Transactional Leadership Style

Thank you for taking the Leadership Styles Questionnaire. A Transactional Leadership Style is often associated with a fair trade. I put in the hours and I get a paycheck out of it. Leaders who lean on transactional leadership can motivate their team with rewards, but often lose out on the meaningful connections that keep the environment healthy.

Strengths

  • You can elevate people for short bursts that give you the freedom to fix larger problems.

  • You connect well with reward oriented people who generally are not looking for life transformation but simply want a slightly better workday. Identify these people and you can serve them well.

  • You flexibly maintain priorities and policies by working with people to both support them and the organization.

  • You are the best at seeing the grey while navigating people and situations, while others only see the black and white.

Blindspots

  • By engaging in transaction based exchanges, you can yield too much influence as a leader and limit your ability to move the team towards goals or to inspire people to reach their full potential.

  • Transactional leadership tends to focus on rewards, which can lead you to missing out on connecting with people learning for a deeper purpose in work, greater work satisfaction, etc.

  • You can view your influence as “buying performance”, which can lessen the empathy you possess.

  • By consistently focusing on the short-term, you can miss the bigger picture of what is really going on.

Resources

  • Start With Why by Simon Sinek

  • Drive by Daniel Pink

  • Leadership + Self Deception by the Arbinger Institute