A Comparative Analysis of Transformational, Transactional, and Social Identity Approaches - Paper Example

Although leadership is present in every aspect of individuals' social life, it is usually related to business administration, institutions, and politics. This familiar notion regarding leadership is widespread and, in many cases, tends to obscure advanced scientific knowledge (Sichler, 2014). Leadership is not about the exercise of power and force or possession of superhuman analytical skills, but the accomplishment of an objective through directing others (Prentice, 2014). Leadership comprises a position, attitude, responsibilities, skills, and behaviors that allow a person to bring the best out of others, within a particular environment, and in a sustainable approach. Leaders are associated with a diverse pool of traits and skills, but to best understand leadership, it is critical to analyze what the leaders are supposed to do instead of the skills and attributes they possess to achieve the set objectives. Simultaneously, it is critical to look at leadership from different angles and perspectives, which can be analyzed using different leadership approaches, including transformational, transactional, and social identity. This research paper will define and present a comparison of these approaches.

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Transformational leadership is one of the approaches that has been studied extensively; however, the level of the relationship between transformational leadership and the assistants' or followers' performance across the criteria types and the analysis levels remains unclear (Wang et al., 2011). The transformational leadership approach refers to a leadership style in which a leader inspires, motivates, and encourages the assistants and the followers to innovate and initiate change that will assist in the growth and shaping of the company's going concern. The approach is achieved by setting an example at the management level using a strong sense of organizational culture, independence, and employee ownership (White, 2018).

Transactional leadership is often compared with transformational leadership, but in this type of leadership, the leader values more of the order and structure. Transactional leadership is an approach through which the leader focuses on the available structure of a particular organization and gauges the success according to the corporation system rewards and penalties (St. Thomas University, 2014). The leaders in this category have formal authority and responsibility within the business or institution. They maintain routine by managing individuals' performance and facilitating group performance (St. Thomas University, 2014).

Another approach to leadership is social identity. This approach views leadership as a group process developed through social categorization and a prototype-based process of depersonalization related to social identity (Hogg, 2001). As a social arrangement, group identification creates an intragroup gradient that invests a prototypical person characterized by influence. Thus, the appearance develops because the unit members cognitively and behaviorally align with the individual (Hogg, 2001). In this form of leadership, Turner & Haslam (2001) suggest that the appearance of influence transforms into reality by depersonalized social attraction approaches that make the assistants and the followers comply with the leader's views and ideas (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). Additionally, the consensual social attraction imbues the manager with a defined status. It develops a level-based structural differentiation in the unit into followers and leaders with unequal status intergroup relationships (Ashforth & Mael, 1989).

By definition, the three approaches encompass the leader's responsibility to lead a group of individuals commonly termed as followers or assistants. Every model employs a unique method of governance to enable a group to achieve its goals and objectives. However, a closer look at the models presents differences in how leaders are identified and how they drive their assistants to achieve the organizational goals. Transformational leadership uses motivation as the key driver to attaining the set goals. On the other hand, transactional leadership is authoritative, meaning it strictly follows the set structure and order. A good example of this leadership approach is the military. The social identity approach is based on the appearance where, within a group, an individual with the appearance of influence makes other individuals within the group to agree and comply with their ideas, suggestions, and views, thus making the individual assume a particular social status within such a group (Korte, 2007).

Motivation Comparison

Regardless of the leadership method employed, motivation is an essential part of the assistants’ performance. It inspires individuals to exhaust their efforts towards achieving the requirement of their roles. These acts enable easier attainment of goals. Though transformational model is oriented more towards motivation, other approaches, such as transactional, use the organization's structured reward system to reward its assistants upon achieving specific defined goals (Cherry, 2010). Simultaneously, in social identity, the leader's social standing inspires the people to align their objectives to that of the leader, thus achieving the leader's ideas. Motivation refers to a process that initiates, maintains, and guide the goal-oriented behaviors of the assistant. It makes the assistants act or experience a desire to achieve a particular objective (Cherry, 2010). At the intuitional or organizational level, motivation comprises the energy level, commitment, and creativity that the workers bring to their respective jobs. Motivation tools must be formulated by considering that the assistants join or follow a particular organization or leader because they feel that their personal goals will be achieved. Motivation is thus required in all aspects of an individual and organization's life to build the zeal and create requisite interest to achieve the set goals (Cherry, 2010).

