Purpose of this study is to examine the similarities of transformational, transactional and Servant leadership theories and analyze the Contribution those theories make to the understanding of leadership.
Introduction:
Leadership has a major role in 21st century in all sectors. Here I am going to discuss about understanding of what leadership is, is there any similarities among three theorists on what good or effective leadership should be. Expectation, in the 21st Century leader should be moral, social and ethical responsible.
What is leadership?
Leadership is a process of influencing the people to obtain the desired goal. There are many authors giving different definition. Goleman (2000): 'A leader's singular job is to get results'.
House et al (2004): 'Leadership is the ability to motivate, influence and enable individuals
To contribute to the objectives of organizations of which they are members'. Stogdill (1974): 'Leadership is an influencing process aimed at goal achievement'. Johns T (2008) says:
'A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to be, but ought to be.'There are a number of types of leaders who adopt different leadership styles
According to Richard Bolden (2004), Different leadership theories were revealed and classified. And also only few leadership theories reached to people. They are:
Great Man
Trait
Contingency
Situational
Behavioral
Participative
Management ( transactional leadership theory )
Relationship (transformation , servant and team leadership)
Now I am going to discuss about transformational, transactional and servant leadership.
Transformational leadership:
James Macgregor Burns was the first person who forward concept of transforming
Leadership. Burns says, transforming leadership "is a relationship of mutual
Stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert
Leaders into moral agents" (Burns, 1978) and then
bass b.m was developed the transformation leadership "The goal of transformational leadership is to 'transform' people and organizations in a literal sense - to change them in mind and heart; enlarge vision, insight, and understanding; clarify purposes; Make behavior congruent with beliefs, principles, or values; and bring about changes that are permanent, self-perpetuating, and momentum building" (Bass and Avolio, 1994). Bass (1996), Transformational leadership occurs when a Leader encourages followers to share a vision, empowering them to achieve the vision, and providing the opportunity to develop their individual potential. Transformational leaders serve as role models, and also transformational leader raise people from low levels of need, focused on survival (following Maslow's hierarchy), to higher levels (Kelly, 2003).
Components of transformational leadership: Four common I's are,
1. Idealized influence. Charismatic vision and behavior that inspires others to follow.
2. Inspirational motivation. Capable of motivating others to commit to the vision.
3. Intellectual stimulation. Encouraging innovation and creativity.
4. Individualized consideration. Coaching to the specific needs of followers.
Source: (Kelly, 2003)
Characteristics of transformational leader: According to (Tichy and Devanna, 1986), they have seven characteristics to inspire their followers to achieve beyond the expectation.
1. They visibly see themselves as change agents
2. They are brave
3. They believe in people
4. They are driven by a strong set of values
5 .They are life-long learners
6. They can cope with complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity
7. They are visionaries
Example of successful transformation leadership:
There are many leaders succeed in the way transformational leadership qualities. Mahatma Gandhi is Transformational leader representing charismatic qualities. Transformational leader is Lou Gerstner - retired Chairman and CEO of IBM. He turned IBM around from $8.1 billion loss in 1993 after identifying part of the company's problem as 'success syndrome'. IBM had become narrow-minded and inflexible (Sheppard, 2002). Gerstner completely transformed the culture of the organization through, for example, modeling desired behavior and close down IBM's infamous dress code to reproduce better the clothing of their customers (Sheppard, 2002). Lee Iacocca is a transformational leader who is credited with saving the Chrysler Corporation (1980-1992). He took over Chrysler when it was on the brink of bankruptcy and set about transforming the ideals of his closest subordinates. He began to redesign the corporation's culture. Because a transformational leader encourages others to become transformational leaders, soon the entire organization was filled with effective leaders (Kelly, 2003).
Transactional leadership:
Transactional leadership is a process of Social exchange between followers and leaders that involves a number of reward-based transactions. The transactional leader makes clear what he want, Performance expectations, goals, link between goals and rewards. The leader also watches followers' performance And if any mistakes occurring towards the goal, the leader appear to correct (Burns 1978). In practice, these leaders use more closed and leading questions (Randell, 1997).
Components of transactional leadership: (Bass & Avolio, 1994)
Contingent rewards:
It refers to a prearranged agreement: "If you do as we agreed then ..." it specifies expectation and sets goals.
Active management-by-exception :
It refers to behavior where the leader is actively monitoring a follower: "I am seeing to it that you (do not) ..." the leader is strongly supervising and has specified corrective actions for mistakes.
Passive management-by-exception:
It occurs when the leader is passively monitoring a follower: "If I happen to notice that you (did not) ..."; the leader takes corrective action in the case of mistakes if these are found out. All these behaviors work on the principles of expectancy of reward and fear of punishment, related to needs that are lower on Maslow's hierarchy
Characteristics of transactional leadership: according to Marcbowles (2003),
They setting a clear goal.
They create performance targets for each individual and the team
They spot performance gaps.
They won't trust their followers, they monitor their performance.
They take corrective actions when necessary.
They gaining promise to performance and goals through pay, reward, recognition and praise.
Example of successful transactional leadership:
Transactional leadership is mostly follow by managers and CEO in many organizations in 21st century.
Ezine (2010) mentioning about Steve Jobs (TIMES CEO OF 2009) is the famous transactional leader. Steve Jobs was known for his down to earth and task oriented nature of his leadership in apple computer.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Leadership-Styles---Transactional-Leadership&id=4262945
Servant leadership:
Servant leadership views a leader as a servant of his/her followers. Servant leadership was developed by green leaf in 1970, he said that "The servant-leader is servant first…It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. He or she is sharply different from the person who is Leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions." (Greenleaf, 1970).
