The Transactional Nature Of Relations Between Leaders And Followers

Effective leaders opt to implement a specific type of leadership style as a result of their personalities and job experiences, and apply it to their organizational structure. However, that particular type of leadership style a leader utilizes may not apply to every job situation (Peak et al., 2010). In order to be an effective leader, an individual must acquire the three basic leadership skills and they are as follows: (1) human relations; (2) conceptual skills; and (3) technical skills (Haberfeld, 2013). Additionally, a skillful leader must also be proficient in motivating, communicating, and problem solving (Hess & Orthmann, 2012).

In recent years, there has been interest in examining leadership traits that distinguish leaders from nonleaders.

From this approach occurs that there are certain qualities in some people that define them as leaders or potential leaders. Traits therefore are the distinguishing personal characteristics such as intelligence, values and appearance. Leaders extend their power and use their abilities to influence events. Effective leaders are usually more intelligent, more dependable, responsible and more active. They usually ask for more information and give out more information. However, the appropriateness of a trait or a set of traits depends on the leadership situation. The same traits do not apply to every organisation or situation. (Appendix 2, p.11 summarises the physical, social and personal leadership characteristics)

Measurement of effectiveness of leaders has been aided by a wide range of theories. These approaches include trait approach, behavioral approach, situational approach, the Big-Five model and cognitive approach. In this case, the trait approach must be assessed in respect to its idea of concentrating on a leader's personality, abilities and more dispositions, which can be applied in characterizing the individual's personality. Further, the trait claims that most individuals who posses leadership capabilities were born with innate characteristics thus enabling them to exert influence over their subordinates (Deaux & Snyder, 2012).

Though it is often forgotten, the concept of followership plays a very important role in the success of any group setting. For example, Steve Jobs may have founded and led Apple, but could not have achieved such success without the followers that worked under him. Our government, the education system and health services would not function properly without the support of the majority of their staff who are not in leadership positions. The job of followers is to make it possible for someone to lead.

A Transactional leader is focused on working to achieve a goal by accomplishing tasks, maintaining a good relationship with followers, and providing rewards for good performance; also, this leadership type is more inhere to rules, expectancy of clarity and achieving a fair deal with their followers (Borkowski, 2016). The transactional leaders when in pursuing of achieving a goal, in return forms a mutual relationship with its followers in offering something of value upon accomplishing a task. Usually, the transactional leader’s goals are short-term due to the ending and the acceptance of the reward when the the task is completed.

As a growing debate, the question at hand is whether great leaders are born with specific leadership traits, or if one can be taught certain traits over time. According to (Wikipedia.com) the approach of listing leadership qualities, often termed "trait theory of leadership", assumes certain traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership. I believe that leadership traits such as honest, competent, initiative, inspiring, hardworking, intelligent, and the ability to lead the masses, are some of the leadership traits one should possess. Within this paper, I will examine the overall concept of leadership traits, while observing the traits that were, or can be associated with successful leaders.

There have been many observations regarding the characteristics of a leader, but followership has received less attention. Treister and Schultz (1997) “suggests that a "follower is someone who accepts guidance and, on receiving it, takes the appropriate action." Treister et al (1997) also state followership is “considered a passive or submissive role of lesser importance than leadership. However, the effectiveness of leaders to a large measure depends on the qualities of their followers.” Treister et al (1997) go on to say “good leadership enhances followers, just as good followership enhances leaders." So followers are just as important as leaders are to a leader/follower relationship.

These so-called trait theories assume that particular individual traits, skills and characteristics define a successful leader and are by some academics still considered a fruitful basis for predicting leadership outcomes (Judge, Bono, Ilies & Gerhardt, 2002; Mumford, Campion, & Morgeson, 2007; Ng, Ang, & Chan, 2008)[43]. Yet, over the years there has been a lot of criticism on trait theories of leadership (Zaccaro, 2007)[44]. For example already in the 1940’s when Stogdill (1948)[45] argued that personality traits

The Trait Approach was the 1st systematic attempt to study leadership. In the 20th century it was known as the “great man” theory. This approach takes a look at the leaders personal attributes such as but not limited to: motivation, energy, intuition, creativity, persuasiveness and foresight. Some of the traits that are essential to this list include: intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability. Thus it focuses mainly on the leader and not on the followers or situations. The strengths of the Trait Approach includes: 1) it is intuitively appealing, 2) it has research to back it’s theory, 3) it highlights the leader, 4) it identifies what the traits of a leader should have and whether the traits we do

The assignment in this course that I felt was most helpful was the week two assignment that talked about the relationship between leaders and their followers. I found out through my research how important the two go together, you can not have one with out the other. I realize now that if I want to be a great leader I need to focus on being a follower and learning what it takes to be a leader. I know in my current job I will try to learn as much as I can from my supervisors to prepare my self for my future.

Followership is the study of the nature and impact of followers in the leadership process (Uhl-Bien et al.). It is interesting to notice that followership has a negative connotation in today’s society, as it is mistakenly considered as the simple ability to follow the directions of people in charge. The term “follower” is linked to a passive, weak, conforming, and negative image (insert Bjugstad, Thach, Thompson, & Morris, 2006); therefore, individuals in organizations avoid being labeled as followers. In contrast, the term “leadership” has appeal and is linked to positive images which increase the motivations to be leaders instead of followers. However, individuals in organizations are very likely to play both roles (as he/she has both bosses and subordinates) so the ability to be effective followers is vital to the success of the organization.

The trait approach (Theory of Leadership) is the view that people are born with the traits of leadership and that these traits are inherited. This means that leadership theory has evolved from an emphasis on traits and behavioral styles (Germain, 2012). According to Northouse (2013) trait approach does not actually provide a definitive set of traits, but rather it provides direction regarding which traits are good to have if one aspires to a leadership position. This means that leadership traits are not transferred. In the past, attention was put in identifying these traits by studying other successful leaders. However, the focus then was not finding ways to teach these “skills” to people so that they develop to become leaders, but was

This theory states that learned knowledge and acquired skills/abilities are significant factors in the practice of effective leadership. Skills theory by no means disavows the connection between inherited traits and the capacity to be an effective leader – it simply argues that learned skills, a developed style, and acquired knowledge, are the real keys to leadership performance. It is of course the belief that skills theory is true that warrants all the effort and resources devoted to leadership training and development

The area of leadership skills and abilities has been studied by many researchers. One of the models was put forward by Katz in which he determined three various levels of skills that leaders in organizations must have. These skills included technical skills, human skills and conceptual skills (Northouse, 2015). The researcher stated that these skills tend to differ from qualities or traits of leaders as skills describe what leaders can attain while traits describe who they are. This report will discuss the reflection of the perceptions of ranking of these skills in the previous, current or predicted work setting.