Self-Improvement: Transactional Leadership Behaviors

The leader demonstrates to the followers loyalty, trust, respect and admiration, with these the qualities of the transformational leader, they tend to work harder than originally expected that tends to have a link between effort and reward. These outcomes occur because the transformational leader offers followers something more than just working for self-gain; they provide followers with an inspiring mission and vision and gives them an identity. They believe in the organizational culture they find and specific methods of performing tasks. Transactional leaders are effective in getting specific tasks completed by managing each portion individually. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, transactional leaders focus on the lower levels of the hierarchy that is the very basic levels of need satisfaction. One way that transactional leadership focuses on lower level needs is by stressing specific task performance (Hargis et al, 2001). They are more concerned with processes rather than revolutionary ideas hence under their leadership change is least expected. Unlike them, transformational leaders end up changing existing organizational cultures by implementing new ideas.

Leadership is not a word that is uncommon in today’s society. We hear this term in the media, on TV shows, and in our everyday lives. However, the idea of leadership and the different definitions of types of leaders are less understood. In this paper, an examination of transformational leadership is discussed. This paper also delves into transformational leadership in nursing and how learning about leadership has supported personal growth for me now and in future practice.

Over the past twenty years, an abundant body of researches have been done to review transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Burn (1978) was the first person to introduce and conceptualize the concept of transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Bass (1985) based on Burn’s concept and deepen his notion with modifications, which stated that one of the best frameworks of leadership is transformational or transactional, but not opposing to each other. Followed by Bass and Avolio (1994), they provide the idea of these two leaderships and generalize them into the development of global economic world. Bass and Avolio (1997) also suggested that there was no need to view transformational and

Transactional leadership styles are more concerned with maintaining the normal flow of operations. Such leadership can be described as a more organisational approach. These managers are solely concerned with keeping the stability of the business and micro managing the day to day operations of the entity. This is done through the use of disciplinary power and an array of incentives to motivate employees to perform at their very best.

Devine and Winter (2012, p. 25) state, “there is nothing magical about leadership, and there is nothing magical about teaching it or learning it.” They go on to define leadership as the ability to influence those who work for you to want to accomplish and strive to reach organizational goals and objectives. Those who influence others must understand the theories of motivation so that these theories can be applied, communicated and taught in order to motivate followers (Devine and Winter, 2012). Different from supervision, leadership implores the desires of those around you to want to succeed in meeting a goal through you the leader’s motivational abilities.

Two different leadership styles, which were first identified in 2004 by a noted scholar named Burns, are transactional and transformational leadership (Marquis & Hutson, 2009). Transactional leadership is a more traditional style of leadership and it is where the leader sets goals, gives directions, and uses a reward system to motivate employee’s behaviors related to

Transformational and transactional leadership are two leadership styles have been identified that offer profound influence on employee’ perceptions and behaviors toward management and determine followership (Mosely & Patrick, 2011). These styles are polar opposites and span cultural and organizational boundaries. At some point in their career a leader

Properly applied transformational leadership (TFL) behaviors can increase positive affect on creative behaviors (or creativity) at different levels within the organization. The authors further break down affect as valence and activation. Valence is defined as a positive or negative emotional response to the TFL behaviors. Activation is defined as how engaged a person is in accomplishing creative behaviors based on the TFL behaviors.

The transformational leader, according to Burns (1978), is one who” raises the followers level of consciousness about the importance and value of designated outcomes and ways of reaching them; gets the followers to transcend their own self-interests for the sake of the team, organization, or larger polity; and raises the follower’s level of need on Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy from lower-end concerns for safety and security to higher-level needs for achievement and self-actualization.” The transactional leader use rights a reward/punishment paradigm to entice meeting the agreements and standards. Transactional leaders emphasize the exchange between leader and follower (Bass) where reaching objectives are rewarded and failing to reach objectives are punished, which is then reinforced by the leaders. The two factors which emerged reflecting the punishment/reward is contingent reward and management by exception. This type of leadership was the core of leadership theory up until 1970’s when transformational leadership theory was introduced as different from transactional (Downton, 1973). In 1978, James MacGregor Burns wrote Leadership which contrasted these styles which was followed by Bass’s work in 1985 in which he empirically demonstrated the positively correlated dimensions which represented a shift in the study of Leadership. (Bass).

The purpose of this study was to investigate how principals’ transformational leadership, teacher dispositions of efficacy, testing integrity, receptivity to change and job satisfaction predicted teacher placement in a higher or lower math achieving middle schools in suburban environments.

Throughout history, there have been many great leaders. Each of them had/has their own leadership style, which made them a prominent leader. According to Smith (2008), “not all good leaders are the same because they each possess a different characteristic, which makes them the great leader that they are/were. We might say that each is an excellent leader with certain characteristics that make them so, however, when we compare those characteristics with the characteristics of other good leaders; we might discover that instead of a set pattern there is a wide range of characteristics—in both nature and intensity.” Some leaders are considered either transactional leaders or transformational leaders. Transactional leaders, according to Weiss (2011), “perform more routine, but essential leadership and managerial tasks. Transactional leader’s schedule, control, plan, and work with subordinates on detailed tasks.” Transformational leaders inspire, influence, move, and literally transform followers to achieve organizational goals beyond their self-interests (Burns, 1978), thus initiating and bringing about positive change (Weiss, 2011). In this paper, I will be discussing Martin Luther King and explain what style of leadership Martin Luther King, Jr. had, whether transformational or transactional, what type of leadership characteristics Martin Luther King, Jr. demonstrates, and what aspects of servant leadership Martin Luther King, Jr. exhibits.

Bass (1985) described transactional leadership differs from transformational leadership style as it does not individualize the needs of the subordinates or focus on their personal and professional growth. There are two transactions involved in transactional leadership style: contingent rewards and management by exception. Contingent rewards involve an exchange between leaders and subordinates in which efforts by the subordinates is exchanged for rewards. Management by exception can be active or passive; when a leader looks for rules violation by the subordinates and then takes corrective actions or when the leader waits until a rule is violated then intervenes (Coppolla & Ledlow, 2014). Northouse (2012) submitted that the negative component of transactional

As I have learned for chapter nine traits, skill, and behavior theories cannot fully define how effective a person’s leadership is but those theories still give us an outline of what leader’s style the person might possess. I think currently my leadership style is a transactional leadership. This means I often lead and motivate followers by offering deals. If the followers achieve a goal or task I would reward them. I levitate towards this leadership style because it’s simplistic and has a win-win situation for everyone. If I was leading a club or a team I would probably use a mix of transactional and transformational use. As a leader I would provide an incentive by offering a benefit for completing a task. I also would also provide support

Transformational leadership taps into the motives of followers in order to reach their goals, while transactional focuses on the exchanges that occur between leaders and followers (Northouse, 2013). The branches of the military in general would be considered transactional leadership organizations. This type of leadership encourages followers to perform tasks at a high level in order to achieve advancement or increase in pay or rank. Conversely, transformational leadership would be focused on creating a connection between the leader and the followers, in order to perform tasks in such a way as to increase the feeling of morality in both the leader and the follower (Northouse, 2013). Panorama did not exhibit any behavior that tried to motivate Bailey to feel a connection to him. Instead, Panorama tried to intimidate, coerce, and punish Bailey to execute the tasks he was required to perform.

Transactional Leadership also known as conventional leadership or simply “management” is a concept that was first explored in the socio-economic context by Weber (1947) and subsequently adopted by other researchers. This leadership style focuses on the principles of exchange between the managers and employees who take