Boss or a leader! What affect employees performance?

Not every boss is a leader!!

     

Humans are social animals. Our survival is dependent on social interactions with fellow human beings.
It is no exaggeration to say, their effects dominate and mould our overall social behavior.
A satisfied and happy employee is likely to have healthy relations with his family and friends.

This brings the role of ‘Boss’ into play. Is every boss a leader?
Leadership which is described as, “interpersonal influence exercised in a situation and directed, through the communication process, toward the attainment of the specialized goal or goals”.
 Wechsler and Masaryk (1961)
The significance of our professional relations made experts contemplate over it and introduce a few concepts pertaining to it.  The two important of them are:
Transformational leadership (James McGregor Burns, 1978) and Transactional leadership (Max Weber in 1947)
Transformational leadership 

When I worked for that collection agency in Karachi, in a team gather up, my team leader shouted at me, “Safi, you have failed to show any progress. We will give you one last week to improve your performance. If you failed again, you will be terminated”
I felt humiliated. He looked to me the most disgusted person on earth. Why was he called team LEADER? He wasn’t a leader at all.
He was a leader but in fact his leadership style was not transformational which could have best worked with me. A transformational leader inspires, motivates supports his sub-ordinates to a vision that they as an organisation share. Transformational leaders motivate their employees to a common goal.  The effects of transformational leadership can be more effective and long lasting as it focuses on a positive change within the employee’s behaviour.
"Before you become a leader, success is all about growing yourself. After you become a leader, success is about growing others."
- Jack Welch (CEO, General Electric)
This best describes the aim of this style of leadership. As compared to transactional leadership, transformational leaders give more room to employees to be creative and innovative in their work.
Transformational leadership creates a family- like bond among the employees. Hence, it's easier for transformational leaders to build trust and retain his employees. It can one way or the other, reduce his cost of employees. It is observed people work with more dedication in Transformational leadership because they consider the benefit of the organisation their own.
The evident effect of transformational leadership on employees’ behaviour is that, each of them becomes his own master and can inspire others not only in his organisation but in different societal situations.
Transformational leadership nevertheless enables employers achieve their desired result without putting pressure on them; it cannot work in all situations and organizations. Particularly, in case of leader’s failure or disappointment, the whole chain of employees faces negative waves.
 It is best suited to IT and marketing fields where employees are  allowed to express their  creativity and innovation because the transformational leaders believe, any individual  can bring the company success. 

Our biological relations are important but equally if not more,  important are our professional relations.

TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP

The transactional leadership style was first introduced by Max Weber (1947) and later was expanded by Bernard Bass (1981)

Transactional leadership aims at successful operations with  pre-defined structure of an organization. It focuses on reward and punishment for the achievement of set goals of the organization. Which means, it is more external in nature than internal?

If you work in military or if you are a sport person, you need to understand, you are dealing with Transactional Leaders who issue orders and want them to be executed accordingly.

Hence, it is very much possible, employees feel encaged working under transactional leaders, in particular those who have brain and who want freedom at work.

It does not mean it is completely a failed strategy or unfruitful style of leadership.

The very visible and best effect it can cast on an individual is, discipline. As transactional leadership values small operations, it is likely to instill disciplinary attitude in employees.

People who work under transactional leadership have least problem in adjustment because they are used to carrying out orders. Hence, they can be tough in different circumstances.    

We all work to gain something, be it satisfaction, money or fame. Reward and punishment is the key component which transactional leaders use to motivate sub-ordinates to hard work and dedication.

CONCLUSION

Society and organization stricture best define to which style of leadership employees are more reactive. For instance, European and American private companies are more open to suggestions, innovation put forward by the employees unlike ours where a leader may take it as an insult or threat to his position.

But I personally feel transformational leadership style has more productive effects on employees as compared to transactional; we all love freedom, don't we?

The former creates leaders. They latter likes them to remain  servant.

Nothing is more valuable than having loyal employees, after all we are social animal. We need others to survive!