Page 92 - E2 Integrated Workbook STUDENT 2018

Chapter 6

Recent thinking on leadership

9.1 Transformational/transactional leadership – Bennis

Transactional leaders – these leaders see the relationship with their followers in
terms of a trade: they give followers the rewards they want in exchange for service,
loyalty and compliance.

Transformational leaders – see their role as inspiring and motivating others to work
at levels beyond mere compliance. Only transformational leadership is said to be
able to change team/organisational cultures and move them in a new direction.

Transactional leaders tend to be more passive, transformational leaders more
proactive.

9.2 Skills required by transformational leaders

The new kind of transformational leader needs a different range of skills (Boyd):

 anticipatory skills – providing foresight in a constantly changing environment

 visioning skills – persuasion and example can be used to induce the group to
act in accordance with the leader’s purpose or the shared purpose of a larger
group

 value-congruence skills – the leader should be in touch with individuals’
economic, psychological, physical and other important needs

 empowerment skills – the willingness to share power and to do so effectively

 self-understanding – the leader understands his or her own needs and goals as
well as those of the followers.

9.3 Distributed leadership

Another more modern perspective on leadership is distributed leadership. While
traditional leadership has been viewed as the role of one person in charge of others,
a distributed, or shared, leadership perspective recognises that there are multiple
leaders. This will be looked at in more detail in the building, leading and managing
teams chapter.

86