Leadership Qualities Essay

Bernard Bass considers the combination of transformational and transactional leadership as the ideal leadership. Transformational leadership adopts aspects of transactional leadership too, depending on situations, to make it more effective. Thus transformational leadership also uses ‘transaction’ as a vital and effective skill. The effectiveness of the transformational skills is thus improved, without replacing it. When transformational leaders see dead end while trying to gain an agreement from followers, through value emphasis; they take to transactional styles. A transformational leader facing a win-lose situation would convert it to a win-win situation using transactional methods. According to Bass, transactional styles broadly form the basis of most leaders, when it comes to encountering followers. Leaders use the best style of leadership according to the situation, they find themselves. Bass warns against the adoption of pseudo transformational leadership qualities. Here leaders project a particular image of themselves and on the contrary do something else. They support something publicly while opposing it in private. They resort to various ways for pursuing their personal agenda by either imposing if possible or delaying it, if not possible. They would initiate projects, which they are against and delay its execution such that it is not realized. Bass warns that the pseudo transformational leadership qualities are very destructive and should be avoided. I would like to adopt the transformational leadership, as it is associated with values, and is more likely to produce required results, in the long run. Transformational leadership promotes equality, justice and human rights through loyalty and fairness. The leader’s moral obligations are rooted on a broader base of individuals within the organization, cultural beliefs and the social norms. The followers and leaders involved in the transformational leadership raise the levels of mutual motivation among themselves. This is because the leader attributes due recognition and importance to the perspectives put forth by his subordinates. The subordinates become more aware of the surroundings and the effect of action on the surroundings. Under transformational leadership a new aspect of employment relationship is developed in which employers feel the need for a mutual understanding of each other’s expectations, with their employees. Employees exhibit greater confidence and enthusiasm under transformational leadership as their skills and job knowledge are more sought and heard. Idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration are the main aspects of transformational leadership. Transformational leaders are more capable to handle even technical aspects of work than transactional leaders. Recent findings suggest that team performance and communication are improved under transformational leadership. Success of transformational leadership has been observed in various establishments, irrespective of culture and geography. The link between transformational leadership and leader effectiveness is weak among people with cultural values, compared to this link in people without cultural values. Transformational leaders have the strength to improve the performance of organizations beyond expectations and is seen to be the answer to today’s world of organizational instability and uncertainty. As transformational leaders shape social and institutional cultures, organizational transformation must be associated with moral responsibility. I feel that one should appropriately incorporate ideas of transformational and transactional leadership into their personal and professional lives. I should strive to achieve concurrence of opinion through logic, reasoning and judgment. However, when these seem to be failing to get the desired results, I would adopt transactional methods, throwing up harsh decisions and difficult options. The apt leadership type needs to be selected depending on the people to be encountered and also according to the confronting situations. With uncooperative people adopting transactional styles would most likely bring the desired results at the earliest. When situations arise for which I find it difficult to take a decision, either at office or at home, I encourage all relevant people to discuss, and contribute to decision making, in pure transformational style. REFERENCES Homrig M.A., (2001) Transformational Leadership [Electronically Retrieved]. Downloaded on 6th July, 2008 from http://leadership.au.af.mil/documents/homrig.htm