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School counselors are uniquely equipped to bridge the gaps between administration, teachers, parents, and students. As the demands placed on everyone in a school community increase, it's vital that we view and include school counselors as part of our leadership teams. Let's make sure we recognize all they do and put their strengths to work for our students! Here are 11 ways school counselors serve as leaders in your building.

1. School counselors recognize and showcase diversity.

In many buildings, school counselors are considered the "heart" of the school. They help create an inclusive environment that is respectful, welcoming, kind, and open to all.

2. School counselors develop community partnerships.

Counseling staff work collaboratively with universities, community colleges, technical schools, local unions, military reps, and apprentice programs to provide a variety of opportunities for students. They are especially vital in ensuring underserved and first-generation students have access to and the tools to reach all possible post-high school options.

3. School counselors help during difficult situations.

Strengths such as listening, reflecting, and high emotional intelligence make school counselors valuable allies when trying to get buy-in from staff or the greater community on difficult issues. Counselors foster a culture of change via strong lines of communication and valuing input from all parties involved.

4. School counselors maintain strong home-school connections.

Counselors tend to be the liaison for parents when it comes to communicating with the school. This leadership role is especially important when assisting families who are not familiar with the school setting or have issues trusting staff.

5. School counselors maximize educational success.

School counselors can help to maximize the educational attainment of all students by providing students with mental health services (school or community-based) and developmental guidance that takes a proactive approach in helping students set and reach academic goals.

6. School counselors lead staff trainings.

Administrators who use their counseling staff (rather than outside contractors) to lead building-wide trainings can save a lot of money and gain quicker buy-in from staff. School counselors are experts on topics such as student engagement, positive discipline, suicide/self-harm, students-as-leaders, peer mentoring programs, and academic/social interventions for low-performing students.

7. School counselors protect and advocate for disadvantaged students.

Counselors identify and amend policies and practices that negatively impact disadvantaged students and advocate for equitable services for all students.

8. School counselors use expertise to bring data to life.

Like administrators, counselors are trained in data collection and analysis. They are skilled at using this information to drive decisions about placement, intervention, and overall student health and wellbeing.

9. School counselors mediate difficult situations between parents/students and staff.

Counselors are consistently looking for ways to support the relationship between school staff and parents. Acting as a mediator when one or both parties are upset about a situation is a critical way in which school counselors serve as leaders.

10. School counselors organize and lead crisis response.

Counselors are on the front lines after a tragedy has happened in a school or community. Staff, students, parents, and community members look to the counselors for guidance and support immediately following an event. Because of their training in emotional/mental, the counseling staff is critical in advocating for and teaching self-care to staff, parents, and students during a crisis.

11. School counselors empower and inspire.

School counselors inherently believe in people and work tirelessly to communicate that. By being visible and accessible at all times, their calming, caring, and encouraging presence helps support and empower staff in the building.

School counselors serve as leaders in many ways and we need to value their perspectives and strengths. They are vital to building positive learning environments in which students thrive.
Join our Facebook group Principal Life for more conversation about and insights into the challenges of school leadership.

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11 Ways Your School Counselors Serve as Leaders - WeAreTeachers

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School counselors are uniquely equipped to bridge the gaps between administration, teachers, parents, and students. As the demands placed on everyone in a school community increase, it's vital that we view and include school counselors as part of our leadership teams. Let's make sure we recognize all they do and put their strengths to work for our students!

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The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

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Example of a great leader

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Pat is one of the founders of The Table Group and is the pioneer of the organizational health movement. He is the author of 11 books, which have sold over 6 million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages.

As President of the Table Group, Pat spends his time speaking and writing about leadership, teamwork, and organizational health and consulting with executives and their teams.

Prior to founding the firm in 1997, Pat worked at Bain & Company, Oracle Corporation and Sybase. Pat lives in the Bay Area with his wife and four boys.

Listen to Pat's Latest Podcasts

Real conversations with Pat about everything from organizational health and teamwork to culture and family, filled with his trademark mix of approachability and practical action steps.

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Pat is one of the founders of The Table Group and is the pioneer of the organizational health movement. He is the author of 11 books, which have sold over 6 million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages.

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What is transformational leadership? A model for motivating innovation

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The transformational leadership style inspires workers to embrace change by fostering a company culture of accountability, ownership, and workplace autonomy.

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There's no one-size-fits-all definition of leadership. Leaders can succeed with all types of personalities, education, and theories. One popular leadership style is servant leadership, which will become more familiar when you recognize its characteristics.

Think about the terms "socially responsible companies" or "participative management" styles. Organizations and managers who fit these descriptions are the ones who typically fit the mold of servant leadership.

