Transformative leadership

By Jonah Nyoni | Nov 8, 2025 | 11 Min read

Dr Grace Taruvinga

IF the world had more transformational/ transformative leaders, it would be a better place to live in.

In transformational leadership; “Leadership is not about being in charge. It’s about taking care of those in your charge.” (Simon Sinek).

In this article I (JN) interviewed Dr Grace Taruvinga (GT). Dr Taruvinga is a high impact, dynamic, versatile and prolific business consultant and leadership development practitioner with competencies in exponential thinking, transformational leadership, nation building, strategy formulation, transformation design, mindset transformation, business transformation and turn around, design thinking and innovation.

She is an advocate for Innovation, design thinking and creative enterprise having spent many years as an innovation keynote speaker in the United States. Below is the first part of the interview:

JN: How do you personally define transformative leadership?

GT: Well, transformative leadership is a leadership approach where leaders inspire and motivate their followers to embrace the vision of the leader, to achieve a shared vision.

The leader also creates a very positive and empowering environment.

The outcome of transformative leadership is really about challenging and changing the status quo, leaving the organisation much better than it was when you found it.

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Yes, but at the same time, there is this aspect where you raise the quality of the people that you have been working with.

You raise their quality so that it’s not just improving the organisation, it’s not just getting better outcomes, it’s not even just transforming the organisation, but it’s also transforming the people involved in the process.

JN: So, what’s the difference between traditional leadership and transformative leadership?

GT: That’s a big one, because you’re almost making me sound like I have issues with others.

But I think one of the major challenges that we have with traditional leadership is that in most cases, it’s transactional.

And while there’s nothing wrong with doing things on a transactional basis, there are limitations.

And so, the African leadership culture—usually, I guess because we have a culture that’s more transactional, based on our worldview—I think you notice in most cases, if I want to get people to do certain things, whether it’s a vote, I will then start to bring things to them, thereby underscoring that transactional aspect.

But with transformational leadership, I’m really shaping and hearing a vision in such a way that the followers embrace it, they want to be part of it.

And consequently, the way I relate with them — because remember, we’re not just looking at transforming or achieving this independent of the person — I’m also showing extreme and extensive value in that person.

And while we’re going to have, let’s say it’s a great business, let’s say we’re going to have a great school — the followers that I’m working with to achieve this great school, they’re also going to end up great, because I’m raising their standard as well.

I’m investing not just in the outcome of the school, but in their personal outcomes as well.

I actually think — and I have theorised — that it would be difficult to achieve transformational leadership without embracing what I would probably say are Christian values.

And I’m not necessarily saying that the person has to be a Christian, because you can actually see how it has been said that transformational leadership mimics Confucian ideologies.

Yes. So remember, it was the Lord Jesus Christ who said that when He was talking about leadership, He said that anyone who wants to be a leader in this world, they Lord it over others.

But you should not be like that. In other words, to me, that’s saying as a leader, you must value your followers.

Have you seen other people who are leading?

Yes, they are achieving great things, but they are walking all over their staff. They are calling them names. They are yelling at them.

They don’t value them. They are not thinking about them as persons.

Sometimes they just become instruments of achievement — tools to get things done.

But transformative leadership says, yes, we want to change the status quo. Yes, we want to challenge the process.

Yes, we want things to become better.

But at the same time, I think the first thing is what the Lord said when He said, don’t Lord it over people. Treat them as people. Show them.

My idea of transformative leadership is that there is that sense of valuing people’s lives — whether it’s a follower, whether it’s the people in the community.

Because that’s one other aspect about transformative leadership: if it’s a business, if it’s a school, I’m not just thinking about improving the school.

Maybe the 1 000 square meters, the 15, 20 hectares that the school is on — so that we end up with great buildings, we end up with great accommodation for the teachers, which you can do.

But we are going beyond to then say, what about the community that I’m immersed in? You get what I’m saying?

So that at the end of the day, if I’m going to improve, I must understand that this school, this business, is immersed in a society, in a community, and that community must also improve.

So that at the end of the day, if I’m adding value to my teachers, I’m adding value to my students at the school.

But what am I doing for the business people in the community? What am I doing for the parents in the community?

I envision a setup where — suppose, I’m still thinking about schools because I just came out of a conference where I was talking to headmasters — but where a truly transformative leader would look, maybe you brainstorm the challenges that are in your community.

Let’s say there are parenting issues.

I met a brilliant lady I had a conversation with in Kariba, and she is a headmistress in a community where early marriages are an issue of concern.

So we were discussing, and I was saying, my expectation of you as a transformative leader is to then be able to address these things head-on.

You can’t just say, okay, the kids — I’m going to deal with the kids that are coming to school.

What about the massive human resource that is not getting an opportunity to get to school because the father is thinking, let me get her married off to an old madala so that we can get a bag of mealie meal?

And so my idea is that transformative leadership is to extend to improve that, so that at the end of the day when we come out, we should be able to measure a clear-cut number of outcomes.