Katzenbach and Smith (1993) highlights
The importance of leaders knowing when to follow
The importance of the leader acting as supportive person to their followers to achieve task rather than just directing.
They propose that the leader should ask questions rather than giving answers;
provide opportunities for others to lead them;
Components of servant leadership:
Servant leadership has six distinct components: (Laub, 1999).
Valuing people
Developing people
Building community
Displaying authenticity
Providing leadership
Sharing leadership
Characteristics of servant leadership:
They Serve other's needs before their needs
They believe in people
They are very simple and caring personalities
They Provide opportunities to learn and grow
They create Strong interpersonal relationships
Share power and release control
Share status and promote others
Example of Successful servant leadership:
Maxwell j (2007) add the new law in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Leaders Add Value by Serving Others, he described about serving others ,can make huge values(profit) in the organization. Adding Profits by Adding Value - Costco's CEO, Jim Sinegal, believes the success of Costco comes from treating his employees well.
Transactional versus Transformational leadership:
According to Bass (1985) transactional leader motivates subordinates by exchanging rewards for services provided. Transactional Leader mainly focused on goal. Leader has been gaining promise to performance and goals through pay, reward, recognition and praise. Transformational leaders, on the other hand, motivate subordinates to perform "beyond expectations.". Bass argued that such performance cannot be achieved through transactional leadership alone.
.A Comparison of Transactional and Transformational Leadership:
(Covey, 1992)
Transformational Leadership
Transactional Leadership
• builds on a man's need for meaning
• Is preoccupied with purposes and values,
morals, and ethics
• Transcends daily affairs
• Is focused on achieving long term goals
Without compromising human values and
Principles
• Focuses more on missions and strategies
• Releases human prospective - identifying and
budding new talent
• Designs and redesigns jobs to make them
meaningful and challenging
• Aligns domestic structures and systems to
reinforce overarching values and goals
• Builds on man's need to get a job done and
make a living
• Is preoccupied with power and position,
politics and perks
• Is mired in daily affairs
• Is short-term and hard data orientated
• Focuses on tactical issues
• Relies on human relations to lubricate
human interactions
• Follows and fulfils role expectations by
striving to work effectively within current
systems
• Supports structures and systems that
reinforce the bottom line, maximise
efficiency, and guarantee short-term profits
Leithwood and Jantzi (2000) conclude that transactional leaders more commonly apply teleological ethics (teleology is the study of goals, ends and purposes.)Whereas transformational leaders deploy deontological ethics.
Servant Leadership versus Transactional Leadership:
Servant leadership and transactional leadership are evident in a number of ways. Servant leaders emphasize activities that fans of well-being, while transactional leaders focus on the activities of routine maintenance and resource allocation followers of monitoring and management to achieve organizational goals. Contrary to the chief servants who influence followers through personal development and empowerment, the transactional leader influences followers through the use of rewards, sanctions, and formal authority and position to induce behavior consistent. According to Blanchard and Johnson (1985), transactional leaders create strong expectations about the behavior of employees, as well as clear guidance on employees receive rewards for meeting the expectations of transactional leader.Li Thus, leaders use transactional contingent reward behavior to implement transactions with followers to achieve work goals (Bass, 1985).
Servant Leadership versus Transactional Leadership:
According to the stone and his colleague point of view servant leadership and transformational leadership, both models incorporate characteristics such as respect, vision, influence, modeling, trust, integrity, and delegation (Stone et al., 2003).Transformational leadership and servant leadership have similar qualities such as individualized appreciation and consideration of followers.
Servant and Transformational Leadership: A Comparative Model
Under the Servant Leader model, the leader's motivation to lead arises from an underlying attitude of egalitarianism. In other words, the leader's belief system says he or she is no better than those who are led. All members of the organization have equal rights to vision, respect, and information. The leader's role is to facilitate the emergence of a community within the organization. 1, are valuing people, developing people, building community, displaying authenticity and sharing leadership. Possible impacts of these drivers could be: higher skilled people, more ethical people, better communicators, strong interpersonal relationships, creation of shared visions, and clear goals.It is argued here that these outcomes in conjunction with the leader initiatives that produce them create the spiritual generative culture.
Under the transformational leader model, the main leader initiatives are idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration. These initiatives lead to: role modeling, high ethical standards, concern for the needs of others, communication of expectations shared visions, innovations, risk taking, and questioning of practices and systems.
Source: smith .B et al( 2004)
servant leadership tends to cultivate a more static approach to the external environment than transformational leadership. The servant leader's motivation is directed more at the personal growth of the follower, thus the servant leader's success is determined by the extent to which the follower moves toward self actualization (Maslow, 1970). Whereas the transformational leader's motivation is directed
More toward obtaining success for the organization, which will reflect on his/her abilities, and the success of these leaders is measured by the extent to which they obtain organizational rewards.
CONCLUSION: leadership is attitude not a role. Leadership in Leadership, It seems, is increasingly becoming the universal remedy of the 21st Century and its emphasis is turning towards the moral, social and ethical responsibilities of leaders. Transformational leadership is suitable for dynamic organization and servant leadership suitable for static organization such as church, non-profit organization, non-government organization. Most of leader using transactional leadership theory while they using transformational leadership.
"There is nothing as practical as a good theory" (Lewin, 1935). So Today's leaders need to be skilled in change management to adopt in any situation CHRISTINA OSBORNE (2008).
