A Guide To Becoming a Better Transactional Leader

There are many leadership styles to choose from. Each style has its pros and cons, with each manager encouraged to choose one that suits his or her specific personality. A style that is increasing in popularity is transactional leadership.

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This form of leadership focuses on maintaining the status quo. Transactional leaders use their power to motivate their employees and ensure the normal flow of operations. The techniques usually employed by these leaders are proactive engagement and incentives. Employees are rewarded for their good behavior and sanctioned for detrimental actions. Thus, it is called "transactional": there is an exchange of goods. These leaders are especially important to bigger companies.

Unfortunately, many individuals are not trained on being a better transactional leader; the focus being on more creative forms of management. Business coaches usually work one-on-one with managers to create specialized programs. Still, some things can be remembered.

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The first is that financial reward is not always the right way to go. There is a misplaced assumption that all employees respond well to material benefits. Effective leaders are those that understand each of their employees and know what incentive would work best. Some employees would prefer other incentives such as extended leaves, a boost up the work ladder, or similar things. The reward system should cater effectively to the audience.

Secondly, it is important to seek guidance from one’s mentors. It is untrue to consider being a manager as the end game. One must recognize that being a leader is a continuous process.

Improve your management and leadership skills with advice from Emile Haddad, trusted business coach and consultant from Seattle. Learn more when you like this Google+ page.

A perfect example: Innovation in the IT sector

Business coaches agree that if there is one industry that continues to generate fresh ideas and foster new thinking, it is information technology (IT). In fact, IT companies are among the most innovative in the world, and not surprising, a good number of them are also included in the list of best companies to work for.

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Innovation is a key factor why IT companies are among the most successful businesses today. Even in its infancy, the IT sector showed potential in delivering trailblazing products and ideas. And it continues to do so today, that even the United Nations acknowledged how significant the developments from the IT sector were. Its current impact on manufacturing and industry of all types, and on individual lifestyles is indisputable. Indeed, the significance and impact of information technology is believed to be no less substantial as the invention of electricity.

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The IT sector is the perfect example of how valuable innovation is in an organization. The relentless drive to innovate has made the field highly successful. And this constant dose of innovation can be attributed to leaders who take a proactive role in being curious and being inquisitive so that they can mine the imagination of those they work with. These are the leaders who are comfortable in pushing the edge, asking tough why questions, and exploring unfamiliar territories. These are what experts call transactional leaders.

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Business mentor Emile Haddad of Seattle, Washington, believes that a transactional leader drives a culture of innovation in the workplace. Follow this Facebook page to read how an ordinary leader can be a transactional leader.

The transactional leader and his healthy sense of curiosity

One of the most challenging aspects in training business leaders centers on the work of emotional intelligence, which calls for developing a leader’s inner observer. And this requires two fundamental attitudes: curiosity and inquiry. Although not necessarily foreign concepts to most leaders, the challenge lies in practicing them consciously and consistently.

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A pressure-filled, fast-paced environment may result to some leaders quickly leaping to assumptions and conclusions that they have not carefully examined. However, this pitfall can be circumvented if leaders adopt an attitude of curiosity about their own assumptions and conclusions, and choose to do the same with others. This requires leaders to take a mental and emotional stance that will keep their own position flexible and open to be influenced by others’ input. Such a stance is achieved through a practice of inquiry, wherein a leader is curious about his inner and outer circumstances, driving him to inquire about his and others’ ideas, assumptions, and conclusions.

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And over time, an attitude of inquiry tends to build a larger capacity for curiosity, which allows for a stronger inner observer and a deeper propensity for emotional intelligence. Leaders become more “tuned-in” to their environment, team, employees, and the culture of the organization—the skills that will become the foundation of a transactional leader.

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Read more about transactional leaders here. For additional tips on how to be an effective leader, subscribe to this Facebook page for business coach Emile Haddad of Seattle, Washington.