Week 5 at Cvent: Theories in Action

I have seen a lot of theories throughout my time a Cvent. One of the bigger ones is the different styles of leadership; transactional and transformational. I would definitely say that the leadership style is more transactional. There is not really a goal of achieving a higher level of understanding, it’s more just doing the work. One example of this is that my manager asks me to do different things and I do them to the best of my ability. In return, I hope to get a job offer and good intern reviews. From what I can tell this is pretty straightforward transactional. I give my leader something and they give me something in return. Another example of transactional leadership in my job is I attend different talks and other meetings in order to learn more about the systems that I am supposed to know about. After I do this I am better at my job which means that my manager gives me higher reviews. Though this is less directly transactional, it is still transactional leadership.

This is relevant because it really demonstrates the impacts of transactional leadership. It is really hard to tell how my co-workers really feel about the management style, but they seem to be mostly happy. Though there are always little things that make people unhappy, it seems like for the most part they are happy.  This style of management works well for me because it is more straightforward. Since I am still learning it would be hard for me to have a transformational leader.

Transactional leadership seems to be more expected in corporate America. Most of my friends have a very similar style of being managed. It makes sense though because transactional leadership is the clearest and easy to do on the manager’s side and the side of the subordinate. I think especially with Covid it is definitely easier to lead in a transactional way. The virtual world is already hard to navigate and without the interoffice casual conversations, it’s a lot harder to lead transformationally. Maybe once people go back to the office, managers will be less transactional but for right now I think it seems to be easier to lead transactionally.