Transformational and Transactional Leadership, Research Paper Example

According to the understanding of leadership that I’ve developed as a consequence of research, readings, and experiences, a leaders are defined as a professionals who are considered to have mastered their given field and use their experience to motivate and delegate responsibilities to others. In addition, effective leaders improve the work experience of the individuals they manage by allowing them to learn more and therefore provide a greater contribution to their organization. While there are many different leadership styles, the most important characteristics of leaders are their abilities to communicate effectively with their team and to gain an understanding of problems in a manner that helps accomplish a resolution.

Other individuals define leadership differently. Some simply believe that leadership is the ability for a person to influence others, while others believe that the attributes that allow an individual to be a leader is more complex. It is important to consider that for a person to be a leader, they absolutely must influence others, but the personality traits that allow a leader to accomplish this influence varies from person to person. For example, on opposite sides of the spectrum, leaders can either exhibit a totalitarian or democratic style. Totalitarian leaders command their teams with complete authority, allowing no room for commentary or questions. On the other hand, democratic leaders work closely with the members of their team, listening to their opinions, and ultimately allowing the team to make the decision. Different types of leaders are needed in different situations, as the type of work that each individual motivates his or her employees to produce is unique in its results.

According to the literature, a majority of researchers believe that transactional and transformational leaders are the most effective. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it is ideal for a leader to demonstrate power while allowing members of the team to contribute. Transactional leadership focuses on the overall performance of a team while providing them punishments for poor work or rewards for work well done (Bass, 2008). Professionals believe that this method is ideal in emergency situations or should be enacted when it is essential for a project to follow a specific protocol closely. In a majority of situations however, researchers believe that transformational leadership is the most effective leadership style. Transformational leadership aims to motivate employees and allow them to increase their contribution to the team by strengthening the connection of each individual to the project. In this style of leadership, managers make their employees feel that the work they do contributes directly to the success or failure of the project, which drives their want to see positive results. Although the primary goal of the leader in this situation is to be the inspiration for the project, he or she offers the team helpful feedback and helps them fill gaps in knowledge if needed (Lowe et al., 1996).

The idea of principle-centered leadership dictated by Stephen Covey reflects the belief that transformational leadership is the most efficient leadership style (Covey, 1991). Ultimately, it appears that individuals that fall into this category truly care about their work and strive to ensure that members of their team share this opinion and will be provided the resources necessary to be successful. As such, transformational leaders are synonymous with principle-centered leaders in a sense and are a complete opposite of totalitarian and laissez-faire leaders. These are individuals who put an effort in ensuring the voices of their team are heard and actively participate in the project to ensure that goals are accomplished.

The most important characteristic of principle-centered leadership and transformational leadership is that these individuals tend to engage in lifelong learning. The ideal leader is aware that if he or she wishes to motivate a team and provide them with a greater conceptual understanding of a project, it is necessary to become immersed in knowledge. This ultimately allows the leader to determine why gaps in knowledge have arisen amongst members of the team and to provide them with information as necessary. Doing so may include the need to instruct these individuals how information could be obtained on their own. The best leaders are masters of their chosen field, and this needs to reflect in practice for the leader to adequately motivate the team. If the team members trust the expertise of their leaders, they are more likely to believe in their mission, and this belief will be reflected in their work.

An additional important similarity between principle-centered leadership and transformational leadership is that both of these individuals need to connect with their team and value their opinions. These individuals are aware that a project is best accomplished by combining the ideas an experiences of a series of individuals, rather than trusting the opinion of one. As a consequence, collaboration is an important value to be held in leadership. In this sense, totalitarian leaders aren’t really leaders at all, because they simply command rather than integrating the beliefs of their team members. Therefore, these individuals are not able to achieve unique and often the most effective results. Principle-centered leaders and transformational leaders are certainly focused on the goal at hand, but recognize that they should not rush a result if completing the project slowly in a collaborative manner is more likely to achieve an answer that is more valuable.

Another aspect that many principle-centered leaders and transformational leaders have in common is that many of them believe that their work is their life’s mission. As a consequence, the personal interests of these individuals are their work goals and vice versa. It is likely therefore, that these leaders spend a lot of their free time researching information about their field because this is what they enjoy doing. As a result, they are able to motivate their team well because their love and joy for their work projects onto them, often making their workers feel the same way. Totalitarian leaders fail to accomplish this because they are too concerned with the outcome, worrying little about the steps that are needed to get there. Because of this, their employees often feel rushed and that they are not significantly contributing to the organization. Furthermore, totalitarian leaders have little time to be enthusiastic about their work because they are only result driven. As a consequence, many employees of totalitarian leaders have low morale and do not work effectively. Therefore, principle-centered leadership and transformational leadership is a natural solution to this problem and the individuals that employ these leadership styles from the beginning do not need to worry about a lack of employee motivation.

It is important to consider that any leader can be effective if they employee Covey’s eight characteristics of a principle-centered leader. However, this leadership style is more likely to be attractive for individuals that already follow certain styles of leadership, such as transformational leadership mentioned above. Ultimately, the leaders that are interested in gaining more participating from their team in the decision making process are likely to benefit from this leadership style. For example, individuals that fall into the several different categories of participative leadership would be likely to adopt this style because they already believe that it is important to consider the opinions of employees. On the other hand, totalitarian leaders are unlikely to try to apply these leadership characteristics at all. However, it is important for managers to understand that if their goal is to ensure that their employees are able to work productively and effectively, it is imperative to begin to incorporate these characteristics into their leadership style.

While different leaders take advantage of different leadership styles in a manner that best suits their personality and personal beliefs, good leaders know that it may be necessary to change their leadership styles to ensure efficacy. As a consequence, the best leaders are truly those that can adapt to new situations and are interested in gaining an understanding of the options that are available to them. Therefore, these individuals are constantly aware of new leadership techniques and are willing to utilize them to determine if it allows their team to generate better results. A good leader then, is not born as an individual who is able to motivate others. Rather, a good individual is born with passion for their work and an ability to learn.

References

Bass, B. (2008). Bass & Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research &Managerial Applications (4th ed.). New York, NY: The Free Press.

Covey, S. R. (1991). Principle-centered leadership. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Lowe, K.B., Kroeck G., Sivasubramaniam N. (1996). Effectiveness Correlates of Transformational and Transactional Leadership: A Meta-analytic Review of the Mlq Literature.The Leadership Quarterly, 7(3): 385-425