The three approaches use an almost similar structure where a leader influences the juniors' performance. The leaders are responsible for setting the organizational goals and objectives and developing the requisite strategies or using the existing system (Ingram, 2019). However, in doing so, each model has a different structure. In the transformational leadership structure, the leader motivates the assistants to perform a specific role in what has been termed as "beyond expectation" (Wang et al., 2011). While it is easier to differentiate the various performance criteria in the approach, the scholars of this method are often unable to define what is meant by performance beyond expectation since, at one point, the manager may encourage the assistants to work harder and exert more effort. On the other hand, the leader may inspire the followers to perform beyond the minimum standards of their specific job requirements, translating to higher contextual performance (Wang et al., 2011). This shows that, though employee motivation is the core of transformational leadership, there lacks a clear structure of how the followers are motivated and whether the stimulation can result in the performance beyond expectation.

Compared to transformational leadership, transactional leadership does not directly incorporate assistant motivation, but rather, the leader uses the already laid structures to ensure that the employee performs a particular duty. Thus, the employee clearly understands their duties and responsibilities and therefore employs self-motivation to perform the tasks (St. Thomas University, 2014). The leaders in this approach have positions of responsibility and clearly defined formal authority within an organization; thus, they are responsible for maintaining this routine by analyzing and facilitating individual and group performance (Ingram, 2019). Unlike the transformational approach, the leader creates a criterion for the assistants and strictly follows the previously defined requirements (St. Thomas University, 2014). The performance review is critical, as it enables the leader to gauge the assistant performance. The fact that the employees understand their goals and the leader understands the structure and order makes the model clear, as the plans and the requisite performance are definite (Garg & Krishnan, 2003). The status quo is also maintained in this approach.

The social identity theory of leadership applies a very distinct motivational approach compared to transformational and transactional leadership. Though there is a substantial level of motivation, either intrinsic or extrinsic, the social identity uses indirect stimulation in the transactional and transformational leader, meaning the assistants look up to the leader due to being related by a group of other identifying features (Turner & Haslam, 2001). In this model, an individual's social standing makes the assistant want to achieve the leader's ideas and suggestions. For example, in a phone manufacturing company, the workers in the engineering could look up to a particular component engineer, how they perform a particular duty and feel motivated to align with their idea of component creation and work as hard to achieve their ideas (Turner & Haslam, 2001). Like transformational leadership, the structures may not be as clear as the transactional approach since they are highly dependent on the leader's actions to influence how the followers perform their assigned duties (Hogg, 2001). This means that there is no clear definition of output, as its meaning is not set by a system of existing and well-defined structures, but based on the leader and also affiliation.

Performance Comparison

Performance is key to institutional success or failure. Performance can be termed as accomplishing a specific task against the existing or the preset standard of accuracy, speed, and completeness (Donohoe, 2019). A performing employee is one who fulfills the obligation of an assigned duty in a manner that releases them from the liabilities under the contract of employment (Donohoe, 2019). It involves aspects such as the quantity, quality, effectiveness of the performed work, and the employees' behavior in the organization. Leadership structure plays a crucial role in how the employee performs their duties, with transformational and social identity leadership being more individualized, while transactional being more systemized.

Transactional leadership mostly focus on the performance, and promote success with a reward system, warnings, punishments, and retain compliance with the organizational culture ‌(Michael, 2019). For example, in disciplined forces such as the army, the officers' performance is critically analyzed, and when the officers show exceptional performance, they are rewarded with a defined ranking system (Aarons, 2006). However, failure to uphold the requisite discipline or behavior, the same members are warned, demoted to lower ranks, or in some cases, dismissed dishonorably. The high checks and balances between the defined behavior and misbehaviors are what keeps the officer compliant to the defense forces' set structure, culture, and norms (Wang et al., 2011).

Transactional leaders concentrate on supervising and managing the assistants while facilitating group performance (Aarons, 2006). Though their role is primarily passive as there exists a structure, they usually set policy and the accompanying assessment criteria, followed by interventions in the event of a performance issue or requirements that demand exceptions (Aarons, 2006).