Transactional And Transformational Leadership Research

Improved Essays
Introduction
The aim of this essay is to discuss whether leadership makes a difference to organizational performance. For the past few decades, the research of leadership is seen as highly relevant and important area (Bryman, 2011). There has been a big requirement of leadership qualities and methods to help improve or generate the efficiency in organizations’ structures. Companies have been looking for great leaders to enhance competitive advantage. However, this has been questioned by many scholars. “Some argue that leadership has less impact than historical, organizational, and environmental forces” (Bryman, 2011).It is then speculative if individual leaders can be attributed for organizational performance (Bryman, 2011).
What is leadership?
…show more content…
Transactional leadership and Transformational leadership one of few styles/approaches from a multitude of leadership approaches. The more traditional leadership style is the transactional leadership, (Avery, 2004). A transactional leader is a person who treats relationships with followers in terms of exchange, by giving them what they desire (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2013, p. 673). In return, the leader establishes expected goals and tasks that follower has to accomplish in order to get what he wants. By these actions, leaders can successfully maintain increased performance by giving tangible rewards such as salary raise or promotion to followers based on the negotiated expectations. Sub-ordinates themselves are motivation-driven thanks to the potential reward. However, in return for increased performance of individuals and better efficiency leaders have to endow followers and by that raise the standard organizational salaries. In addition, by assigning tougher tasks and challenging followers, transactional leaders might require more skills from staff on specific tasks. This approach, therefore, can also be counterproductive, as some followers who do not fit into the work requirement could be punished. Followers then might not approve the Leader-Member exchange theory and lead them to sabotage, theft, production deviance, withdrawal or even abuse. (Liu and Sun, …show more content…
According to Bass and Avolio (1994), “transformational leaders motivate others to do more than they originally intended and often even more than they thought possible”. Transformational leadership could be considered as an expansion to transactional leadership. Transactional leader accentuates the transaction between him and followers. The exchange is, however, a simple agreement based on followers’ desires as a reward for a fulfilled work. The difference from transactional leadership is the increased cooperation between leaders and followers based on more than just simple agreements or rewards. They try to achieve exceptional results by applying one dimensions (Bass and Avolio, 1994). Inspirational motivation is another dimension where subordinates put organizations’ interest before self-interest (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2013, p. 674). This style of leadership gives higher level of power to subordinates. According to Fenwick and Avery (2008), “followers require sufficient power to work autonomously towards a shared vision”. Subordinates basically need more “power” to help the leader in realizing his visions. These requirements are making followers more dependant and might change the operational structure despite their knowledge base and skills and leads to Individualized consideration. Transformational leaders act as mentors or coaches as they put interest into developing individual followers to

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Transformational leaders put more focus on transforming their followers so that there can be a sustainable, self-replicating leadership (Pillay, Villiers and Mayer, 2013:03). Transformational leaders transform their subordinates through knowledge, expertise and vision so that there is an ever-lasting buy-in from the subordinates even if the leader is no longer in the picture. Transformational leadership style is based on effective communication from management to meet objectives. High levels of communication and visibility play a major role when transformational leaders are motivating employees and improving productivity and efficiency. Transformational leadership requires high management involvement in order to achieve goals and objectives.…

    • 161 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What is Leadership? This is a question with as many answers as there are people questioning. There are countless theories about leadership, what it is, and how it should be used; however, very few can be applied straight to outdoor leading situations without needing heavy adaptations. COLT is one theory that was specifically created for the outdoor leader, and Burns ' Transactional and Transformational theories also fit nicely into outdoor situations. A leader using one of these theories would find themselves reacting and dealing with a situation quite differently than if they had applied a different theory.…

    • 1079 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Transactional leadership runs under the premise where the actions of the staff result in either a reward or a punishment. The reward or punishment is contingent upon performance. On the other hand, there’s transformational leadership, according to James MacGregor Burns, Transformational leadership is a process in which "leaders and followers make each other advance to a higher level of morality and motivation". Transformational leadership connects the follower's sense of identity and self to the project and the collective identity of the organization; being a role model for…

    • 479 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Before delving further into leadership and management theories and styles it is good to understand the difference between a manager and a leader. Bennis and Nanus (1985, p221) state that ‘managers are people who do things right and leaders are people that do the right thing.’ Yukl (2002, p7) goes on to suggest that leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how it can be done effectively, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish the shared objectives. However, Stodgill (1974:7) powerfully stated that ‘there are as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have tried to define it.’ Although there are varying definitions to leadership…

    • 1531 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    There will never be a set definition on what a leader is. Hundreds of leadership theories have been made, but a leader comes in all shapes and sizes. A couple of these these theories is Transformational and Transactional Leadership. These two styles of leadership are often coupled together, yet they could not be more different. Learning from these two styles, one can come up with their own personal philosophy of leadership.…

    • 207 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Transformational leadership was advanced by Bass (1985) as an allowance of a foregoing study’s difference between transactional and transformational approaches of leadership. Transformational leaders have been labeled as those who modify the way that their followers think about themselves such that feelings of commitment and participation are enhanced (Shamiret al., 1993). There has been about argument in the literature about the discriminant legitimacy of numerous of the transformational leadership extents, but a model with eight dimensions is commonly used (Judge and Piccolo, 2004) Multiple systems have been used to certify the eight-factor approach to transformational leadership, including factor analysis, observation, interviews, and follower…

