Examination of Traditional Leadership Styles
Transactional leadership is a long standing leadership theory that examines the interaction or exchange between leader and follower. This leadership theory relies heavily on the give and take and reward punishment interaction that followers rely on to determine their success. Many organizations operate their businesses within a transactional realm, employees are rewarded for goals reached, tasks accomplished, and skills performed; consequently leaders lead using this same transactional approach and employees learn to operate and succeed within these parameters to receive their own desired outcome.
Transformational leadership is emerging as organizations are consistently looking to improve, become
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This privately owned company operates each branch within a transactional landscape while employing managers and management trainees who possess the attitude and potential leadership style of a transformational leader; in hopes of evoking new ideas, new technologies and organizational change. McMaster-Carr’s sales forces as well as their warehouse employees are evaluated on measurable things, such as accuracy and speed. Managers in turn evaluate employees based on this transactional exchange and employees are rewarded for the quantity of work. This style of leadership can be problematic in businesses such as McMaster-Carrs’ particularly when the company attempts to create a culture of transformation and change. As Siedman and McCauley(2011) explain this clash of operations and leadership make for transformational leaders who are focused on transactional outcomes, “an intense transactional focus reduces an organization’s ability to adapt to new markets, competitors, products, or systems” (p.47). This is precisely the environment that McMaster-Carr management would cite as the reasons for leaving the organization, the company wanted transformational leaders to think outside the box, create new ways of doing things, and inspire their employees to do the same all while maintaining …show more content…
So how does an organization such as McMaster-Carr create that balance, how does this company create a culture of inspiration, creativity, and ownership while still maintaining measurable accountability and operational excellence? Kegan (as cited by Kuhnert & Lewis, (1987) explains the transition from a transactional to transformational leader as stages of adult leadership development. Level three is where the transition starts to occur; Kunhert and Lewis (1987) expand on stage three leaders, “they are able to reflect on their own interests and to consider these interests simultaneously with the interests of others” (p. 652). Under the example of McMaster-Carr, stage three is more critical than ever, this is the stage where leaders are connected to their followers and leaders can look past their own personal gain and include the interests of their followers in their decision making. If leaders at McMaster-Carr can look past the bottom line and look at the larger landscape, the employees that potentially connect creativity, inspiration, and passion, and through leadership push the organization to become more innovative, then the organization’s potential for success won’t simply be measured in operational success but also in long term
CVS CEO Larry Merlo demonstrates the transformational style of leadership. Transformational leaders like Mr. Merlo employs the kind of leadership that motivates employees to invest their energy into strategies ( Kouzes & Posner, 2007). His leadership philosophy and behavior aligns with the description and definition of a transformational leader. According to Kouzes and Posner (2007) , transformational leadership occurs when in the process of interaction, individuals raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality (Kouzes & Posner, 2007). Their goal, which might have started as distinct and separate, but related, become fused (Kouzes & Posner, 2007). When individuals are part of an entity that raises them to higher levels
While transactional leadership relies on a system of rewards and penalties it doesn't provide a lot of in conditions of inspiration to encourage folks to travel past the fundamentals. Given this truth the supporters of transactional leaders may get happy and develop a propensity to attain smallest expectations solely that might facilitate them avoid penalties (Bass, 1990). Therefore the leader and also the follower ar in associate conformity on what the follower would take delivery of achieving the negotiated level of performance (Bass, 1990). The success of such leadership depends on the extent of satisfaction the leader and followers have in following this technique of performance based mostly appraisals (Bass, 1990)
Borkowski (2015) distinguished between transactional leadership and transformational leadership by explaining that: transactional leadership is directed toward task accomplishment and the maintenance of good relations between the leader and subordinates throw consideration of performance and reward. And, Transformational leadership, contrasting transactional leadership, is directed toward the influence and management of institutional change and innovation through revitalization and
It is impossible to pinpoint precisely the time when interest in leadership styles emerged. However a set of experiments conducted by 3 social scientist in 1938 is a good time to begin. Kurt Lewin, Ronald Leppit, and Robert White used groups of children to study different approaches to exercising control. Their classic study identified three types of control: autocratic, democratic, and laissez faire. These three types of control came to be known as leadership styles.