Examples of servant leaders include Stephen Covey, author of "7 Habits of Highly Effective People," and Richard Murphy, a legendary youth development leader in New York City.

Servant leadership is "a philosophy and set of practices that enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organizations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world," according to the Center for Servant Leadership. If that evokes your ideal of socially responsible organizations, you're probably thinking of places where servant leadership is the norm.

Servant leadership is a classic concept, but the term was coined in 1970, when Robert K. Greenleaf published his essay, "The Servant as Leader." Greenleaf maintained, "The servant leader is servant first."

Greenleaf believed that organizations - not just individuals - could also be servant leaders. His second major essay, "The Institution as Servant," unequivocally reinforced that point.

Unlike authoritarian leaders, the servant leader does not depend on accumulating or exercising power within a company. Instead, the servant leader:

Considers the needs of employees first. Servant leaders focus on satisfying the highest-priority needs of others. Servant leaders feel a strong sense of caring and responsibility for their staff.

Commits to helping employees develop expertise and improve performance. Servant leaders prioritize the personal and professional development of others, ensuring they build their knowledge base and professional skills.

Insists that the organization make a positive contribution to society. While not losing their focus on a healthy bottom line, servant leaders make sure an organization improves its community, region, and nation.

Many theories and curricula tend to focus on three classic leadership styles:

Authoritarian. This leader accumulates power and uses it to manage and lead the organization. Employees typically must follow strict rules and procedures with little deviation.

Participative. This leader empowers employees to be creative, offers suggestions and opinions, and encourages subordinates to provide input on senior management decisions.

Laissez-faire. Loosely translated from the French, laissez-faire means "let them do as they will." According to BusinessDictionary.com, these leaders discard authoritarian conventions, give minimal guidance to employees at all levels and leave subordinates alone to do their jobs as they see fit.

Servant leadership most closely resembles participative leadership. While history often cites few examples of any management theories beyond autocratic, or authoritarian, leadership until the 1950s or 1960s, servant leadership is actually an ancient approach. Lao-Tzu referenced servant leadership in the classic Chinese text "Tao Te Ching" as early as 500 BC.

There is no perfect leadership theory or technique. Leading as a servant comes with certain advantages and some downsides. Understanding the pros and cons of any philosophy is crucial to any leadership style you adopt.

Pros

Servant leadership can improve an organization and/or society over the long term.

Caring treatment of employees often encourages similar treatment of the organization's customers and vendors.

Servant leaders attract employee trust, which can improve the credibility of the organization's brand.

Servant leadership typically develops a positive corporate culture and can correct a prevailing negative culture over time.

This leadership style encourages and motivates high performance from employees.

Cons

Servant leadership requires time to achieve positive results.

Critics such as Deborah Eicher-Catt believe this leadership style is vastly overrated and gender discriminatory.

While servant leadership may not be a perfect fit in every situation, the style remains popular and is attracting more fans among organizational leaders. This leadership style is building a track record of success among managers who focus on improving their people and their community.

Sources:

Paul Schmitz, " Richard Murphy: A Powerful Example of Servant Leadership "

" What is Servant Leadership?," Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership

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What is Servant Leadership? - St. Thomas Online

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There's no one-size-fits-all definition of leadership. Leaders can succeed with all types of personalities, education, and theories. One popular leadership style is servant leadership, which will become more familiar when you recognize its characteristics. Think about the terms "socially responsible companies" or "participative management" styles.

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Must-Haves!

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Successful leadership is this generation's Holy Grail. Wherever we turn, there are leadership courses, coaching, and success stories all describing a strong and charismatic manager or leader who calls the shots and propels a company into the stratosphere.

But is that image of leadership missing something? According to a recent Gallup study, the answer is yes. Gallup found that only one in four employees "strongly agree" that they are provided with meaningful feedback, and only 21% of employees "strongly agree" they are managed in a way that "motivates them to do outstanding work".

What is Servant Leadership?

The idea of servant leadership is ancient. Philosophers such as Lao Tzu, Chanakya, Cicero, Plutarch and Xenophon reference and explore it in their writings. It surfaces in many religious texts, such as the Bible. But it was Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970 who coined the term in his essay "The Servant as Leader":

A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the "top of the pyramid," servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.
In short, servant leadership principles emphasize facilitation and helping employees grow and harness their maximum potential, empowering both individual team members and the company to be successful.
Exploring the Concept of Servant Leadership

From forty years of researched management, education, and development Greenleaf wrote "The Servant and the Leader". During this time, he became concerned that the traditional authoritarian and autocratic model of corporate leadership wasn't actually working. Instead, he thought the most successful leaders focused on serving their team and bringing out the best in them.
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To spread his message, he founded the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership and worked with companies for many years helping them to develop servant leaders. In 1998, writer and philosopher Larry Spears distilled Greenleaf's ideas into ten key servant leadership traits: listening, empathy, stewardship, foresight, persuasion, conceptualization, awareness, healing, commitment to the growth and development of people, and building community.

