Full transcript
0:00- We are going to look at the transactional leadership style
0:03and the transformational leadership style.
0:06We're gonna compare these head-to-head,
0:08and I'm basing this almost all
0:09on Johnson and Hackman's book on leadership.
0:12I will put a link to that in the description
0:14below this video.
0:15So let's get into the details.
0:17(lively rock music)
0:22I've been talking a lot about leadership lately.
0:25In fact, I have three related videos
0:26I wanted to tell you about.
0:28The first is on the traits approach to leadership.
0:31The second is on the transformational approach.
0:33That's a solo video
0:35just on the transformational approach to leadership.
0:37And the third is a solo video
0:39on the transactional approach to leadership.
0:41And I'll put links to all three of those videos
0:44in that section below this one.
0:45But in this video, we're going to compare and contrast
0:48transactional and transformational leadership side-by-side
0:52so you can see how these two relate to each other.
0:54So here we go.
0:55So James McGregor Burns years ago
0:58wrote a book called "Leadership."
0:59And he looked at these two leadership styles
1:02by using Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
1:05And there are five levels to the Maslow's hierarchy.
1:08And what he said was that transactional leaders
1:11were really in the business of helping followers
1:13meet those three lower level needs on the hierarchy.
1:17So these leaders are most concerned with satisfying
1:20the *physiological*, safety and belonging needs
1:22of their followers.
1:23And it's an exchange.
1:25The leader exchanges the pursuit of these rewards,
1:29these needs, with good performance, good outcome.
1:32So if the followers are doing a good job,
1:35the leader does what he or she can to satisfy these needs.
1:38If the follower does not do a good job,
1:41then the leader may take these away from them,
1:44they may not support the pursuit of these three needs.
1:47One of the concepts, a couple of the concepts,
1:50that go with this were developed
1:52by Bernard Bass and his associates.
1:54He called these transactional factors,
1:56and the first is a contingent reward.
1:58So the approach here is that the leader
2:00looks at performance and then rewards good performance.
2:05It's the reward is only there
2:07if it's tied to that good performance.
2:09And the reverse is also true.
2:11It's called management-by-exception.
2:13The leader will step in and will punish poor performance.
2:17They'll give corrective action and feedback
2:19for bad performance.
2:20So you reward the good, you punish the bad,
2:23and it's all a transaction.
2:26Here are a few examples of this.
2:27Bill Belichick from the New England Patriots
2:30is an infamous transactional leader.
2:32He's won a bunch of Super Bowls,
2:34he's won even more games.
2:36So this leadership style can be effective,
2:38but he is very known for simple rewards and punishments.
2:41If you do a good job, you keep your position,
2:44you get to start, you get to play.
2:46If you don't do a good job, then you get benched,
2:49you become a second stringer, you get let go from the team.
2:52They have an expression on the Patriots, "Do your job."
2:56This is a classic transactional leadership philosophy.
3:00You do your job, things work out.
3:01You don't do your job, we get someone else who will do it.
3:05So it's easy to blow off this transactional approach
3:07as being old school and ineffective,
3:09but here we have a coach of the NFL
3:12who's won more Super Bowls than anybody.
3:15So you can't really blow off this style
3:17as ineffective or outdated
3:19because it still does work under certain circumstances.
3:22Another one is a fictitious example, is Magneto.
3:26If you've ever watched the "X-Men,"
3:27Magneto is very much about moving forward,
3:30accomplishing the goals for the people that are around him,
3:33the X-Men that around him.
3:35It's very task-oriented,
3:36if you're off the team, you're off the team.
3:37He doesn't have a lot of bad feelings about that.
3:40He just moves forward.
3:42We'll contrast him with Professor X later.
3:44And the third one, the one I really wanna talk about,
3:46is Johnny Lawrence from "Cobra Kai."
3:50This is from the show "Cobra Kai,"
3:52which is sort of a sequel to "Karate Kid."
3:56So Johnny Lawrence is a very interesting figure,
3:59but he is a leader.
4:01There's no doubt about it.
4:02He organizes his dojo around some very basic
4:04leadership philosophies that are all transactional.
4:08For example, we don't see him much caring
4:10for the physiological needs of his people,
4:13like food, shelter, clothing,
4:14but he does provide safety.
4:16When he teaches his students karate,
4:18they can protect themselves.
4:20And also, he's all about this belonging.
4:23I wouldn't say it's about love and belonging,
4:25but it's about belonging.
4:26Once you're on Cobra Kai, you are a member of the team,
4:29you have the other team members who have your backs.
4:32They're definitely a group,
4:34a certain kind of dysfunctional group, but they are a group.
4:37And if you're part of that group, great.
4:39If you don't play by his rules, he kicks you out.
4:41Like he makes a lot of students leave in the first episodes
4:45because they just don't fit Cobra Kai.
4:47And so he's a very transactional leader,
4:49but he can be an effective leader nonetheless.
4:51If you're doing well,
4:52you get trophies for winning tournaments.
4:54If you're doing poorly, you do pushups.
4:57You know, there's a consequence,
4:59reward for good performance,
5:00punishment for bad performance.
5:02That's all transactional.
5:04So let's turn now to transformational leadership.
5:08This is where leaders,
5:09according to Burns and his book "Leadership,"
5:11engaged the followers on all five levels of the hierarchy.
5:16So these leaders are still trying to help followers fulfill
5:19those lower levels and accomplish those successfully,
5:23but they're also trying to help followers fulfill
5:26those next two level needs, those higher levels,
5:29that esteem and self-actualization.
