A Self-Reflection of Myself and the Areas I Want to Improve to Have a Transactional Leadership Style and Become a Transformational Leader

One of the most important ways to learn oneself is by self-awareness. Through the residency that was conducted in Denver, Colorado, I was able to find the areas that I was more of a transformational leader versus a transactional leader. The analysis of my results for the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) Testing, showed specific characteristics of a transformational leader within the four areas of Idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration while showing areas of improvement. Being a sales manager, it is important I show more of a transformational leadership style for my followers to strive within the workforce. Within this paper, it is a self-reflection of myself as well as areas I want to improve to not only have a transactional leadership style but also be more of a transformational leader for my leads.

Everyone is unique in offering something different to this world especially with his or her leadership roles. This can be within the workforce, within their community, or within school. People have their own viewpoints of what leadership is in terms of actions. Leadership is known as a process where an individual is able to help people achieve a common goal. Transformational and transactional leadership styles are known to be the most effective within the workforce and in everyday life. Transformational leaders focus on the four components of the leadership model, which include idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Transactional leaders, on the other hand, focus more contingent reward and are more direct with getting the work done. There are times that a person might be more transformational than others are or more transactional if necessary. As a leader, one needs to have specific traits to encourage innovation, creativity, while finding changes to embed more of a transformational leadership style.

Conduct a self-evaluation in which you identify your tendencies to be a transformational leader, a transactional leader, or both types of leader. Describe the contingent situations that may cause you to be more transformational or more transactional in your leadership practices.

Depending on where a person works can rely on the type of leadership style they might have. Working in sales type atmosphere, requires one to have a transactional leadership style in telling one what they need to do. For instance, in sales one reaches a specific number, they would be able to get that much money as their salary. While working with one of the workers, their goal might be to make $75,000 a year while knowing how to reach that. As a transactional leader, I would be direct with this individual to let them know what they need to do to get there. They would have specific number to reach weekly, monthly to get that type of salary. If the team is struggling and we are not reaching our weekly goals, I as the supervisor would have to tell my subordinates get two sales a week or you will be written up. Because this a performance based job, it is my duty to be as upfront as possible.

Even though being direct is highly recommended within this culture, MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Rich (2001) recommends sales leaders integrate transformational leadership into their transactional styles. Within their research, they discussed that sales leaders need to work on clearly having a vision while helping the associates with a goal, and providing support to followers In this case, being the leader will involve discussing goals for specific individual, areas for skill development, and having supervision hours while showing a balance between human and professional behavior. By doing this, this will help the staff to grow and be a more successful salesperson.

Compare the results of your self-evaluation against the four components of the transformational leadership model. To what extent would others describe your leadership practices as being compatible with Idealized Influence, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, and/or Individualized Consideration?

After taking the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) Testing, measured a broad range of leadership styles from one being a passive leader to a leader than transform their followers into becoming a leader themselves. The MLQ identified specific characteristics of a transformational leader while showing how our skills measure up in our eyes and the eyes of those we work with. Transformational leaders would be expected to inspire and lead by example (idealized influence), motivate followers through challenges, optimism, and enthusiasm (inspirational motivation), facilitate innovation and creativity (intellectual stimulation), and remain intuitive to followers’ individual growth needs (individualized consideration) (Bass & Riggio, 2006). By looking at my results, there are many areas that describe my leadership practices as being compatible with inspirational motivation. This focuses on more of a leader being able to create a shared vision that motivates one’s followers to push themselves to reach higher levels. In this case, it would be the employees’ numbers. Transformational leaders have a charismatic element, which inspires followers to commit to a shared vision and goal. I help them find a goal that is decent to reach but still a little challenging for them. On the other hand, there are areas of improvement for me. For instance, Bass and Riggio (2006) noted followers are encouraged to try new and creative approaches as apart of his intellectual stimulation component. Being the sales manager, I need to help my team find different ways of speaking to customers. Talent does not involve intelligence but involves finding one’s self. Thinking outside the box is one of the most important attributes any employee can give to their employer. It is about doing something different while taking chances. If an employee does not take risk and try something new, the company would be the same and would not manage to grow. Being a leader, this is one thing I want my followers to do.

As a leader, how do you encourage innovation, creativity and responsible risk taking among those you lead? Provide specific examples of how you challenge the status quo and encourage innovative thinking in others.

As a leader, it is important to encourage innovation, creativity, and risk taking among the followers. The way I manage to do this is allow those I lead, to make mistakes and try new things. It is not about me telling them what to do and how to do it, but giving them the flexibility to try new techniques. Within the sales position, one cannot have the same approach to everything. It starts with myself by leading with example and being respectful to my followers. Be allowing the employees to come up with new strategies and techniques, it allows them to feel involved within the workforce. This is where having trainings or workshops conducted by the leads on their specialty, they can teach others.

What specific changes could you make in your leadership practices to be more transformational and less transactional? How will you know if you are successful in making these changes?

Much of being a transformational leader is within oneself. The best way for myself to make changes within my leadership practices involves making small changes weekly and working on them. For instance, transformational leaders facilitate innovation and creativity (intellectual stimulation). Within the workforce, it is important to come up with new ideas to keep the employees engaged in what is going on. Employee satisfaction is one of the key components to having low turnover rates and retaining the best employees. Employee satisfaction and engagement are related to meaningful business outcomes at a magnitude that is important to many organizations and that these correlations generalize across companies (Wanous, Reichers, & Hudy, 1997).

Conclusion

The best way for anyone to learn is from the mistakes they make. Self-awareness gives a peron a chance to think about themselves and how they might want to improve within their life, how they raise their children, and what they see themselves doing for the rest of their lives. Transformational leader is one of the most effective techniques in leadership styles that employers can use for their employees. This involves allowing followers to ask for advice, create new ideas, and give them the encouragement to push themselves within the workforce. This involves the employees having a vision for the future and where they see themselves being.

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