Greenleaf and Spears are not alone in challenging commonly accepted views of what makes a great leader.

After researching the history of 15 outstanding companies and comparing them to their peers, Jim Collins concluded in his book Good to Great that the best leaders were modest and self-effacing, rather than the stereotypical 'charismatic' and autocratic CEO. .
In their writings on successful companies and great leadership, both Collins and Greenleaf placed enormous value on creating an open environment where employees are empowered, respected, and invited to share their opinions and insights. Unsurprisingly, such an environment pays dividends in the form of engaged and motivated employees who can unite together to work toward the company's goals.

However, servant leadership has its pitfalls:

While it encourages shared responsibility between the everyone, it may be difficult in times of crisis or tight deadlines to consult with everyone or rely on group consensus. Cultivating servant leadership in your company will also often require a huge shift in individual employees' attitudes and the overall company culture. It takes time, dedicated resources, and support from people at every level of a company to actively work toward promoting servant leaders and a servant leadership model.
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But just because something is difficult doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done. So if your company is committed to adopting servant leadership characteristics and reaping the rewards, here are some tips and best practices.

Servant Leadership: 5 Must-Have Principles

As mentioned above, the main servant leadership traits are:

- empathy, healing

- commitment to the growth and development of people, foresight, stewardship

- listening, persuasion

- building community

- conceptualization, awareness

The five must-have servant leadership principles are:

1. Support your team

Ensure your team members have all the support, knowledge, skills and resources that they need to do their jobs. If they don't, do what you can to assist them, whether that's adding a new team member or providing tailored training or coaching. A great tool to help you support your team is the regular one-on-one meeting, which allows your employees an opportunity to let you know when they need assistance or discuss any current issues or challenges.

You should also focus on creating an open and honest environment where team members can easily raise and discuss issues, and provide them with all the tools they need to support communication. You can do this in Status by creating an open topic encouraging team members to talk about their pain points.

2. Grow your people

Commit to the growth of your people by encouraging their professional and personal development. Try to learn as much as possible about each team member's skills and their goals and aspirations, and draw upon this knowledge when assigning roles or tasks. At a certain point in your team members' development, it's also critical to challenge them to implement what they've learned by providing them with more responsibility and accountability. Let them know that it's up to them to meet their targets or achieve the desired project results, but that you're happy to support them as they learn.
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So instead of pitching in or micromanaging and robbing them of the opportunity to learn how to solve a problem, step back and focus on coaching and mentoring. This includes giving and receiving regular feedback on their performance, including honest feedback when things go wrong.
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One way to do this is to implement a private daily or weekly report so that you can both keep track of what's been done, and the team member has a private space in which they can ask you questions.

Don't forget to also celebrate achievements!

3. Listen

It can be difficult to step back and let others learn and fail and perhaps do things in a different way to how you might have done them. This is particularly the case if you've always been a perfectionist. But part of being a servant leader is letting go of an autocratic approach. Instead, try to embrace servant leadership activities and actions such as seeking the opinions of your team members on big decisions, particularly where those decisions involve their own work, and consider any relevant feedback.

Learn to set aside your beliefs and preconceptions and listen to their suggestions. When you do make decisions, take the time to explain the reasoning behind it to your team. While this may be difficult and time-consuming in the short-term, in the long run, it will create a transparent and respectful environment that builds trust.

4. Build a community

Share your company's goals and mission and how everyone's efforts contribute to the bigger picture. Try to find a balance between focusing on the team's short-term KPIs or daily accomplishments and the company's overall longer-term goals. To do this, you'll have to keep on top of everything that's going on in the company, so having your team leads provide you with a weekly or monthly report may help.

When everyone understands how their current work is contributing toward the company's mission, it can be incredibly motivating. As part of this, encourage your team members and employees to help each other reach their individual and team goals. This not only encourages responsibility, it also helps the team and your company to grow together. You can support this by encouraging both team and interdepartmental communication.

5. Reflect and learn

Take time to regularly learn from past experiences, both as a team and individually. At a team level, it's a good idea to reflect at the end of every project or regularly throughout the year on what went well and what could have gone better so the team can improve and grow.

At an individual level, you should also regularly reflect on your own strengths, weaknesses, values and leadership skills. This includes asking for direct feedback from your team members and learning from them, and in general building a culture of two-way communication where constructive criticism is freely given and received.

