There's a lot of research around leadership styles out there. But one area of consensus is that many leaders now aspire to become known as a "transformational leader." In short, a transformational leader is someone who inspires those around them to achieve new and greater results--which then inspires others to join those efforts. These are leaders who inspire the kind of innovative and game-changing thinking in their people that drives exceptional organizational value over the long term.
We can contrast a transformational leader with someone we might call a "transactional" leader, who is typically someone who leads with a more accounting-oriented style where if people do X, then you'll do Y. The catch, of course, is that leading this way may get short-term results, but it doesn't result in breakthrough thinking.
If you want your organization to build value over the long run, you need to cultivate transformational leaders within it. The question then becomes, how do you recognize a transformational leader? According to one group of researchers, there are four elements that help define who a transformational leader is, which are known as the "Four I's."