In the articles which were similar to the ones that we have read last class, Couto and STU both give their own view on the definitions of Transformational Leadership and Transactional Leadership. One thing that stuck out when reading STU’s article is when they said, “Simply put, transactional is a ‘telling’ leadership style and transformational is a ‘selling’ style.” This really put into perspective for me, the two ways of leadership that we are focusing on.
It was interesting to hear that transformational leadership was a “selling” kind of leadership in which the leader tries to get people to buy in to what they are saying buy being influential. When I thought about this I thought that this may lead to using toxic charisma when they have their speeches because they want to sell their ideas to their followers. With transactional leadership, they said that they have a “telling” leadership style. I think that this leadership style makes a lot more sense and that it is overall better than having the transformational leadership style.
I think this is a very interesting point you bring u. But was it is also important to realize is that mostly all leaders are trying to sell things to us, and we are trying to get things from them. Taking that into consideration, should we avoid this type of interaction between leaders and followers?
I agree that transformational leadership has a very apparent selling factor, despite being somewhat counter-intuitive as the name “transactional” is where you’d think someone (a leader) is selling something to a follower (buyer). I like the way that you approached the possibility that this could lead to the leader being a toxic charismatic. It also demonstrates the potential dangers of letting someone be too influential in your life.
I also thought about toxic charismatics when I read about the selling factor in transformational leadership, which was a little confusing to me because the last reading about transformational leadership said that it by definition cannot be for bad, but I feel like a toxic charismatic could easily “sell” themselves as good.
I agree with you that transformational leadership is better. It is weird that Burns had such a positive view of transactional leadership.
I thought it was interesting that they referred to transactional leadership as a “selling” kind. They want their followers to buy into what they are saying. I also found this very interesting.
I agree with your ideas about toxic charismatics. I wonder how/if at all does that scrape the lines of tyrannicide?
Just because people are manipulated doesn’t necessarily mean that the leader is a toxic charismatic, sometimes leaders are in a position where they know what’s truly best for the people even if it’s not on their highest desires but more for their needs. These leaders are probably charismatic though in order to convince the group’s however and the transformational elevated both followers and leaders so then these people would be manipulated in a way that elevates them.