Effective leadership is all about communicating effectively.
Status.net is a cloud solution for effective leadership communication. It brings a more light-hearted tone to messaging making it easily digestible, and makes it easy for leaders to provide and receive updates regularly.

How to use status.net to improve leadership communication:

1. Build trust and improve leadership communication by sharing status updates, company goals and objectives regularly.

2. Easily implement regular status updates for your team members by creating status feeds such as "How did you contribute to the team's goals this week?" or "Do you have any obstacles?".

3. Create automated scheduled questionnaires with questions like "How can we improve?".

4. No one forgets to fill in status updates because status.net sends automated reminders according to the recurrence schedule you chose.

5. Provide guidance and feedback:
Each status update has a separate section forcomments, which is used by team members to clarify information and by leaders to provide guidance and feedback in context.

6. Optionally, enrich status reports with the latest updates automatically added from web apps your team uses (such as project management tools, version control systems, support systems, financial applications, CRM, etc.) by connecting these apps to your status feed.

7. Use status updates for future reference and decrease time and efforts spent on monthly, quarterly, and yearly reporting thanks to powerful filtering and export features.

8. Spend less time on meetings by making them more productive because everyone is on the same page at all times. Easily share meeting agendas and meeting summaries with anyone.

9. Sharing: Status updates can be either
- exported to files and printed, or sent by email;
- shared with manager online; or
- shared online as company-wide or team-wide status reports, i.e., all team members share their progress with each other.

How to configure status updates:
Step 1:

Create a "Status Update" feed and set up a recurrence.

Configure who will write and read status updates by choosing the "Participants" tab and then clicking the "Cog" button near "Feed Participants" title.

Options:

Set the status feed as "Team-wide" if you want all team members to view each other's status updates.

Alternatively, you can allow access to status updates for certain participants only (such as yourself if you're a team lead). In this case, turn "Team-wide" mode OFF and restrict viewing by unchecking "View" properties for other participants. Team members with the "View" checkbox unchecked will only be able to view their own status updates.

If you're a manager and you don't plan to share your status updates with your team, uncheck "Update" for yourself - in this case, you won't receive reminders.

The Recurrence setting configures how often participants receive email reminders to fill in their status updates. This feature is optional and can be turned off.

You can add, remove, and assign new team members at any time.

Step 2: The text of the status update should be added to the " Update " field of status feed.

As soon as a new status update is added, participants with " View " rights can view it in real time when they log in to their accounts. They will also automatically receive emails with the full text of status updates.

Done!
Create your free account now

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What is Servant Leadership? [5 Must-Have Principles]

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Successful leadership is this generation's Holy Grail. Wherever we turn, there are leadership courses, coaching, and success stories all describing a strong and charismatic manager or leader who calls the shots and propels a company into the stratosphere. But is that image of leadership missing something?

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The main difference between leaders and managers is that leaders have people follow them while managers have people who work for them.

A successful business owner needs to be both a strong leader and manager to get their team on board to follow them towards their vision of success. Leadership is about getting people to understand and believe in your vision and to work with you to achieve your goals while managing is more about administering and making sure the day-to-day things are happening as they should.

WHILE THERE ARE MANY TRAITS THAT MAKE UP A STRONG LEADER, SOME OF THE KEY CHARACTERISTICS ARE:

Honesty & Integrity: are crucial to get your people to believe you and buy in to the journey you are taking them on

Vision: know where you are, where you want to go and enroll your team in charting a path for the future

Inspiration: inspire your team to be all they can by making sure they understand their role in the bigger picture

Ability to Challenge: do not be afraid to challenge the status quo, do things differently and have the courage to think outside the box

Communication Skills: keep your team informed of the journey, where you are, where you are heading and share any roadblocks you may encounter along the way

SOME OF THE COMMON TRAITS SHARED BY STRONG MANAGERS ARE:

Being Able to Execute a Vision: take a strategic vision and break it down into a roadmap to be followed by the team

Ability to Direct: day-to-day work efforts, review resources needed and anticipate needs along the way

Process Management: establish work rules, processes, standards and operating procedures

People Focused: look after your people, their needs, listen to them and involve them

In order for you to engage your staff in providing the best service to your guests, clients or partners, you must enroll them in your vision and align their perceptions and behaviours. You need to get them excited about where you are taking them while making sure they know what's in it for them. With smaller organizations, the challenge lies in making sure you are both leading your team as well as managing your day to day operation. Those who are able to do both, will create a competitive advantage. Are you both a leader and a manager; what would your staff say if you were to ask them?

