#TransactionalLeadership

[aasuccess]

When to use transactional leadership?

Do you value structure and clear expectations in leadership? Do you believe in rewarding success and addressing underperformance directly?

Transactional leadership focuses on achieving results through defined goals, performance-based rewards, and strict accountability. It’s ideal for environments where discipline, efficiency, and consistency are key, such as sales teams or operations.

If you value clarity, order, and achieving specific goals, transactional leadership might be your go-to approach for success!

[christinemonk]

A transactional leader is someone who values order and structure. One such Example of a transactional leader is Norman Schwarzkopf. Norman Schwarzkopf was a four star US Army General, who headed United States Army operations in Operation Desert Storm. When asked how he defines leadership, he replied, “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.” It is clear that he valued character. He knew that strategies fail and plans don’t always work.

In another one of his excerpts he mentions, “You learn more from negative leadership than from positive leadership. Because, you learn how not to do it. And, therefore, you learn how you do it.”

Here he intends to say that to learn it is not always to establish positives or truths, but by eliminating false information you learn better. In the battlefield it translated to the form of leadership he commanded over his peers. He valued compliance and performance. Results were heavily weighted. He would closely monitor the activities of US forces in his command and would organize the efforts of every individual unit in such a manner that maximum results would be achieved. While deployed to defeat Saddam Hussain, he employed this form of leadership that led him achieving very significant results in a relatively shorter span of time.

[realyoungdarius]

According to social learning theory, for leaders to be seen as ethical leaders by their followers, they must be attractive and credible role models. https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S104898430600110X?token=440A5547A7FA8F9D06C4B4A4E24747F651ADE870091AF21F4F26144AEB1C0263733C753EB413CF91724DB730F65B4A94

Ethical leaders are likely sources of guidancebecause their attractiveness and credibility as role models draw attention to their modeled behavior. Power and statusare two characteristics of models that enhance their attractiveness (Bandura, 1986), thus making it more likely thatfollowers will pay attention to ethical leaders' modeled behavior. Most leaders possess authority because they occupypositions of status relative to their followers. But attractiveness involves much more than authority and status. Nuturantmodels who demonstrate care and concern and treat others fairly are attractive to followers and garner positiveattention. Credibility also enhances model effectiveness. Ethical leaders are credible because they are trustworthy andpractice what they preach. As Bandura noted,“if models do not abide by what they preach, why should others do so?”(1986: 344).

Self-awareness, openness, transparency, and consistency are at the core of authentic leadership. In addition, beingmotivated by positive end values and concern for others (rather than by self-interest) is essential to authentic leadership.Authentic leaders model positive attributes such as hope, optimism, and resiliency. Finally, authentic leaders arecapable of judging ambiguous ethical issues, viewing them from multiple perspectives, and aligning decisions withtheir own moral values.

Ethical leaders' care and concern for others was paramount.3.3. 

Spiritual leadership Spiritual leadership is comprised of“the values, attitudes, and behaviors that are necessary to intrinsically motivate one's self and others so that they have a sense of spiritual survival through calling and membership”(Fry, 2003,p.711) and “is inclusive of the religious-and ethics and values-based approaches to leadership”(693). Alternatively, spiritual leadership has also been described as“occurring when a person in a leadership position embodies spiritual values such as integrity, honesty, and humility, creating the self as an example of someone who can be trusted, relied upon, and admired. Spiritual leadership is also demonstrated through behavior, whether in individual reflective practice or in the ethical, compassionate, and respectful treatment of others”(Reave, 2005, p. 663).

Although such spiritual motives might influence someone to become an ethical leader, ethical leaders might also be driven by more pragmatic concerns. They understand that they can and shouldinfluence followers' ethical conduct and, to do so, they use influence mechanisms often associated with a transactionalleadership style.

Victor & Cullen (1987, 1988) proposed nine types of ethical climate based upon three philosophical approaches (principle, benevolence, and egoism) and three levels of analysis (individual, local,cosmopolitan)

Treviño (Treviño, 1990; Treviño & Nelson, 2007) later defined ethical culture in terms of theformal and informal behavioral control systems (e.g., leadership, authority structures, reward systems, codes andpolicies, decision-making processes, ethical norms, peer behavior, etc.) that can support either ethical or unethicalbehavior in an organization.

4.1. Ethical role modeling

Proposition 1.Being able to identify a proximate, ethical role model during one's career is positively related to ethical leadership.

4.2. Ethical context in the organization

Proposition 2.An ethical context that supports ethical conduct will be positively related to ethical leadership. 

4.3. Moral intensity of issues faced

Proposition 3. Moral intensity (magnitude of consequences and social consensus) enhances the relationship between ethical context and ethical leadership.