I can say, when I came into this community as head at this school, when I came into this community as the CEO of this business, we had a rate of say 500 girls who dropped out of school due to early marriages or child pregnancies.

But when I was done in that community, or after three years in that community, that rate dropped to... you get what I’m saying?

So we’re not just impacting the area where I have been sent to exercise leadership — the context within which I have been sent to exercise leadership — but I’m actually extending further to impact the whole community. Because I am there, there should be changes.

So I think that’s one of the key things that transformative leadership differs from other leadership styles.

JN: So personally, how did you learn this? Where did you pick it from?

GT: Interestingly, because I’m a Christian and because I’m a pastor, I try to get the person that I’m becoming and how I do things to be informed by the Bible.

So you find that servant leadership is another concept of leadership that you find in the Bible.

It is my belief that transformational leadership is actually a leadership that involves all these other leadership styles.

For instance, I’m just thinking that, you know, transformational leaders focus on synergistic change, and you find an aspect of synergistic change in transformative leadership.

Then charismatic leadership — they have an ability to create a personal relationship with people because they are charismatic.

But you can never be able to exercise leadership in such a way that you raise the quality of your followers and you impact them without having a relationship with them, without caring for them.

So you see that aspect of charismatic leadership within transformative leadership.

Then you also see level five leadership, which is humility and resolve.

You also see that aspect of level five leadership in transformative leadership.

Then again, the principle-centred leadership — you see that you cannot be an effective transformative leader without adhering to values and principles.

And then there is the part of servant leadership.

It’s also an aspect that you see expressed in transformative leadership.

And then there is, of course, the covenantal relationship, which is very biblical.

You also see that expressed. So what I’m trying to say is that transformative leadership actually, to me, embraces a lot of these things that have been identified and expressed in the past as leadership styles.

But when you look at the end of the day — all that relational, humility, resolve, principle-centred and servant leadership — all those things are clearly biblical values.

So when you understand that as a believer, the ultimate is for you to be conformed to the image and the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you begin to see and to do what the Lord Jesus Christ did.

When you look at it — even the Lord Jesus, to me, He was a transformative leader.

When He left, by the time He left — remember, He would challenge the process.

He would say: “You have heard it was said, but now I say to you.” He’s challenging the process.

You have a conventional way of looking at things, but now that I’ve come in, you have to change that conventional way.

You have to look and do things differently — to the point that even after He died, the world was totally different from what it was during His time.

He reformed the institution of marriage.

He reformed how people did business. He reformed how people treated prisoners.

So I think for me, the undergirding thing has been taking an understanding that the Lord Jesus Christ must be my role model, and I must lead the way that He has led, love the way that He has loved, care the way that He has cared.

And one thing that you see that is unquestionable about the Lord Jesus — His mandate was to leave people better than where they were.

So whether it’s somebody you’re working with, whether it’s people I’m interacting with in the community — leaving them better than what they were.

JN: How should a leader intentionally shape future leaders using role modeling or mentorship?

GT: Well, number one, I think — and this is something that happens with transformational leaders, transformative leaders — is you actually give people opportunities to do. Trust them.

Have you heard those leaders who sometimes will say, “It’s me and me alone who does this”? “When I’m not here, nothing happens.”

But if we are going to leave people better than they were, if we are going to raise them and their quality, then we have to give them opportunities to grow.

We have to be able to envision a better version of that person.

Maybe even begin to speak to them, to let them realise that they can rise higher than what they are. They can do better. And then the best way to help a person to be better is to give them opportunities to lead.

So in the end, rather than just saying, “I’m ruling this place with an iron fist and it’s me and me alone,” you actually then give opportunities to people and you say, “I’m going to allow you to lead this.”

And the most important thing is to allow them to fail. Because failure does not necessarily mean missing the mark, but how do I fail?

No, the thing is, when you give them — you can still make a profit — but allow people to make mistakes.

As you give them responsibilities, begin by giving them responsibilities where they are learning the ropes.

You are allowing them to fail and to fail forward, but at the same time, it’s not costing the company that much.

And you have to strike that balance. Because you know what?

Some people will never rise to be good and effective leaders if they are not allowed to fail.

Sometimes failure... I know in most cases we have a very negative attitude towards failure because we say failure — that’s the end of things.

But do you know that with black box thinking — it is the idea that is in the aeroplanes.

When a plane crashes, like recently and tragically, we lost a lot of lives when the India AI-171 crashed in India on its way to London. But if you recall, they recovered the black box. They have two black boxes.

They want to hear what the pilots were saying just before the plane crashed.

It will lead them to understand whether — if it was a pilot’s fault — then it informs the next training. Whether it was a mechanical fault — the next black box tells them the engine crashed.

Maybe right now they’re still discussing, trying to find out: was it fuel contamination? Was it both engine failures?

What would cause double engine failure at the same time? When they get that, it now then informs whether it is how we service the planes, whether it is how the plane itself was manufactured.