5:32So they're trying to empower followers
5:34to feel good about themselves by reinforcing
5:37those inner feelings that the follower has,
5:39of competence, respect, self-worth,
5:43and providing external feedback and recognition
5:46to support self-esteem.
5:49And on the top level is self-actualization.
5:52They are providing support and encouraging
5:54followers' pursuit of self-actualization and the desire
5:57to become the best person they can possibly become.
6:02Let's look at some examples.
6:04Ann Hathaway from the movie "The Intern"
6:06is a great example of this in film.
6:09She's a very young CEO, but she has vision.
6:12She wants to create an amazing, different kind of company.
6:15She even invests in her aging intern
6:19played by Robert de Niro.
6:21So he's a guy who came out of retirement
6:23to just do something interesting.
6:25She spends a lot of time with him,
6:26invests in the relationship.
6:27She wants to, even though this guy is older
6:29and almost retired again, become all he can be.
6:32She's a special kind of CEO that wants to do great things
6:36with her company, great things with her people.
6:38She's helping them reach those higher level needs
6:41of the hierarchy.
6:42Professor X, or Professor Xavier, from the "X-Men"
6:45is another excellent example and a counterpoint to Magneto.
6:49So he has a school that's for gifted youngsters.
6:53These are mutants basically,
6:55but he wants them to become well-rounded people,
6:58to explore their gifts, to literally become everything
7:01they're possibly capable of becoming.
7:04He provides safety and belonging in his school,
7:08but he also helps them to feel good about themselves
7:10and wants them to stretch into the best people
7:13they can be in the long run.
7:15And finally, the one I really want to talk about,
7:18Daniel LaRusso.
7:20This is the "Karate Kid," the original,
7:22and on this show "Cobra Kai,"
7:24he now has his own karate school, Miyagi-Do Karate.
7:28And Daniel LaRusso is much like Mr. Miyagi.
7:32Mr. Miyagi said to him in the original movie,
7:35"We make a sacred pact.
7:36I promise to teach you karate, you promise to learn."
7:39So you still see the exchange happening there.
7:42That's a transaction,
7:44but Mr. Miyagi wanted to take things to the next level
7:47and invest in the whole person.
7:48He does this frequently by talking about balance.
7:51Mr. Miyagi said, "The lesson is not just about karate only.
7:55It's a lesson about your whole life.
7:57When your whole life has a balance,
7:59everything will be better."
8:01He invests in Daniel LaRusso's self-esteem.
8:04He invests in Daniel becoming the best possible person
8:08he can become.
8:08And this is exactly the same teaching approach
8:11that Daniel LaRusso takes in "Cobra Kai" with his students.
8:14He has a fewer number of students.
8:17He invests in their whole life.
8:18And you see him passing on this lesson of balance
8:22to his students very carefully, very deliberately.
8:25He's helping them become all they can be.
8:27He is a transformational leader.
8:30So he's satisfying those lower levels of the hierarchy,
8:34but he's also helping them to meet those higher levels
8:37of the hierarchy, which qualifies him
8:38as a transformational leader.
8:40And there are some key characteristics
8:42of transformational leadership.
8:44I go into these in more depth in that video,
8:47that's dedicated to transformational leaders.
8:49I'll put a link to that in the description below.
8:51But briefly, here are the top five.
8:53Transformational leaders are creative.
8:56They really think outside of the box.
8:58They often go against the norms and the standards
9:01of a given industry or organization to do something new.
9:04They're interactive.
9:05They engage their followers quite a bit.
9:07They talk to them.
9:08They interact with them daily, they are hands-on.
9:11They are free, visionary.
9:13They have a clear vision for the future
9:15and inspiring vision for the future
9:17that brings their followers along.
9:19Number four, they are empowering.
9:21So they really give their followers a lot of latitude
9:25to grow and to become all they can be.
9:27And they are, number five, passionate.
9:29They have a real excitement for their work.
9:32It's not just a job for these leaders,
9:34they're really into it.
9:35And that passion then bleeds out onto everybody else,
9:38and they get excited too.
9:40The goal of transformational leadership is to help transform
9:44followers into leaders themselves.
9:47Here's a critique of both of these.
9:49The transactional leadership style has some advantages.
9:53Clear structure, achievable goals.
9:55It can lead to high performance that we've seen,
9:57like Bill Belichick and some other transactional leaders.
10:00There's a very straightforward motivation,
10:02and it can be very efficient.
10:04The disadvantages of the transactional leadership approach
10:07is it's inflexible and rigid,
10:10can lack inspiration, and it can really limit
10:12the engagement of followers.
10:14In terms of the transformation leadership style,
10:16the advantages are, it taps into those higher level needs
10:20and more personal motivations of followers.
10:23It looks to empower and develop the whole person
10:26and to transform them into a leader themselves.
10:29And it can lead to amazing and even life-changing results.
10:33The disadvantages, because no approach is perfect,
10:36it can be very complex.
10:38And sometimes it represents a blurry collection
10:41of leadership attributes.
10:43That's one of the criticisms.
10:45It also might not be all that trainable.
10:47Some people think that transformation leaders
10:49are just that way, and you can't really teach it
10:52as a skill set.
10:53And the third is that charisma like this
10:56can be potentially abused.
10:58So sometimes transformational leaders
11:00have such personal charisma that it can blind people
11:03to their faults.
11:04So question of the day,
11:06which of these do you find most interesting and most useful?
11:09Which one do you see yourself in?
11:12I would love to hear your comments
11:13in that section below the video.
11:15I look forward to reading them all.
11:17So thanks, and I will see you soon.