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Understanding the Differences: Leadership vs. Management | Retention Planning | Tourism Info | go2HR

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Is a good manager automatically a good leader? What is the difference between leadership and management? The main difference between leaders and managers is that leaders have people follow them while managers have people who work for them. A successful business owner needs to be both a strong leader and manager to get their team ...

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Do you know how to analyze a case study? 

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Do you know how to analyze a case study? 

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Essentials of Management Information Systems Sixth Edition provides a number of case studies for you to analyze. Included in these cases are questions to help you understand and analyze the case. You may, however, be assigned other case studies that do not have questions. This Hands-on Guide presents a structured framework to help you analyze such cases as well as the case studies in this text. Knowing how to analyze a case will help you attack virtually any business problem.

A case study helps students learn by immersing them in a real-world business scenario where they can act as problem-solvers and decision-makers. The case presents facts about a particular organization. Students are asked to analyze the case by focusing on the most important facts and using this information to determine the opportunities and problems facing that organization. Students are then asked to identify alternative courses of action to deal with the problems they identify.

A case study analysis must not merely summarize the case. It should identify key issues and problems, outline and assess alternative courses of action, and draw appropriate conclusions. The case study analysis can be broken down into the following steps:

1. Identify the most important facts surrounding the case.

2. Identify the key issue or issues.

3. Specify alternative courses of action.

4. Evaluate each course of action.

5. Recommend the best course of action.

Let's look at what each step involves.

1. Identify the most important facts surrounding the case.
Read the case several times to become familiar with the information it contains. Pay attention to the information in any accompanying exhibits, tables, or figures. Many case scenarios, as in real life, present a great deal of detailed information. Some of these facts are more relevant than others for problem identification. One can assume the facts and figures in the case are true, but statements, judgments, or decisions made by individuals should be questioned. Underline and then list the most important facts and figures that would help you define the central problem or issue. If key facts and numbers are not available, you can make assumptions, but these assumptions should be reasonable given the situation. The "correctness" of your conclusions may depend on the assumptions you make.

2. Identify the key issue or issues.
Use the facts provided by the case to identify the key issue or issues facing the company you are studying. Many cases present multiple issues or problems. Identify the most important and separate them from more trivial issues. State the major problem or challenge facing the company. You should be able to describe the problem or challenge in one or two sentences. You should be able to explain how this problem affects the strategy or performance of the organization.
You will need to explain why the problem occurred. Does the problem or challenge facing the company comes from a changing environment, new opportunities, a declining market share, or inefficient internal or external business processes? In the case of information systems-related problems, you need to pay special attention to the role of technology as well as the behavior of the organization and its management.

Information system problems in the business world typically present a combination of management, technology, and organizational issues. When identifying the key issue or problem, ask what kind of problem it is: Is it a management problem, a technology problem, an organizational problem, or a combination of these? What management, organizational, and technology factors contributed to the problem?

To determine if a problem stems from management factors, consider whether managers are exerting appropriate leadership over the organization and monitoring organizational performance. Consider also the nature of management decision-making: Do managers have sufficient information for performing this role, or do they fail to take advantage of the information that is available?

To determine if a problem stems from technology factors, examine any issues arising from the organization's information technology infrastructure: its hardware, software, networks and telecommunications infrastructure, and the management of data in databases or traditional files. Consider also whether the appropriate management and organizational assets are in place to use this technology effectively.

To determine the role of organizational factors, examine any issues arising from the organization's structure, culture, business processes, work groups, divisions among interest groups, relationships with other organizations, as well as the impact of changes in the organization's external environment-changes in government regulations, economic conditions, or the actions of competitors, customers, and suppliers.

You will have to decide which of these factors-or combination of factors-is most important in explaining why the problem occurred.

3. Specify alternative courses of action.
List the courses of action the company can take to solve its problem or meet the challenge it faces. For information system-related problems, do these alternatives require a new information system or the modification of an existing system? Are new technologies, business processes, organizational structures, or management behavior required? What changes to organizational processes would be required by each alternative? What management policy would be required to implement each alternative?
Remember, there is a difference between what an organization "should do" and what that organization actually "can do". Some solutions are too expensive or operationally difficult to implement, and you should avoid solutions that are beyond the organization's resources. Identify the constraints that will limit the solutions available. Is each alternative executable given these constraints?

4. Evaluate each course of action.
Evaluate each alternative using the facts and issues you identified earlier, given the conditions and information available. Identify the costs and benefits of each alternative. Ask yourself "what would be the likely outcome of this course of action? State the risks as well as the rewards associated with each course of action. Is your recommendation feasible from a technical, operational, and financial standpoint? Be sure to state any assumptions on which you have based your decision.

