optimal team, crafted from a careful synthesis of multi-disciplinary research spanning decades of scientific inquiry and scholarship. These habits build capacity for transformative change by enabling and directing the 4 Habits in Cluster 1 and impacting organizational systems and cultures, resulting in transformative change beyond the individual and interpersonal levels of social organization.

Learn more about the B Optimal 7 Habits for Transformational Leadership (7-HTL) Framework at https://www.boptimalconsulting.com/7-habits-transformational-leadership

Workplace culture refers to the unique atmosphere and social dynamics found within a specific department, team, or unit within an organization. It can be seen as a microcosm of the broader organizational culture or distinctly different.