Leadership concepts and applications

Transformational leadership theory, according to one of the founding theorists Bernard Bass, occurs when a leader "transforms, or changes, his or her followers in three important ways that together result in followers trusting the leader, performing behaviors that contribute to the achievement of the organizational goals, and being motivated to perform at a high level." (NOTATION). The three primary ways that a transformational leader accomplishes these performance enhancements are through the following three mechanisms. First, increasing subordinate awareness of the importance of their tasks and the importance of performing. Second, make subordinates aware of their needs for personal growth, development and accomplishment. Finally, motivate subordinates to work for the good of the organization rather than exclusively for their own personal gain and benefit. The transformational leader can leverage their existing staff to create value growth internally. The specific application of the transformational leader perspective to the described situation yields interesting results.

Mr. Manager is evidently a very kind-hearted and fun individual who believes in a management style that is very relaxed and focused on maintaining status quo relationships among employees. From the transformational leadership perspective, his specific purpose is to leverage strong relationships with his employees in order to promote a constant sphere of discourse. The positive of his laid-back technique is that employees are willing to approach him about problems. When the professional staff could not manage the para-professionals, he/she naturally turned to Mr. Manager to resolve the conflict. This implicitly shows that as a result of his relaxed and friendly leadership style, he is approachable to his staff. Although he is very strong in building initial relationships with his staff, from a transformational leadership perspective he fails to accomplish the three methods to enrich the organization. First, his relationship-based leader style ignores the fact that he must educate his employees on the importance of their specific function and the importance of their jobs. The consequences of having a MR/DD patient injured is subsequent suspensions as well as firing and other severe punishments. Despite these severe consequences the para-professional staff were still not attentive to detail, this suggests that Mr. Manager does not clearly emphasize the importance of their position. Secondly, Mr. Manager has relied on his relationships to create an air of openness but avoids confrontation. As a result, he never actively directs his staff on how to improve themselves and their level of service. This means that at best, his staff remains at the status quo level and never fully grows beyond their current capacities. From the transformational leadership perspective this is a stringent violation because it destroys the fundamental principle of elevating staff beyond their current level. Finally, Mr. Manager also fails to utilize his leverage as a manager to instill the concept of "organization first" within his employees. However, the fact that the professional staff are willing to confide in him when there are serious breaches within conduct suggest that he has instilled some loyalty within his staff. Overall, Mr. Manager fails as a transformational leader within the hierarchy described above.

In order to improve his leadership, Mr. Manager needs to take on several different agendas. First, he must approach all of his staff on the basis of his strong relationship with them to attempt to understand their specific on-the-job concerns. He must then follow this process by proactively encouraging and identifying the areas of improvement that each staff member has, and explain to them the implications of their actions so that they realize the seriousness and importance of their work. Finally, he needs to utilize his repoir with these individuals to fully exploit an organization first perspective from all of his employees.

The transactional leader differs from the transformational leader in that they are based in contingency. In that reward or punishment is contingent upon performance. Transactional leaders work through creating structures whereby it is clear what is required of their subordinates. They use a clear punishment and reward structure to get individuals to obey their instructions. Applying transactional leadership to Mr. Manager shows clear correlations. There are clearly defined punishments in relations to how professionals and para-professionals operate within this field. Those who do not follow protocol that results in the injury and accident of an MR/DD patient will be subject to termination, suspension, and other severe consequences. Mr. Manager does not take a proactive step in helping his staff realize their errors, and thus he relies on their knowledge of existing punishments as a deterrent and impetus for working harder. Mr. Manager however, fails as a complete transactional leader because he does not consistently remind his staff the clear structure in which they work. As a result, his employees are not fully aware of the severe consequences of their actions. When a transactional leader allocates work to a subordinate, they are considered to be fully responsible for it. Mr. Manager however, shifts the burden upon both the professional and para-professional, and the ambiguous nature in which he operates his instructions and duties conflicts with the transactional leadership perspective. The effective transactional leader uses "management by exception," which means that as long as something is operating to defined performance standards than it does not need to be monitored. This formulaic conception of management is evident in Mr. Manager's style when he does not actively pursue troublesome aspects of the para-professional's work habits. The result was that three individuals were punished for their neglectful actions. The transactional leadership style has severe limitations, however they also have strengths in that they help create a defined structure for all employees to operate.