Leadership

PSYCH 485 blog

Transformational Leadership…

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Transformational leadership is a process that modifies and renovates people (Northouse loc. 3450, 2016) It’s a trans-historical leadership that transcends time and place. It accomplishes the goals while also transforming individuals, raising their standards, values, and ethics.

Transformational Leadership was first coined in 1973 and emerged as a new way to manage businesses in the United States. Before it, leaders (CEO’s, bosses, etc.) would manage their followers (employees, etc) with the punishment and reward method also known as transactional leadership.  Transformational leadership can also be described as charismatic and visionary leadership (Northouse loc. 3459-3478, 2016). The Leadership Continuum and Factors cited in Northouse describe the Transformational leader as individualized in their consideration when giving corrections as opposed to a one-size-fits-all method used in transactional leadership that does not nurture individual needs (Northouse loc. 3536, 2016).

An example of this form of transactional leadership used heavily is in highschools where students are judged on their overall intelligence with fill-in questions. It does not take much to realize that each individual is unique. From thumbprints to their patterns of thinking and reckoning. Schools should not be divided by age as humans mature at different rates. Our schools have to be more transformational than transactional if we want to nurture individual strengths and bring up tomorrow’s leaders at their fullest potential. The chart continues to point out that the transformational leader is inspirational in their motivation and intellectually stimulating.

When I think of the school example I just gave I have to state that the schools prepare the students in a transactional way because most of us will get transactional careers. Where I live, in the Silicon Valley most of the employees at Apple or Microsoft have a constant 9 to 5, five day a week job that involves sitting a desk and doing the same mundane work every day to receive the paycheck that takes care of them and their families. I don’t want to see myself in that situation for the rest of my life, even if the pay is big. This is because happiness is more valuable than money, and money does not always buy happiness. I would rather be in a start-up that is making just enough to get by and be part of something big than to just play it safe.

It does not take much to find a transformational leader or to become one.  Ames and Flynn (2007) found in a study that all it takes to reach that sweet spot of productivity is a moderate level of assertiveness. Too much assertiveness and we become socially insufferable and not enough and we become instrumentally impotent. It’s vital that not just schools but the world moves towards a more transformational leadership model, especially in the wake of the current political climate.

I hope that Trump can learn from Franklin Roosevelt, who was considered a transformational leader who humanized the American Industrial system–probably why he was elected four times and served a total of 12 years, making America a superpower.

References:

Ames, D.R., Flynn, F.J. (2007). What Breaks a Leader: The curvilinear relation between assertiveness and leadership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 92(2), 307-324.

Northouse, Peter G.. 2016. Leadership: Theory and Practice (Kindle Locations). SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition.

Transactional Leadership

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            After reading the section on Transformational leadership, it has been made clear to me that the company I work for fosters a more transactional leadership environment when placed on the leadership continuum.

            As defined in the lesson, transactional leadership “occurs when leaders and followers are in some type of exchange relationship in order to get needs met. There may be no purpose to hold leaders and followers together once the transaction has been made. This type of leadership is seen in most leadership models and does not result in any kind of organizational change” while transformational leadership “serves to change the status quo by appealing to followers’ values and their sense of higher purpose. Transformational leaders engage with followers and create a connection that raises the level of motivation and morality in both the leader and the follower.”  (PSU WC Lesson 10, p4)

The reason I believe the company I work for falls closer to transactional leadership stems from the way management is trained to “motivate” the team. From corporate down, management uses rewards to motivate the team. Corporate promises management meetings to be held at restaurants when budget goals are surpassed repeatedly, teams are rewarded with bi-monthly parties for the sole purpose of positive moral and individual employees are rewarded with redeemable points when they perform above expectation. The decision of what counts as “performing above expectation” is decided by the managers and is used very loosely. At time points will be rewarded just for doing jobs no one else wants to do or even running and getting the managers food on their breaks. This exchange of rewards is meant to simply get the company’s needs met by the employees or for the managers’ personal gain. According to the commentary, this exchange of value to advance the managers’ own agendas fits perfectly with the ideas of a transactional leader. (PSU WC Lesson 10, p6)

Although the reward system already in affect is a good start, there needs to be some boundaries on administering these points to avoid encouraging transactional leadership. Points should only be administered for employees who take initiative towards actions that are not based around personal agendas. A few examples would be volunteering to do something that no one else wants to do or generally working hard. Although there is still a transaction occurring, the act is done without the expectation of receiving a reward and comes from pure personal motivation. It should also be encouraged the management foster this motivation by communicating their vision to the employees, bonding with their team personally and building trust through an image of self-confidence, moral conviction, and personal example and self-sacrifice. (PSU WC Lesson 10, p5)

              

References

Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2013). PSYCH 485: Leadership in Work Settings. Lesson 10, Transformational Leadership.https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa13/psych485/002/content/10_lesson/08_page.html

Can you be a transformational leader without individual consideration?