According to our text book there are two main classifications of leadership approaches, transformational leadership and transactional leadership (Yoder-Wise, 2011). Transformational leadership is centered on motivation and building relationships with staff through a shared vision and mission (Frandsen, 2013). Transactional leadership approach involves one superior with minimum or no input from the employees (Yoder-Wise, 2011).
Transformational leadership is an extension of transactional leadership. Organization should maintain base of transactional leadership while moving their organizational culture towards one of Transformational qualities.
This method implies that leaders and follower have combine motives that can be beneficial to both parties. When theses task are assigned, there is a designed reward or punishment for the followers. This method of leadership can also be associated with managing in a sense. Transactional leadership in a sense is like management in that it does not look to inspire or promote change, it is in fact more about ensuring a particular process, and procedure meets the desired results.
Discuss the role of leadership and how it can impact organizational performance. The role of leadership is the most important part of an organization. Leadership is having the ability to influence people to trust, believe and follow the vision. There are several different types of leadership styles such as transactional, leader- member exchange, and authentic to name a few. Transactional leadership appeal to an employee’s self-interest which involves motivation in some way to get the employee to do what is needed. This leader mostly deals with employees achieving a goal, then being rewarded for accomplishments. “Leader-member exchange suggests that leaders develop different relationships with each of their subordinates through a series of work-related transactions.” (Hellriegel and Slocum, 2011, p.323) This leadership is a type of bonding between leader and employee or obligation to each other. Authentic leadership deals with a person’s knowledge of self, their beliefs, values, and acting on a clear faith system through honesty and communication with employees. This leadership is more personal than the others because it pulls from an individuals’ personal belief value system.
Transactional leaders, focus on the proper exchange of resources. The transactional leader gives followers something they want in exchange for something the leader wants. Transactional leadership is considered more commonplace than is transformational leadership (Judge & Piccollo, 2007). A transactional leader is one with difficult standards or benchmarks who is often uninterested in other people’s opinions. It is an effective style to achieve operational goals and outcomes. Quite beneficial for creating business opportunities that thrives in an era of global competition (Stone, 2013). Bezos is task oriented, he micromanages his staff and is not often interested in others opinions; his leadership style incorporates many traits of a transactional
Kotter, J. P. (2007). ‘Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail’. Harvard Business Review, January: 96-103.
There are a few different types of well known leadership styles, authoritarian, delegative, and democratic. To assess my leadership style I used two online tests to help me determine my style. I felt the results were accurate and I fall into a democratic style/participative style. If I am leading I prefer to include the group and get their feedback on solving issues. However, I still make the final decision after listening to the thoughts of the group on a particular topic. This is considered to be a positive style of leadership that is inspiring to the group involved. The leaders decision making tends to be more accurate due to the input of other experts. (Cite)
Based on Burns (1978) there are two types of basic leadership styles, transformational and transactional. Transactional leaders are in contact with an individual for an exchange that will occur between them while transformational leaders motivate and connect with their followers
The transaction leader differs approach differs from the transformational leader. In general it is motivated by a change taking place. According to McLaurin and Almiri, transactional leadership is a bargaining exchange process between the leader and the follower, lead to the expected or planned outcomes, focus on maintaining the status quo, does not consider the needs of the followers on an individual basis, and the flow of power is more stable than the transformational leader.
Initially, transactional and transformational leadership are different in terms of implementation and its outcomes. However, transformational leadership was developed from transactional leadership (Downton, 1973). Bass (1985) defined transactional leadership as an exchange activity that leaders execute to motivate subordinates in order to achieve their tasks by giving out reward or punishment correspond with their performance. Additionally, active and passive management by exception are taken into account when it comes to misconception and faults. Bass (1985) stated that transformational leadership emphasizes the value of subordinates, encourages them to perform extra effort, and assures their comprehension on organization’s goals and objectives. Besides, idealised influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulatio...
). Burke et al (2006) suggested that transactional leadership, based on contingent rewards, can have a positive effect on followers' satisfaction and performance. However, a transactional leader focuses on management tasks, and will not identify shared values of a team. By contrast, transformational leaders inspire others with their vision and work together with their team to identify common values (Marquis and Huston 2009). The transactional approach is task-orientated and can be effective when meeting deadlines, or in emergencies such as when dealing with a cardiac arrest. This approach can lead to non-holistic patient care, because nurses focus on the task they need to complete, rather than the patient as a whole (Bach and Ellis 2011).