Response to Lecture 3

Lecture 3 was mostly about two contrasting styles of leadership, transactional and transformational leadership. Transactional leadership is about getting a job done before the deadline by either punishing or rewarding the workers based on their productivity. Transformational leadership, in contrast, is about inspiring the workers to go beyond their job routines and make their shared vision a reality.
     Both leadership styles have its own pros and cons.  Transactional leadership works best in an environment where there isn't just enough time to develop a trust based relationship of the transformational leadership. For instance, students in RPI classrooms have to change their groups every day, weeks or months.  Moreover, meeting short deadlines and keeping the projects economical also discourage the transformational leadership. This is when the transactional leadership is more advantageous than the transformational leadership. Despite the lack of time and resources, transactional leadership manages to motivate the workers to keep up to the basic standards set by the managers. It is, however, unrealistic to expect the best quality of workmanship out of each individual worker. The transformational leadership, on the other hand, can motivate workers to perform beyond their individual limits and accomplish something that is normally not possible under the transactional leadership. The leader inspires the workers by showing empathy to each worker and serving as a role model for hard work, highly ethical behaviors, respect and trust. This makes the workers feel that what they are doing truly matters. Thus the workers take greater ownership of the project they are working on and work at their full potential to achieve the group goal set by the leader. The workers trust their leader and the leader trusts the workers to do their jobs to make their vision a reality.
      As stated in the last blog, every leadership style has its own pros and cons. It is the leader's job to determine which leadership style suits the situation the best and dynamically adapt to the situation to get the best results out of the group.