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I’ve been thinking about transformational leadership and Steve Jobs ever since the group I am in for this course finished a paper on the topic. Steve Jobs was no doubt transformational throughout his lifetime. He revolutionized personal computing by successfully marketing Steve Wozniak‘s computer design, and by making an innovative connection that led to the commissioning of the mouse. Jobs reinvented how we access and listen to music and how we define the word “phone”. By the standard definition of transform, to change composition, structure, outward appearance, or character, there is no doubt in my mind that Steve Jobs was transformational. However, was he a transformational leader in a way that incorporates the definition of transformation leadership?

 

To summarize, transformational leadership is “the process whereby a person engages with others and creates a connection that raises the level of motivation and morality in both the leader and the follower” (Northouse, 2013, p. 186). Transformational leadership combined with transactional leadership, which is more focused on the exchanges or transactions between leaders and followers, stimulates peak performance in followers according to the diagram below.


TransformationalLeadership-300x229.jpg

This image demonstrates that while transactional leadership is needed, the addition of transformational leadership is what inspires follower performance to reach beyond expectations. According to this definition, there are four factors that a transformational leader embodies: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration.

 

Now back to Steve Jobs. Few will deny that Jobs had idealized influence, the first factor of transformational leadership often referred to as charisma. Former president of PepsiCo, John Sculley, admitted in his interview in BBC’s 2011 documentary on Jobs that to this day he’s not entirely sure how jobs convinced him to leave his secure senior executive job at PepsiCo. Scully just knew that he wanted to join Jobs. Jobs’ charisma is what helped him market the first Apple computer. Along with idealized influence, Jobs also exhibited the second factor of transformational leadership, inspirational motivation. He was often heard saying that he wanted to change the world (BBC, 2011). Who wouldn’t find inspiration in that statement? According to Northouse 2013, leaders focus follower efforts to “achieve more than they would in their own self-interest” through inspirational motivation (p. 192). Jobs was an inspirational motivator in all of the companies he owned and to the industry in general. The third factor of transformational leadership, intellectual stimulation or creativity and innovation – Jobs had those characteristics too. It’s true that he didn’t build the first Apple computer and wasn’t innovative as much in the hands-on technical sense. However he seemed to know what the public needed well before the public knew what it needed, and so he was always ahead of the game taking inventions and innovations that he experienced and applying them to personal computing and media in a way that no one ever imagined was possible.

 

I can clearly see the connection between Steve Jobs and the first three of the factors of transformational leadership. It’s the last factor, individualized consideration, that I struggle with a bit. Individualized consideration is when a leader coaches followers based on their needs and “spends time treating each employee in a caring and unique way” (Northouse, 2013, p. 193). From what I’ve heard and read about Jobs, this doesn’t seem to line up exactly with Jobs’ style. According to Gladwell (2011), Jobs was known for screaming at his employees. He was also known as a bully, targeting people’s weaknesses and belittling them, and it is also said that he was dishonest when splitting some profit between himself and Steve Wozniak (BBC, 2011). If transformational leadership involves being sensitive to follower needs and raising the level of motivation and morality in both the leader and the follower, can we still claim that Jobs fits the definition of a transformational leader?

 

It’s true. Steve Jobs had an amazing impact on the world, just as he said he would. He transformed the world. However, his lack of individual consideration, one of the four factors of transformational leadership, does leave me wondering if his style does in fact fit the definition of transformational leadership.

 

 

BBC (Producer). (2011, December 14). Steve jobs: Billion dollar hippy. [Web Video].

Retrieved from http://documentaryheaven.com/steve-jobs-billion-dollar-hippy

Gladwell, M. (2011, November 14). The tweaker: The real genius of steve jobs. The New Yorker. Retrived from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/14/111114fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=1

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: theory and practice (6th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

 

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