So it Occurred to Me After Lecture

Recently, during a lecture I was in, a professor at my school described and discussed two kinds of leadership: Transactional and Transformational.  Transactional leaders are concerned with efficient transfer of information to the end of increasing productivity, while a transformational leader is dominated by their empathy for those they lead.

As the definitions of each type of leader became more in depth, the more juxtaposed they seemed to me. It was therefore unsurprising that some scholars list these two styles as mutually exclusive.  I have had the opportunity to observe two leaders whom could very easily be described as singularly transactional or singularly transformative, respectively.

The situations created by each leader seem to match the theoretical projections of their workforce word for word. The transactional leader on my team appears to everyone as the “hard ass,” he holds deadlines with an iron grip and really doesn't want to be bothered by you unless you have an issue or update. He communicates with clockwork precision, and unsurprisingly he leads the largest and most productive area of our team. Equally as unsurprising, however, there is little to no camaraderie on his sub-team. Recently he assigned a deadline that was short, to say the least. To complete it would have been both very difficult and very lucrative for the team. Unfortunately, no one put in the extra effort to meet this deadline at such short notice. He reacted harshly and questioned everyone’s dedication to the team. He came to me and complained about everyone’s apathy and lack of ability to follow simple directions. I realize now that these students are on the team of their free will and don’t enjoy dealing with him, so they simply don’t. His group can easily be tracked on paper, but I think in the end they aren’t going to pull through and get everything done on time, mostly because they don’t have the love for the team that is required to put up with a manager like that.

Our Transformational leader is as disjointed as he is passionate. He wants everyone under his wing to be the next Carroll Smith (a world-renowned racing car expert) and walks over hot coals to get everyone on his team amped up and focused. Unfortunately, he lacks most organization. Areas of his system are being neglected, and there will need to be some serious eleventh-hour work to get everything done, but I have absolute confidence that it will. The term I would use to describe his constituents is ‘addicted.’ They willingly spend long hours working on the projects, prioritizing them higher than schoolwork, recreation, and often times simple needs like sleep and food.  They want their systems to be cutting edge (and I am confident that they will be) but the peripheral components of their project will suffer because they are falling through the cracks in planning.

Which leadership style is more effective? It depends how forward you want to look. Our transactional leader will get this year’s project built, but I am concerned about member retention for next year. The transformational leader will boost retention through the roof, but his subsystem will get done at great personal cost to those involved. 

Tripping Face-First into Wisdom

I recently read a decade-old article by Daniel Goleman in the Harvard Business Review, titled “What Makes a Leader?”  The article discusses the facets of emotional intelligence- a skill not directly defined, but described through five ‘components,’ one of which being self-awareness. Goleman discusses knowing one’s limits and capabilities as a vital part of being a leader, and recounts specific events where self-awareness has benefited those he has observed.

When discussing ‘knowing one’s limits’ (as far as skill, productivity, knowledge, etc.) Goleman stresses that someone with good self-awareness both won’t allow him or herself to over-stretch when it comes to work, and then redundantly claims that he or she won’t accept tasks where failure is certain.

The first bone I have to pick is with the usefulness of claiming that someone with good self-awareness won’t shoot his or herself in the foot by committing to something where success is known to be impossible. I know for a fact that I can’t eat an entire steel-belted tire, therefore you will never see me with a nice Goodyear on my lunch plate. I applaud you, Lieutenant Obvious.

My next qualm is with the stress placed on ensuring you stay below one’s limits. Grave injury and complete financial ruin are certainly to be avoided, but in order to succeed you can't be scared. In my experience being cautious is not the best way to go about truly maximizing capability or productivity.

I assert that knowing your limits for certain requires exceeding them, even if only occasionally. This requirement stems in part from the inaccuracy of situational modeling and the novelty of the present. No matter how much you calculate, how thoroughly you recount experiences or how intimately you know a certain task, all aspects of a challenge will not be tabulated. Something will always be missed in your assessment, and the way to most effectively and quickly learn (and remember) what was forgotten is to attempt the task sans fear.

Another reason to commit headlong is the fluidity with which human beings change. People are such a complex system that small changes in the environment or timing of other unrelated situations can vastly change a person’s productivity. You may not yet know how you will perform in the current situation. The way to learn is, again, to go for it.

This is not an exercise in futility. I believe that you will learn several times more about your capabilities by failure than by just barely accomplishing something. A failure now will serve you more in the future than many successes.

I leave you with this simple concept to mull over: You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd.