After last class’s reading, I was a little confused about transactional leadership, so the reading titled “What is Transactional Leadership?” helped clear up a lot. I thought that the emphasis on order, structure, and consistency for crisis situations made complete sense, but I had a couple of points that I’m not so onboard with. In the first paragraph, it says that transactional leadership does not fit with creativity and innovation, but the examples of Vince Lombardi, Bill Gates, and Howard Schultz given at the end all contradict this. Vince Lombardi used a new strategy of drilling the plays into his team so that they didn’t make mistakes, even if their opponents knew what was coming, instead of trying to surprise his opponents; he innovated a whole new strategy of coaching. Bill Gates revolutionized the way that we use technology. Howard Schultz turned Starbucks into the empire it is by turning around their entire business model. I don’t think that transactional leadership and creativity are incompatible; instead, I think that they need one another to succeed. Even if a leader does not exhibit both traits simultaneously at every moment of every day, I still think both are necessary for the leader to have.
Another point that struck me was when the reading claimed that transactional leaders appeal to “the self-interest of individuals” because the phrase self-interest last came up when we were defining tyranny. In that context, it meant “against the greater good,” but I don’t think that is true here. If you look at the quotes by transactional leaders at the end of the reading, I think that all these leaders are doing what is best for their own business or organization, so how is this defined as acting in “self-interest”? My belief is that it is not, and the reading mis-defined transactional leadership. I view transactional leadership requires a more pragmatic view of the world, a here-and-now mentality, while transformational leadership involves high aspirations.
I too was confused at the end of class when it came to transactional leadership and transformational leadership, not only by definition but how one can fix within another, but not the other way around.
I also didn’t agree that transactional leadership doesn’t fit with creativity and innovation and as you said the examples at the end of the reading seem to contradict this. I think that these different categories of leadership are not so black and white because you can exhibit different traits of each at different times.
You’re totally right! I forget which reading it was, but leaders were said to be closer to artists than managers, and I think that’s completely correct. Creativity is, in my opinion, just the flexibility of the mind. You have to be mentally flexible to lead effectively, your method (transactional v transforming) doesn’t matter in that aspect. All effective leadership requires a leader to envision something that isn’t there yet, or think up something that is more beneficial than what already is( while a manager would just maintain what is). That’s pretty creative to me.
I think you make an excellent point regarding creativity and transactional leadership. All of those people were innovators in their fields, showing how compatible and possibly even co-dependent they are.