5. Recommend the best course of action.
State your choice for the best course of action and provide a detailed explanation of why you made this selection. You may also want to provide an explanation of why other alternatives were not selected. Your final recommendation should flow logically from the rest of your case analysis and should clearly specify what assumptions were used to shape your conclusion. There is often no single "right" answer, and each option is likely to have risks as well as rewards.

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Essentials of Management Information Systems Sixth Edition provides a number of case studies for you to analyze. Included in these cases are questions to help you understand and analyze the case. You may, however, be assigned other case studies that do not have questions.

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Transformational Leadership

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David Burkus - Author of The Myths of Creativity

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What Is Transformational Leadership Theory?

Transformational leadership is a relatively new approach to leadership that focuses on how leaders can create valuable and positive change in their followers. James MacGregor Burns first introduced the concepts of transformational leadership when studying political leaders, but this term is now used when studying organizations as well. Burns described two leadership styles: transactional and transformational.

Transactional leaders focus on gaining compliance by giving and withholding rewards and benefits. Transformational leaders focus on "transforming" others to support each other and the organization as a whole. Followers of a transformational leader respond by feeling trust, admiration, loyalty, and respect for the leader and are more willing to work harder than originally expected. Another researcher, Bernard M. Bass, added to the work of Burns by explaining the psychological mechanisms that underlie transformational and transactional leadership. Bass' work established that transformational leaders demonstrate four factors: individual consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation (charismatic leadership), and idealized influence.

Transformational leadership theory is supported by nearly 30 years of research correlating transformational leadership to positive performance outcomes including individual, group, and organizational level variables. It also solidified the need to study followers in leadership research. Transformational leadership was the first developed and validated theory to emphasis morals and values in leadership. However, research on the theory is primarily based on the multifactor leadership questionnaire, which has produced inconsistent results. Research has also focused heavily on senior-level leaders. Transformational leadership also has the potential to be used negatively by leaders "faking it." Regardless, transformational leadership theory is a valuable and widely used approach to studying and teaching leadership.

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Transformational Leadership Theory - David Burkus

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What Is Transformational Leadership Theory? Transformational leadership is a relatively new approach to leadership that focuses on how leaders can create valuable and positive change in their followers. James MacGregor Burns first introduced the concepts of transformational leadership when studying political leaders, but this term is now used when studying organizations as well.

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Knowing the Difference!
Enjoy this video.

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Leadership Styles: Which Type of Leader Are You?

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A transactional leader is someone who values order and structure. They are likely to command military operations, manage large corporations, or lead international projects that require rules and regulations to complete objectives on time or move people and supplies in an organized way. Transactional leaders are not a good fit for places where creativity and innovative ideas are valued.

Transactional leadership is most often compared to transformational leadership. Transactional leadership depends on self-motivated people who work well in a structured, directed environment. By contrast, transformational leadership seeks to motivate and inspire workers, choosing to influence rather than direct others.

Read more about transactional leadership:

Transactional leadership focuses on results, conforms to the existing structure of an organization and measures success according to that organization's system of rewards and penalties. Transactional leaders have formal authority and positions of responsibility in an organization. This type of leader is responsible for maintaining routine by managing individual performance and facilitating group performance.

This type of leader sets the criteria for their workers according to previously defined requirements. Performance reviews are the most common way to judge employee performance. Transactional, or managerial, leaders work best with employees who know their jobs and are motivated by the reward-penalty system. The status quo of an organization is maintained through transactional leadership.

Differences between transactional leadership and other leadership styles

Transactional leaders differ from charismatic and transformational leaders in both structure and method. Charismatic leadership emphasizes influencing a group or organization to make the world a better place. In transactional leadership, the emphasis is on managing the performance of the individual and determining how well he or she performs in a structured environment.

The difference between transactional leadership and transformational leadership is also quite large. Simply put, transactional is a "telling" leadership style, and transformational is a "selling" style. While the transactional approach features positive and negative reinforcement, transformational leadership emphasizes motivation and inspiration. Transactional leaders are reactive; transformational leaders are proactive. Transactional leadership appeals to the self-interest of individuals, while the transformational style prioritizes group progress.

History of the transactional leadership theory

Max Weber, a 20th-century German sociologist, made an extensive study of leadership styles and divided them into three categories: traditional, charismatic and rational-legal, or bureaucratic. In 1947, Weber was the first to describe rational-legal leadership - the style that would come to be known as transactional leadership - as "the exercise of control on the basis of knowledge."

Transactional leadership theory is based on the idea that managers give employees something they want in exchange for getting something they want. It posits that workers are not self-motivated and require structure, instruction and monitoring in order to complete tasks correctly and on time.