    • 278 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Transactional leaders are solely focused on the task at hand, they are motivated by what can be gained in a situation (rewards/punishments), and are really only concerned with short term goals. The styles of a transactional leader consists of: leaders providing guidance and oversight, overseeing productivity in detail, and managing as opposed to leading. Transformational leadership is the ideal style of leadership. Leaders are focused on people, long term goals, and will lead by developing and selling a compelling vision, developing relationships with followers and acting as teacher, mentor, and coach. This leadership theory helps mold organizations into cohesive…

    • 998 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The United States health care system is facing an uncertain future characterized by a primary care workforce bottleneck, which poses a multitude of problems. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has expanded access to insurance coverage for the previously uninsured and with an aging population, the shortage of primary care providers in the United States is increasing profoundly (Schwartz, 2012). In addition, the number of medical students entering primary care is significantly declining (Schwartz, 2012). Advanced nurse practitioners have been identified as the leaders in addressing changes needed in our nation’s healthcare delivery system (Gaylord & Grace, 2014). Nurses have a distinguished history of being leadership pioneers, who advance the health…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Transformational leadership is not an alternative to transactional leadership, but it augments leadership to a “Full Range of Leadership” model (Bass 1988; Bass & Avolio 1997; Spinelli 2006). Responsible and appropriate leadership is critical to the success of any industry. Leadership in the healthcare environment today is essential and mandated if our healthcare system is to survive (Spinelli 2006). Hutchinson and Jackson (2013) discuss the transactional leaders achieve performance by rewards and punishment. According to Transformational model “Transformational leaders motivate other to do more than they originally intended and often more than they thought possible” (Bass and Avolio, 1994).…

    • 1311 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Transformational leadership theory has been defined as a leadership approach, which individuals and their leaders engaged in an exchanged process that broadens and motivates both parties to reach a greater level of achievement. Leaders take a visionary role and inspires people to follow. The transformational leader works to meet the needs of subordinates or potential followers, but raises awareness at a higher level to “arouse and satisfy higher needs, to engage the full person of the follower” (Bass, 1985, pg. 14). Able to move groups or organization to change, to transform, and provide very high level of productivity.…

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Transformational leadership theory is defined as the process of how a person’s interaction with others affects the ability to create a bonding relationship that results in a mutual trust and motivates both the leader and the followers naturally and as duty demands (Joseph & Huber, 2015). The essence of transformational theories is the leader’s sense of responsibility in transforming the members through their inspirational and enigmatic personality, with the aim of leading them successor to achieve a common goal (Grossman & Valiga, 2012). As indicated by Grossman and Valiga (2012), transformational leaders not only have a vision and inspire but also creates an element of empowerment of caring for people and ensuring followers success by encouraging, convincing and renewing their faith and enthusiasm about their goals and vision. One of the best qualities of a transformational leader is ensuring that all members of the group move together in achieving success. My aspirations as a transformational leader are to instill in my students an enthusiasm, motivation, and vision with purpose and the can-do attitude of reaching success in anything that you put your mind to because failure is not an option (Stanley, 2011).…

    • 1621 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Transactional leaders are very goal driven, they are focused on the end result as opposed to how those results are achieved. If everything in the day-to-day runs smoothly and gets done then transactional leaders are happy. They can be seen as extremely bossy individuals, always giving orders but never taking the time to see how their employees are doing. Transformational leaders are different in their approach of achieving their goals. Instead of viewing goals as the most important part they also value how these goals are attained, participate in the process, collaboration, and team building.…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Introduction Leadership is about having the ability to drive or influence people to achieve a vision or goal of the organisation. Three types of leadership will be discussed referencing the late South African leader Nelson Mandela who was a leader of the ANC and a former 1st black president of South Africa. Main focus of the discussion will be based on transformational, transactional and charismatic leadership style respectively. Transformational leadership The transformational leader is the type of a leader who motivates its team to be effective and efficient.…

    • 1134 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This theory was developed by Burns (1978) and later enhanced by Bass (1985, 1998). The general idea of the transformational leadership theory is the leader’s power to motivate the follower to achieve more than what the follower premeditated to accomplish (Krishnan, 2005). Transformational leadership consumes of four components: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration (Bass, 1985). Burns hypothesized that transformational leaders encourage followers to achieve more by focusing on the follower’s principles and helping the follower align these values with the ideals of the organization. Furthermore, Burns identified transformational leadership as a relationship in which the leader and the follower inspired each other to higher levels which resulted in value system similarity between the leader and the follower (Krishnan,…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    It is a traditional way where members are motivated or demotivated by the impact of the rewards or punishments given. Contrary, Transformational leadership is a style in which leaders use charisma and enthusiasm to inspire and influence their followers. As stated by Nahavandi, 2016, transformational leaders try to attain positive results from their members by keeping them motivated and invested in projects, which leads to a high internal morale. Transactional leaders are reactive in nature, while transformational leaders are proactive.…

    • 1279 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays

Related Topics