Transactional Leadership vs. Transformational Leadership

^{“The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set in themselves.” – Ray Kroc}

In coaching today, I have read a ton of articles on how to lead an organization or a team. In some of these articles I have encountered two forms of leadership. One is transactional leadership and the other is transformational leadership. So in this post I will discuss what both of these forms of leadership are. And I will give you what I believe is the best form of leadership to give your team or organization.

            First off I will discuss transactional leadership. With transactional leadership, the transactional leader believes that people are motivated by rewards, and if they do something wrong they should be punished. The transactional leader then gives his or her team or organization his or her beliefs on what to do, and the organization does that. The purpose of the team or organization in a transactional environment is to do what their leader tells them to do, and to do it well, or be punished for failing.

            The clear structures that the transactional leader gives his or her team members is to be understood from the beginning. There is not a lot of wiggle room in there to mess up. You either do what is told or you are asked to leave. In other words, it is a cookie-cutter belief system that one set of beliefs fits all. This is my issue with transactional leadership. You may be wondering, well who the heck leads like this? Plenty. This style of leadership happens more often than not. And it can hurt your organization. Now I am not saying it is an ineffective style of leadership because it is not. But it hurts the long term life of your players, students, or team members. As educators if our number one job is to make our organization, team, or school better, it starts with the people we lead and what we teach them.

            For example, earlier this evening I was reading former New York Mets pitcher, and now announcer, Ron Darling’s book, “The Complete Game: Reflections on Baseball, Pitching, and Life on the Mound.” Ron was discussing his first experience in professional baseball with the Texas Rangers organization. The Rangers had their pitchers learning how to throw the slider. Ron did well while going through the minors and pitching the way the Rangers had him pitch. But at this point he had not had the success that was expected of him. He was then traded to the New York Mets. At this point of the story, Darling was in Triple-A ball and his manager was Davey Johnson. Johnson had been looking at the scouting reports of Darling and was wondering what he had been missing. Then he realized, his delivery. Darling wrote, “You always throw like this? I said, “No, not really.” I explained how when I got to Texas they wanted me to throw that hard slider, and how before that I’d had more of a three-quarter motion and a killer overhand curveball.” So, Johnson stepped in on the bullpen that Ron was pitching. Johnson had Darling pitch first the way he was pitching when the Mets organization got him, and then how he pitched in college. When Darling pitched the way he did in college Davey said, “That other stuff you’re throwing? It’s okay. Might even get you to the bigs for a stretch. But what you threw just now? That’s nasty. That’s big league stuff. What Davey Johnson did, was the perfect example of transformational leadership.

            Transformational leadership is all about caring and helping. It is about developing and enhancing, and making the dreams of others a reality. It is not an easy form of leadership, in fact it is difficult. And in my opinion, much more difficult to do than transactional leadership. I have seen coaches who are transactional, and it is the belief to either do it my way or leave, rather than showing and teaching. Some people are slow learners and some are fast learners, but every learner must be respected for the effort that they are giving. I am not stating that punishment and rewards are bad, because they are not. But to the individual in a transformational environment, they already have rewards and punishments there for them. Their achievement of their goal is the reward, and their shortcomings are the punishment. But these shortcomings shouldn’t be treated as punishments, instead they should be treated as lessons. Lessons to make that individual learn what he or she needs to do to be stronger and better for them to achieve their goal. My favorite quote on this is from former Texas Longhorns baseball coach Augie Garrido. Augie’s quote was, “Win or Learn.” Powerful right? You are either winning, or you are learning from what went wrong.  

            Another way to see transformational leadership, is that it is the best way of getting a team or organizational goal accomplished. The transformational leader is understanding of what each individual does best and he or she puts them in a role to where they can best help the team or organization achieve their goal. Coach John Wooden once said that it took 10 hands to score a basket, meaning it took everyone doing their role to score a basket. I agree with that completely. It takes not the best performers to make an organization be successful, but the whole team for it to be successful. That is the power of transformational leadership because it catches on to everyone, and it feeds strength to a team and organization.

Notes

Darling, R., & Paisner, D. (2009). The complete game: reflections on baseball, pitching, and life on the mound. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.