Transactional Leadership and its Efficacy in Leading People

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Transactional Leadership and its Efficacy in Leading People
Transactional leadership involves the transaction or exchange between the leader and the subordinate. The transaction is often a punishment or a reward, which the leader offers in exchange for the subordinates' excellent or lousy performance. In general, transactional leaders define the duties of their subordinates and ensure they are effectively performed. If followers fail to perform well, they are punished and rewarded for efficient performance (Sultana et al. 3). Transactional leadership is also known as managerial leadership because it plays and focuses on similar roles to those of a manager, such as supervision, team leading, and ensuring good performance of the subordinates. The leadership style, in most cases, works best in the already existing organizational structure, goals, and culture that play a vital part in directing the leader and the subordinates where precisely to target their efforts (Kabeyi 191). This style uses three reward methods: the contingent reward, where subordinates are only rewarded when they meet their goal; active management by exception, where transactional leaders correct their subordinates when they make mistakes; and passive management by exception, where leaders do not correct their workers until the mistake or problem is severe (Sultana et al. 3). Ultimately, transactional leadership is the most effective leadership style though it has several shortcomings, and various recommendations have been adopted to improve the style in organizations.
One of the reasons why transactional leadership is the most effective leadership style is that it clearly defines the duties of the subordinates. Transactional leaders are often evident in their operation, what they expect from their followers, and the kind of performance they do not expect. Notably, they lay down the kind of duties they expect each person they lead to perform and the result of the actions of each subordinate, which is either a reward or a punishment. In other words, the transactional leaders' definition of the followers' duties makes work easier for them. They know what they need to do to get rewarded and avoid being punished by their leaders (Brahim et al. 10). The definition of duties also motivates subordinates and directs them towards achieving the organizational goals; transactional leaders can train and direct the subordinates towards accomplishing the set organizational goals. On the other hand, when the duties of the subordinates are defined, their impact on the organizational achievements are also defined, which plays are a significant part in motivating them and defining their self-determination towards achieving the organizational goals. Thus, transactional leadership also plays a significant role in maintaining order by defining duties that direct each subordinate towards their specific task and following the organizational structure and culture to perform duties (Sultana et al. 3).
The leadership style also plays a significant role in the improvement of productivity or performance. Every organization's goal is to improve its performance, which is only achieved with improved productivity. Therefore, the use of transactional leadership helps motivate subordinates using the reward-punishment system, making them perform better to avoid punishment and increase their incentives or rewards. Transactional leaders reward the excellent performing subordinates, which significantly motivates other poor performers to improve their performance, thus increasing organizational performance. Since the transactional approach also defines or clarifies each performer's goals and duties, productivity is improved as each subordinate is given the required resources to accomplish a task or duty (Asiimwe et al. 75). The leadership style also provides room for improvement under the active management by exception approach. The leader can correct the problems of the works done by the subordinate, which thus reduces the inefficient use of the resources and improves performance and productivity. The leadership also efficiently predicts the followers' performance and offers improvement if the performance is poor, which directly affects the organization's performance and productivity (Asiimwe et al.75).
On the other hand, the transitional leadership style has different shortcomings that lead to its failure in some organizations. The leadership style does not support innovativeness or creativity among the subordinates as the leader establishes their duties, processes, or procedures of performing tasks. The subordinates are also expected only to follow the transactional leader's procedures and avoid punishments for trying other protocols outside the leader's instruction, which may lead to punishm...