The transactional leadership style was widely used after World War II in the United States. This was a time when the government concentrated on rebuilding and required a high level of structure to maintain national stability.

Political scientist James McGregor Burns was one of the most prominent authors to advance Weber's theories. In his 1978 book "Leadership," Burns argued that both transactional and transformational leaders must be moral and have a higher purpose. In Burns's model, transactional leaders espouse honesty, fairness, responsibility, and honoring commitments.

In the 1980s and 90s, researchers including Bernard M. Bass, Jane Howell and Bruce Avolio defined the dimensions of transactional leadership:

Contingent reward, the process of setting expectations and rewarding workers for meeting them

Passive management by exception, where a manager does not interfere with workflow unless an issue arises

Active management by exception, in which managers anticipate problems, monitor progress and issue corrective measures

Many current leadership theorists agree that principals of transactional and transformational leadership can be combined for ideal outcomes for both management and the workforce.

The transactional model is likely to succeed in a crisis or in projects that require linear and specific processes. This model is also useful for big corporations, such as Hewlett-Packard, a company known for its extensive use of management by exception.

Many high-level members of the military, CEOs of large international companies, and NFL coaches are known to be transactional leaders. Transactional leadership also works well in policing agencies and first responder organizations. Here are four examples of transactional leaders.

Norman Schwarzkopf

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf was born in 1934 and graduated from West Point. He went to Vietnam as an advisor to the South Vietnamese army. During that war, he was wounded twice and awarded three Silver Star medals. In 1978, he became a brigadier general; he attained a four-star ranking in 1988. General Schwarzkopf was commander-in-chief of the U.S. forces in Operation Desert Storm, responsible for tens of thousands of troops in Iraq and Kuwait. He used the rules and regulations of the military to coordinate operations on several continents.

Vince Lombardi

Born in 1913, Vince Lombardi is best known as the coach for the Green Bay Packers. He signed a five-year contract with Green Bay in 1959. Under his leadership, the team never had a losing session. Over the course of his career, he led the team to a 98-30-4 record and five championships. The Super Bowl trophy is named after him. He used to run the Packers through the same plays in practice over and over again. The team's opponents knew the plays Lombardi would run, but the team was so well trained that many teams had trouble defending against them.

Bill Gates

Bill Gates was born in Seattle in 1955. In his early teens, he met Paul Allen at the Lakeside School, where they both developed computer programs as a hobby. When Gates went to Harvard, Allen went to work as a programmer for Honeywell in Boston. In 1975, they started Microsoft, and by 1978, the company had grossed $2.5 million, when Gates was 23. In 1985, Microsoft launched Windows. Bill Gates is now one of the richest people in the world. As a transactional leader, he used to visit new product teams and ask difficult questions until he was satisfied that the teams were on track and understood the goal.

Howard Schultz

Howard Schultz was born in 1953 and grew up in the Brooklyn housing projects. He escaped the projects with a football scholarship from Northern Michigan University. After college, he started selling coffee makers to companies that included the Starbucks Coffee Tea and Spice Company, which originally sold coffee beans rather than made-to-order drinks. He was hired by the company in 1982. In 1984, Schultz opened the first Starbucks coffeehouse based on the concept of an Italian espresso bar.

Schultz wanted to grow Starbucks, but the owners wanted to stay small. Schultz left and opened his own company in 1985. With the help of investors in 1987, he bought Starbucks and merged the two companies. By 2006, Schultz was ranked 394 on Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest people in America. As a transactional leader, he was responsible for the vision and implementation of the Starbucks model.

Transactional leadership quotes

Norman Schwarzkopf: "When placed in command, take charge."

Vince Lombardi: "The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand."

Bill Gates: "The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency."

Howard Schultz: "Starbucks is not an advertiser; people think we are a great marketing company, but in fact we spend very little money on marketing and more money on training our people than advertising."

Here are some of the characteristics of transactional leaders:

Focused on short-term goals

Favor structured policies and procedures

Thrive on following rules and doing things correctly

Revel in efficiency

Very left-brained

Tend to be inflexible

Opposed to change

Transactional leadership works well in organizations where structure is important. Transactional leadership is not the right fit for organizations where initiative is encouraged:

Transactional leadership pros:

Rewards those who are motivated by self-interest to follow instructions

Provides an unambiguous structure for large organizations, systems requiring repetitive tasks and infinitely reproducible environments

Achieves short-term goals quickly

Rewards and penalties are clearly defined for workers

Transactional leadership cons:

Rewards the worker on a practical level only, such as money or perks

Creativity is limited since the goals and objectives are already set

Does not reward personal initiative

There is definitely a place for transactional leadership in the world today. One of its best uses is in multinational corporations where not all of the workers speak the same language. Once the structure and the requirements are learned, it is easy for workers to complete tasks successfully. This works because transactional leadership is simple to learn and does not require extensive training. The transactional approach is easy to understand and apply across much of an organization.

