Week 6: Transactional versus Transformational Leadership

This week I had my 30-day training review meeting and it was very positive. They identified some strengths from my work so far, including being flexible with the transition by being willing to do odd tasks, being enjoyable to work with from my good attitude, and being a team player by helping out when asked. The rest of the meeting was to set goals for the rest of the time I am there. Usually these goals would be followed up with at a 60-day training review meeting, but since I only have two weeks left, I will likely just have a close out meeting in the last few days. They also asked for my feedback, so I think they really want to improve the training. I have seen some of the more experienced coordinators making videos of them completing some of the everyday tasks and paperwork, so they must plan to implement them into the training. Based on the structure of my meeting and the focus on goals, I wanted to expand on my reflection about the transactional theory of leadership.

This leadership theory seems relevant to the DelRicht Research organization because of the incentives and punishments. Transformational leadership is often carried out by charismatic leaders, but the people I work with set their demands and tasks to be competed in a managerial style. I personally feel inspired by the vision and mission of “moving medicine forward by increasing patient participation in clinical trials,” but there are many transactions to motivate productivity for everyone else. The day to day leadership style is managerial and even the goals can be interpreted as transactions. If the goals are not met, it is cause for review and delays in advancement.

I think this leadership style works for DelRicht because they are a small company. The site manager for the study coordinators works in the same office as the other 5 coordinators and myself. The close group may allow high control and high situational favorableness, which would be best maintained by structure. As the company continues to grow, the transformational leadership overhead from the founders who may be less accessible to people lower in the hierarchy may become more important. Now that I have been here for six weeks, the times that seemed chaotic while I was still learning have settled down and the day to day transactional structure seems effective.