Transformational Leaders

The Full Range of Leadership Model (FRLM) is a general leadership theory focusing on the
behavior of leaders towards the workforce in different work situations.
Transformational leaders
Transformational leaders are those who transform their followers. Through the use of inspiration
and motivation, they motivate their followers to do more than was originally intended – often
more than either the leader or follower thought was possible. In their book Transformational 102
Leadership, Bass and Riggio argue that, “Transformational leadership involves inspiring
followers to commit to a shared vision and goals for an organization or unit, challenging them to
be innovative problem solvers, and developing followers leadership capacity via coaching,
mentoring, and provision of both challenges and support.” Transformational leaders achieve
these superior results by employing one or more of the behaviors described below.
TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP
transactional leadership is sometimes afforded less respect than transformational leadership. This
is unfortunate, because most leadership positions require elements of both transactional and
transformational leadership. Most commanders, for instance, not only lead people but are also
responsible for managing resources – budgets, facilities, vehicles, etc. These kinds of
responsibilities lend themselves well to the behaviors inherent in transactional leadership.
Contingent Reward (CR) CR is an active form of management that is effective in a wide variety
of situations. It recognizes the inherent transactional nature of most supervisor-subordinate
situations and encourages leaders to “contract” with employees to achieve desired outcomes.
Management by Exception (MBE) Like CR, MBE is a recognized and often effective way of
managing systems, processes, resources and in some circumstances, even people. Unlike CR,
however, MBE focuses less on building that contractual relationship between leaders and
followers and more on intervention when followers fail to achieve standards. In short, it is less
proactive and more reactive in nature than CR. It is a form of transactional leadership because
MBE is essentially a corrective transaction – an intervention by leadership to correct a situation.
Also like CR, MBE can be positive or negative, however, most people typically think of a
leader’s intervention into their work areas as a decidedly negative event.
MBE takes two forms, active and passive. In active MBE (MBE-A), leaders constantly monitor
the processes and subordinate performance for which they are responsible and intervene at the
earliest sign of a problem. A leader exhibiting strong MBE-A behaviors focuses on mistakes,
complaints, adverse trends, failures, deviations from standards, broken rules or regulations, etc.
The passive form of MBE (MBE-P) is even more reactionary than MBE-A. Instead of
monitoring processes and work performance of subordinates, MBE-P leaders simply wait for
something to go wrong. Leaders exhibiting strong MBE-P tendencies will often claim, “if it’s not
broken, don’t fix it.” They are not risk-takers. Leaders exhibiting strong MBE-P behaviors are
unlikely to be perceived as role models by their subordinates.
LAISSEZ-FAIRE LEADERSHIP
LF leaders do not take stands on issues, they do not make decisions, they do not develop their
people…in short, they do not lead. There is no exchange between leaders and followers simply
because the leaders do not particularly care about their followers or the challenges they face.
Some erroneously argue that LF leadership has a place in today’s leadership environment. They
argue that teams can perform best with little or no intervention from leaders, except in
extraordinary circumstances. Even if they are correct, they mistake LF leadership for MBE. In
most cases, however, people perform best when they get inspiration and motivation from their
leaders – transformational leadership. LF leadership is the absence of all such inspiration and
motivation. It is the absence of caring and direction.
Clearly LF leadership is not a goal; it is not a type of leadership leaders typically try to embrace.
Instead, it is the result of being distracted; of failing to provide leadership when and where it is
needed. Yet it is important for leaders to grasp LF, its signs and its consequences, if only to be
aware of the tendency for LF behaviors to manifest themselves when leaders attention is diverted.

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The Full Range of Leadership Model (FRLM) is a general leadership theory focusing on the

behavior of leaders towards the workforce in different work situations.

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