The military, policing organizations, and first responders use this style of leadership so that all areas of the organization are consistent. It is also easier to apply in a crisis situation, where everyone must know exactly what is required of them and how a task is to be done under pressure.

To many people, money and perks are a powerful motivator. Many people need a job to pay the bills. They have other obligations and distractions and would just as soon know exactly how to do their job in order to keep it and reap the rewards.

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What is Transactional Leadership? Structure Leads to Results

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A transactional leader is someone who values order and structure. They are likely to command military operations, manage large corporations, or lead international projects that require rules and regulations to complete objectives on time or move people and supplies in an organized way.

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Daniel Goleman's five components of emotional intelligence

Emotional Intelligence, as a psychological theory, was developed by Peter Salovey and John Mayer.

"Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth."

- Mayer & Salovey, 1997

The following steps describe the five components of emotional intelligence at work, as developed by Daniel Goleman. Goleman is a science journalist who brought "emotional intelligence" on the bestseller list and has authored a number of books on the subject, including "Emotional Intelligence," "Working With Emotional Intelligence," and, lately, of " Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships."

An article on the relation between Goleman and the psychological research communitiy appeared in Salon, on June 28, 1999.
The Five Components of Emotional Intelligence
Self-awareness. The ability to recognize and understand personal moods and emotions and drives, as well as their effect on others. Hallmarks* of self-awareness include self-confidence, realistic self-assessment, and a self-deprecating sense of humor. Self-awareness depend on one's ability to monitor one's own emotion state and to correctly identify and name one's emotions.

[*A hallmark is a sure sign: since self-awareness is necessary for, say, realistic self-assessment, that is, without self-awareness no realistic self-assessment, the presence of of realistic self-assessment is a sure sign (sufficient to conclude that there is) self-awareness.]

Self-regulation.The ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods, and the propensity to suspend judgment and to think before acting. Hallmarks include trustworthiness and integrity; comfort with ambiguity; and openness to change.

Internal motivation. A passion to work for internal reasons that go beyond money and status -which are external rewards, - such as an inner vision of what is important in life, a joy in doing something, curiosity in learning, a flow that comes with being immersed in an activity. A propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence. Hallmarks include a strong drive to achieve, optimism even in the face of failure, and organizational commitment.

Empathy. The ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people. A skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions. Hallmarks include expertise in building and retaining talent, cross-cultural sensitivity, and service to clients and customers. (In an educational context, empathy is often thought to include, or lead to, sympathy, which implies concern, or care or a wish to soften negative emotions or experiences in others.) See also Mirror Neurons.
It is important to note that empathy does not necessarily imply compassion. Empathy can be 'used' for compassionate or cruel behavior. Serial killers who marry and kill many partners in a row tend to have great emphatic skills!

Social skills. Proficiency in managing relationships and building networks, and an ability to find common ground and build rapport. Hallmarks of social skills include effectiveness in leading change, persuasiveness, and expertise building and leading teams.

Some questions to test your understanding of these concepts
Links on Emotional Intelligence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence http://www.unh.edu/emotional_intelligence/http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_print.html#goleman http://www.eiconsortium.org/Answer, but No Cure, for a Social Disorder That Isolates Many Men, women and emotions - or why he never tells you how he's feeling!

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Emotional Intelligence, as a psychological theory, was developed by Peter Salovey and John Mayer. "Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth."

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Take an emotional intelligence test to discover how you rate on awareness and management!

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The following numerical scores are calculated from your answers to the EI test. If you have answered honestly and accurately, your scores, out of 10 for each quadrant, will reflect your capability level within each of the EI quadrants. (You might want to print out this result; if you do not, you will have to retake the test if you want these scores later since they are not saved anywhere.) To gain a picture of what each of the EI quadrants covers, read the short descriptions below.

You have answered 0 questions out of 40.For best results, you should answer all the questions that apply.

For more information about interpreting your scores, click here. For more information aboutEmotional Intelligence and how to use it for your personal growth, please contact, Malcolm Lazenby
Please remember that this Sampler is NOT scientifically validated. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the results of this EI analysis.

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The following numerical scores are calculated from your answers to the EI test. If you have answered honestly and accurately, your scores, out of 10 for each quadrant, will reflect your capability level within each of the EI quadrants.

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Article: Applying Leadership contexts to School Counseling 

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Article: Applying Leadership contexts to School Counseling 