Today, more than ever, management scholars and practitioners seem to be engaged in unending debate about what constitutes an effective leadership style which can be employed within organizational settings to spur performance and sustain competitiveness. This debate has served to show the popularity of the leadership concept (Mohammed et al., 2012), but more importantly to demonstrate the combination of traits, skills and behaviors that characterize different leadership styles (Iqbal et al., 2012).
The present paper aims to explore some underlying concepts related to three commonly used leadership styles, namely transformational leadership, transactional leadership and servant leadership. The term ‘leadership style’ denotes a set of traits, skills, experiences and behaviors that a leader uniquely adopts in his day-to-day responsibility of leading others (Bhat et al., 2012).
The set of traits, skills and behaviors demonstrated by a particular leader is essentially grounded on his/her beliefs, ideas, norms, values and education (Iqbal et al., 2012). These authors further posit that different theories and assumptions lead to a multiplicity of leadership theories, some of which are discussed in the subsequent section.
Burns (1978) cited in Mohammed et al (2012) defined transformational leadership as “…a process of positive influence through which leaders motivate their followers to achieve organizational objectives beyond what is originally stated” (p. 52).
Transformational leaders not only inspire followers by aligning their own and followers value system with an important moral underpinning, but they are responsible for trying to inject motivation and enthusiasm in the followers (Iqbal et al., 2012), and depend on how followers perceive them in terms of goal setting and motivation to achieve the set goals (Bhat et al., 2012).
Extant literature demonstrates that transformational leadership style emphasizes the creation of a vision for and values of followers, in addition to developing an orientation of justice, loyalty and trust so as to transform the performance or fortunes of followers (Mohammed et al., 2012).
Transactional leadership, according to Bhat et al (2012), “…is the traditional style which works on contract or agreement in between the leader and the follower, about objectives” (p. 349). Here, the followers are motivated to perform and achieve the set organizational goals through the promised rewards, and are indeed rewarded on accomplishment of the set goals.
Consequently, transactional leaders are mainly task-focused and employ task relevant information as criteria to evaluate the inconsistencies between targeted and actual follower performance. It therefore follows that transactional leaders do not develop any motivating or boosting positive environment to assert their authority and achieve extra ordinary performance and willingness from the followers; rather, rewards are used to spur performance (Bhat et al., 2012).
The third leadership style that will be discussed in this short paper is servant leadership. This leadership style is typified by many positive attributes such as servanthood, authenticity, morality, respect, value and spirituality. Extant literature demonstrates servant leadership is not so much about leadership but rather the exposition of servanthood attributes that initializes with a discovery of felt and existing needs (Sendjaya & Pekerti, 2010).
Hence, according to these authors, servant leadership “…is a conviction of the heart that constantly manifests whenever there is a legitimate need to serve in the absence of extenuating personal benefits” (p. 645). It thrives on humbleness, trust, commitment and voluntary service. Extant literature demonstrates that leadership styles are as a result of natural processes as well as environmental exposures (Bhat et al., 2012).
Leaders are born with an innate capability to become leaders, but the environment plays a fundamental role in molding these individuals to exercise particular leadership styles depending on socialization, culture, interactions, training, tastes and preferences, as well as philosophical orientation (Vera & Crossan, 2004).
Leadership style modification involves adopting specific sets of characteristics that may assist a leader to meet and satisfy the needs of the moment. A leader may be required by predominant needs to demonstrate diverse characteristics, including vision, teamwork and commitment, among others.
Still, the leader may be required to exhibit affiliative or commanding roles, hence the need to adopt specific sets of characteristics from the environment to meet the needs of the moment. To modify their leadership styles, however, leaders are required to first identify their preferred style before considering the behaviors and actions related to this style.
Afterwards, leaders are expected to consider when their style has been least effective and instances when their style might have been more effective. Leaders should then use this analysis to write down their strong points and their weak links with the view to internalize the strong ones and modify their leadership style (Vera & Crossan, 2004).
Lastly, it is important to mention that transformational leadership best suits my leadership style in that I have a substantial amount of idealized influence over my friends, intellectual stimulation as well as inspirational motivation. During all the group meetings I have chaired, I have noticed that I am able to communicate a compelling vision and encourage group members to transcend their own self-interest for the sake of larger, collective objectives professed by the group.
Transformational leadership style not only actively develops exceptional people skills and innovative ideas within organizational settings, but it is positively associated with lower employee and customer turnover costs, creativity, corporate learning, and intellectual stimulation (Paarberg & Lavigna, 2010).
In terms of challenges, transformational leadership may be unable to lead their followers if the fail to cultivate enough trust, not mentioning that some transformative characteristics such as lack of structured planning may actually prevent the organization from attaining the level of stability required for long-term competitiveness and profitability (Vera & Crossan, 2004).
References
Bhat, A.B., Verma, N., Rangneker, S., & Barua, M.K. (2012). Leadership style and team processes as predictors of organizational learning. Team Performance Management, 18(7), 347-369.
Iqbal, J., Inayat, S., Ijaz, M., & Zahid, A. (2012). Leadership styles: Identifying approaches and dimensions of leaders. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 4(3), 641-659. Web.
Mohammed, K.A., Othman, J., & D’Silva, L. (2012). Social demographic factors that influence transformational leadership styles among top management in selected organizations in Malaysia. Asian Social Science, 8(13), 51-58.
Paarberg, L.E., & Lavigna, B. (2010). Transformational leadership and public service motivation: Driving individual and organizational performance. Public Administration Review, 70(5), 710-718.
Sendjaya, S., & Pekerti, A. (2010). Servant leadership as antecedents of trust in organizations. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 31(7), 643-663.
Vera, D., & Crossan, M. (2004). Strategic leadership and organizational learning. Academy of Management Review, 29(2), 222-240.