Do you strive to be a transactional leader or a transformational leader?
There are many different leadership styles, but most of them fall under Transformational Leadership or Transactional Leadership.
Transactional Leadership: A transactional leader is someone who exchanges rewards and privileges for doing good work. When you do a good job, you get something in return.
Transformational Leadership: A transformational leader aims to encourage, inspire, and motivate others to become the best people they can possibly become by defining and modeling certain values.
Which leadership style is more effective for you and the people you coach and lead?
The Case for Being a Transformational Leader
A transformational leader aims to encourage, inspire, and motivate others to become the best people they can become by defining and modeling certain values.
Coach Nick Saban says his career changed when he switched from being a transactional leader to a transformational leader. He said earlier in his career, he was transactional: Everything for him was about winning and losing. When they won, he patted people on the back, and when they lost, he was critical in holding them accountable.
Coach Saban's approach changed when he was coaching a 4-5 Michigan State team that was preparing to play the number 1 team in the country. He didn't think they had any chance to win, and after a meeting with a psychologist, Coach Saban said he decided to become a transformational leader, someone his players could emulate. He showed his care for his players and for what they could get out of it, not what he could get out of it. He said he created a strong vision for what they wanted to accomplish and how they were going to do it, and they created value-based principles that would help his athletes be successful in life.
They focused on winning one play at a time, and they actually won the game. Coach Saban changed his career by becoming a transformational leader focused on values and helping people become the best they could be.
THE CASE FOR TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP
Brett Ledbetter is a thinking partner with some of the best coaches, athletes, and leaders in sports, and he says the greatest leaders he has been around don’t care about legacy, they only care about doing the best they can and elevating the people around them. He says the best he’s been around don’t even think about being a transformational coach.
When asked what coaches can do to add value as transactional leaders, Brett said the goal is to add value to their athlete’s dreams. Help your athletes identify what they want to accomplish and what their vision for themselves is, and help them work through what they are starting to strive for. Then, help them identify what they need to say yes to and what they need to say no to to begin the journey towards becoming who they want to become.
Brett says wanting to be a transformational leader is all about you. If you want to be a partner in their dreams, that is all about them and they feel that energy. The transformation is a by-product of your relationship.
Which way is right? Should you be a transformational or transactional leader? Which style is about you, and which style is about them?
What if we took the best qualities from both leadership styles, and combined them?
What if we could be transformational leaders who utilize transactions to grow and maximize the experiences of the people we lead?
We could do this by learning what our people value, their hopes, and their dreams, and then show them how to make it happen by growing and developing them, providing real-time feedback, and holding them accountable.
Reflection Questions
1 - Are you more of a transactional or transformational leader?
2 - When is being a transactional leader more beneficial?
3 - When is being a transformational leader more beneficial?