Are you a Transactional or Transformational Leader

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs demonstrates that most people are more likely to act when they expect rewards or fear punishment. Any social system is more effective when a hierarchy clearly exists. People who are hired to work, implicitly agree to heed all of their manager's instructions, and that is the main reason that subordinates are employed.

The chief of the transaction works on formulating plain structures, thus making it unmistakable to employees unerringly what is required, as well as the rewards corresponding with obliging those requirements. Penalty is often not explicitly stated, but generally understood, with formal regulation systems in existence.

In transactional leadership, negotiation of the contract defines the relationship. The contract needs to spell out salary and benefits, as well as what claim the company has on the employee and his work.

Work that is delegated to an underling by a Transactional Leader is expected to be done; no excuses are acceptable and no pleading for more resources will be heeded. Just as a subordinate is rewarded for accomplishing his assigned duties, he is personally punished for failures that occur on his watch.
The transactional leader often uses management by exception, working on the principle that if something is operating to defined (and hence expected) performance then it does not need attention. Exceptions to expectation require praise and reward for exceeding expectation, whilst some kind of corrective action is applied for performance below expectation.

Whereas Transformational Leadership has more of a 'selling' style, Transactional Leadership, once the contract is in place, takes a 'telling' style. Transactional leadership is based in contingency, in that reward or punishment is contingent upon performance.

Many managers still hold the Transactional Leadership approach in high regard despite recent research which has highlighted some limitations. The fact that this approach skews towards Management rather than towards Leadership makes it far easier to implement for those light on talent, time, or training.

Behaviorist psychology pioneers B.F.Skinner and Pavlov used carefully conducted experiments on controlled populations in a laboratory setting when formulating their famous theories of Operant and Classical Conditioning. While these shed much light on human and animal behavior, they fall short of understanding man's behavior fully. This is because they rely upon a model of a rational man, whose simple drive towards reward is unclouded by complex social and emotional issues.

In practice, there is sufficient truth in Behaviorism to sustain Transactional approaches. This is reinforced by the supply-and-demand situation of much employment, coupled with the effects of deeper needs, as in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. When the demand for a skill outstrips the supply, then Transactional Leadership often is insufficient, and other approaches are more effective.

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Daiv Russell is a marketing and management consultant with Envision Web Marketing. Read more Management Articles, learn about Abraham Maslow and the Abraham Maslow theory.

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