Transactional Vs Transformational Leadership

Leadership is an essential task in management (Weihrich, et al., 2008), as it is an important factor that contributes enormously to the over-all wellbeing of the organisations (Odumeru & Ifeanyi, 2013). As stated by Cox (2001), transactional and transformational are two important types of leadership. The differentiation amongst these two types of leadership was initially made by Downton (1973), as cited in (Barnett, et al., 2001), and introduced by Burns (1978) in his descriptive work on political leaders.

Transformational Leaders

Transformational leadership is also defined as the way of influencing the employees by “broadening and elevating followers’ goals and providing them with confidence to perform beyond the expectations specified in

However, Gellis (2001) & Jude & Piccolo (2004) stated that both leadership styles cannot eliminate one another. In fact, good leaders demonstrate both transformational and transactional qualities (Judge & Piccolo, 2004), connecting the two styles together (Bryant, 2003; Rolfe, 2011).

According to Bensimon (1989) transactional leadership is considered as a two-way process of exchange. Leaders gather control because of their job position and their personality, but their power is controlled by the expectations of their followers. On the other hand, Bensimon (1989) consider transformational leadership as a one-way view process of exchange between the leaders and the followers.

Transformational leaders stimulate and inspire their followers to attain remarkable results (Robbins and Coulter, 2007). Transformational leaders listen to the followers concerns and developmental needs (Odumeru & Ifeanyi, 2013). On the contrary, transactional leaders concentrates more on the supervision role, organisation, and on the functioning of the group (Odomeru & Ifeanyi, 2013). Moreover, Odumeru & Ifeanyi (2013) continued to argue that in contrast to transformational leader, transactional leaders do not try to alter the future, but just want to maintain the things as they are. In opposition to transformational leadership, transactional leadership penalise poor

(Suilivan & Decker, 2001). Barbuto (2005); Hall et al., (2002); Judge & Piccolo, (2004); Kelly (2003); Simic (1998) points out four factors that make up transformational leadership. These consist of idealized influence or charisma, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration.

Idealized influence consists of developing confidence and trust and provides a role model that followers look for to imitate (Bono & Judge, 2004; Simic, 1998; Stone, et al., 2003). In health care setting staff nurses will abide by the charge nurse who can encourage and influence them so as to carry out change. Leaders are “respected, trusted and admired” (Bass, et al., 2003). Gellis (2001) related idealized influence to charisma. The relation between charismatic and transformational leadership is most visible in crisis situations (Kelly, 2003). This is evidently shown when performing a CPR (Burns,