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Running Header: Reflection on Transactional and Transformational Leadership

Reflection: Transactional and Transformational Leadership

Transactional leadership is based on the concept of exchange between leaders and

followers. The leader provides followers with resources and rewards in exchange for motivation,

productivity, and effective task accomplishments. This exchange and the concept of providing

contingent rewards are at the heart of motivation, leadership, and management theory and

practice which is an essential component of effective leadership (Nahavandi 188). In a

professional setting, transactional leadership occurs intermittently as I believe it will be

contingent upon situational conditions with employees. For example, with our auto technicians,

there is minimal contact with them on a daily basis as they are skilled at their work and do the

same type of work consistently. Most interaction is to check in and say hello and show

appreciation for their hard work and to see what resources they need to stay on task with their

workload. On the other side of the coin, there are check ups when things are falling short and

work is not being completed timely. These limited interactions lend to the Management by

Exception leadership style whereby leaders interact little with followers, provide limited or no

direction, an only intervene when things go wrong (Nahavandi 188).

In many instances, however, such transactional leadership is a prescription for

mediocrity. This is particularly true if the leader relies heavily on passive management-by-

exception, intervening with his or her group only when procedures and standards for

accomplishing tasks are not being met (Bass 20). Using this leadership style, I would say is not

necessarily unsuccessful, it seems limited and incomplete for me. When I have used this style of

leadership, it is usually for a project with a quick turnaround and I select those individuals that I

know will not need much interaction to get the work done. Transactional contracts do not inspire

followers to aim for excellence; rather, they focus on short-term and immediate outcomes
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(Nahavandi 188). Additionally, being to transactional causes you to lose focus of the larger

context and do not have impact on organizational change. I do not see my own leadership in this

style very often, if at all because it also does not inspire me. What I would do differently, if and

when I find myself falling into this space and my scales of leadership styles are off balance,

would be to try and recalibrate to infuse more transformational leadership aspects into the

situation.

Transformational leadership includes three factors – charisma and inspiration, intellectual

stimulation, and individual consideration. (Nahavandi 189). Transformational leaders broaden

and elevate the interests of their employees, when they generate awareness and generate

purposes and mission of the group, and when they stir their employees to look beyond their own

self-interest for the good of the group. Transformational leaders achieve these results in one or

more ways: They may be charismatic to their followers and thus inspire them; they may meet the

emotional needs of each employee; and/or they may intellectually stimulate employees (Bass

21).

I tend to fall in the spectrum of transformational leadership default for much of the

interactions I have whether personal or professional. It has been an evolutionary journey to be

more transformational as growing up on the department as a young officer over 29 years ago, the

model of leadership before me was more autocratic. I always felt like many of the commanders,

and those in leadership, never took time to know the details about me enough to know how to

inspire me to be more than just a ticket writing, DUI arresting and traffic investigating officer.

However, that shifted for me when we were fortunate enough to get a new commander who was

younger than any of our previous commanders. Not only was his age different, but his level of

engagement and innovation was 360 degrees different. He was charismatic, he was the very
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Running Header: Reflection on Transactional and Transformational Leadership

things Ronald Riggio mentions in his Transformational Leadership video about having idealized

influence, inspirational motivator, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation

(Riggio 2013). This commander over 29 years ago eventually became the commissioner of our

department.

Flash forward from that experience as a young officer to when I entered into

management. I worked hard to emulate many of the things I recalled about his leadership as well

as collecting some other good role model’s behaviors along the way. My first real challenge to

test out transformational leadership, which I had no idea that is what it was called at the time,

was when I inherited a new command with many dysfunctional elements. My staff had low

morale, they were not meeting deadlines and basically, they were functioning in mediocrity. I

set out to get to know my staff individually; set my expectations; encourage teamwork; create a

work environment where there was some autonomy for them to work on projects and program

management; held creativity meetings so we could build ideas around new programs and grants;

mentored and developed my staff to have confidence and competency in their work as well as for

upward mobility; created opportunities for them to be challenged and supported them along the

way; and tried to give our unit vision for the work we were charged to do in the larger context of

the organization so they felt like they were contributing.

I feel this approach was very successful in the circumstance I mentioned but has worked

very successfully for me for many years. People want to know they matter and have value. It is

our responsibility when we choose to enter leadership positions to make sure we see them. I feel

that my investment in each of them individually created synergy in our collective unit and we

were able to create groundbreaking programs for the organization that still are implemented
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today along with winning many awards nationally. The team members all promoted into higher

positions and continued to operate under that legacy of excellence to make the organization

better and to make others better. I will say when you choose to be a transformational leader,

while you are transforming others, you are also transforming yourself into something far more

than is tangible. I for one must have purpose in order to have passion in my work.

Transformational leaders focus on core purpose or the legacy well beyond contemporary

tasks; they work on being more and doing more through personal mastery, and they encourage

and embrace autonomy to have freedom in their destiny and those of others. This type of

leadership creates creativity, engagement and enrichment (Riggio 2013). Therefore, the only

thing different that I would do is to continue to improve on how to inspire, connect and problem

solve with others.

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REFERENCES

Bass, Bernard M. (1990). From Transactional to Transformational Leadership: Learning to Share

the Vision. Retrieved from https://ole.sandiego.edu/bbcswebdav/courses/LEPSL-540-
MASTER/M4/BassTransactional.pdf

Navavandi, Afsaneh. (2015). “The Art and Science of Leadership” (7th ed.). New Jersey:
Pearson, 2015. Print.

Riggo, Ronald. (2013, November 14) Transformational Leadership.[Video File]. Retrieved

from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvezV2Zhihg