Transactional And Transformational Leadership : A Transformational Leader

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

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.

As I take a moment to reflect on my time here, I have learned that I have traits of a Transformational Leader but that I also have room for improvement. I have highlighted areas in where I felt I needed the most improvement to become the Transformational Leader that I aspire to be. For the next three to five years, I plan to implement these changes to improve the way that I utilize the Elements of Adaptability, The Who, Stakes and Situation, Impact on Work Center Climate, and Ethical Behavior concepts. Understanding and effectively implementing these changes will make me a better leader for my subordinates, peers, and supervisors.

As the study of leadership has expanded over the past decades, a general shift in the paradigm of leadership style has begun to occur. The male dominated workforce has started to give way to a far more diversified workplace, with increasing numbers of women and minorities in leadership positions. This shift, resultantly, is causing a move away from the traditional leadership styles, with more focus given to contemporary leadership theories. For example, in a recent TED Talk Roselinde Torres discussed the shortcomings of leadership styles that were effective twenty years ago, but are now proving to be lacking (Horvath, 2014). In her speech, Torres suggests that a transition away from traditional leadership styles could increase the performance and diversity of organizations. The divisive effects of this transition is significantly apparent in the American fire service, as the profession continues to move from a homogeneous workforce into a culture striving for diversity. As more women continue to rise into leadership roles within the fire service, the influence and impact of transactional versus transformational leadership contributes to the effectiveness of minority leaders. This paper will reflect on how this influence relates to the effectiveness of female leaders within the fire service.

Transformational leadership. Burns (1978) is recognized as one of the earliest theorist on transformational leadership, who introduced transformational leadership over 30 years ago. Transformational leaders are perceived as leaders who uplift their employee morale, subsequently uplifting the entire organizational. Transformational leaders are known by their capacity to inspire followers to forgo self-interests in achieving superior results for the organization (Clawson, 2006). Avolio and Yammarino (2002) shared Bass’s explanation of transformational leadership as leaders who act as agents of change that stimulate, and transform followers’ attitudes, beliefs, and motivate from lower to higher level of arousal.

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.

Transformation leadership fixates on the group's mission and gets employees to see beyond their own needs and self-intrigues for the good of the group. In other words, this gets the group to work in unison instead of everyone only worrying about themselves. Unlike this leadership, transactional leadership is when followers are rewarded if they had a good performance or punished when they do a bad performance. One difference is that with transformational the group works as one; therefore, the companies' success is essentially also the followers success. This approach is efficient to improve the company's performance. On the other hand , transactional leadership is not as efficient, since it puts to much focus on threats and discipline that it does not improve performance. Furthermore, transformation has four components which include charismatic leadership, inspirational leadership, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. These components help followers to look up to the leaders as role models, to encourage creativity and motivation, and for leaders to pay attention toward the followers' individual needs. These components help the company be successful in the long run. On the other hand transactional does not work for the long run, it is better for short

Within this thought process, a look into transformational and transactional leadership provides further clarification and understanding. When a business or industry faces a new direction, creativity and vision from a leader provide motivated followers with a leadership style that will promote exponential growth and change. “Transformational leaders can influence followers to change their priorities, set new goals...inspiring them to do their best…(432 ). Conversely when an industry needs needs to stimulate performance transactional leadership would be preferred to transformational leadership. Transactional leadership would stimulate “desired employee behaviors.” (Phillips 433). Transactional leadership provides tangible benefits and rewards to motivate followers to achieve desired outcomes. Transactional and transformational leadership can complement each other according to Phillip and Gulley ( ). Depending on what the desired outcomes are, to include what part of the overall process the project is at, effective leaders can shift from one to the other. It does come to mind that some of the most experienced leaders in our society, parents, are situational experts at combining transformational

This paper summarizes the article written by Cam Caldwell, Rolf D. Dixon, Larry A. Floyd, Joe Chaudoin, Johnathan Post, and Gaynor Cheokas regarding the need for a new type of leadership in today’s social work environment, defined as Transformative leadership. The article itself varies in the definition, however in a broad sense Transformative leadership is maintaining good moral standing and sound business ethics among employees and individuals inside and outside the workplace. However, in order to reach this theoretical level of business related moral and ethical leadership known as

Theories have been researched and proven to provide correct guidance for responsible decision making. Transactional leadership is traditional, intended to meet basic needs: food, shelter, etc… Transformational leaders intend to elevate the group to meet a higher-level of needs: esteem, competence, self-fulfillment, and self-actualization. Empirical studies have provided evidence that leaders that transform followers are more successful, achieve results, higher quality, greater profits, and improved service. By putting the needs of the followers ahead of self-absorbed leaders allows them to become healthier, wiser, freer, and more likely willing to be of service. These leaders are perceived to be self-aware and others-aware, they acknowledge their responsibility, are grounded in their values and beliefs, and adapt when faced with risk and

It is observed by many authors that transformational leadership enhances transactional leadership by which improving the performance of the organization (Bass & Avolio, 1994; Howell & Avolio, 1993; Lowe et al, 1996). While according to Weihrich (2008) transformational theory is a sub-division of transactional theory. The concept of transformational and transactional leadership behavior in recent years has received a lot of attention to social scientists. Several empirical studies on Transformational Leadership focuses on leader behavior described to inspire and motivate people to perform beyond expectation and in Transactional leadership, as described, plays a positive role on large organizations that reflects on a wide range of employee attitudes and behaviors (Bass & Bass, 2008; Bass & Riggio, 2006; Judge & Piccolo,

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 deepened his notion with modifications, which stated that one of the best frameworks of leadership is transformational or transactional. Following Bass and Avolio (1994, p. 4) provided the idea of these two leaderships and generalized 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 as

Transformational leaders are those individuals who communicate a vision and a sense of strategic methods to battle obstacles, are concerned with the qualities of services their organization can provide, and motivate members to buy into the idea (Swail, 2003). In contrast, transactional leaders specify that rewards are contingent on achievements, which may make individual task performance salient and thereby set followers apart from one another regarding their achievements (Lord, 1999). Hence, transactional leadership, emphasizing individual as

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.

that transformational leadership behaviors predict effectiveness controlling for transactional leadership, but the reverse is not true" (Judge & Bono, 2000, p. 752). Transformational leadership should be something that is expected within the corporate industry, but mandatory in managing leadership.