Good leadership is essential for every organization’s quest to achieve success. Three commonly used leadership styles of situational leadership, transformational leadership, and transactional leadership offer leadership direction in an organization. According to Buil et al. (2018), supervisory role plays a crucial role in the overall performance of frontline employees in the service industry. Thus, having a good breed of leadership style is essential for every healthcare organization’s success.
A Situational leadership theory (SLT) applies the concept of adapting to different situations and needs. This management style means that managers should adjust their supervision approach depending on the situation while also considering team players’ needs and capabilities. Looking at the transformation leadership style, a leader works closely to realize the needed change and create a vision to achieve that change. Through inspiration, intellectual stimulation, and individual capabilities consideration, this style of management proves effective. On the other hand, transactional leadership assumes everyone has a mutual interest, and the manager can get the best out of employees by offering them what they want. The perception is that employees lack self-motivation, and through instructions, monitoring, and structures that favor them, they can become productive.
SLT style of leadership is crucial in today’s dynamic world, where different emerging trends need flexibility in management approach. According to Thompson and Glasø (2018), SLT is crucial in that it emphasizes the flexibility and adaptive behavior of approaching management. However, the major challenge of SLT is that it focuses more on immediate needs, and therefore, it is difficult to plan. On the other hand, transformation leadership is praised for its effect on followers as it creates positivism and enthusiasm, thus improving productivity. This leadership theory’s major drawback is that it requires consistent feedback and lack of it means followers are likely to fail. Transactional leadership is very effective because it creates achievable goals for all individuals and maximizes productivity through motivation. As Hansen and Pihl-Thingvad (2018) argue, the transactional leadership style is exchange-oriented, where managers reward and penalize according to performance. However, one of its drawbacks is that, to an extent, it limits the innovations since leaders who apply this theory are mostly rigid.
Looking at the “Allied Health Community” case scenario, there are elements of leadership theories in the presented case. The two managers in place also exhibit different leadership quality with Rachel showing traits of a transactional leader who applies mutual interest and reward to achieve productivity. She focuses on goal achievement, which she uses as motivation factors but fails to recognize individual talents which might foster innovation. Tomas, on the other side, seems more charismatic and with traits of a transformational leader since he rallies his members on identifying their capabilities and special skills. However, he fails to offer proper feedback, which results in his members feeling disappointed.
In today’s healthcare organization, we can apply each leadership theory to solve emerging challenges and long-term issues. Situation leadership style helps in solving emerging challenges in that the organizations need to adapt. In contrast, the transactional theory of management can help solve those challenges by appealing to employees’ needs to empower them. A good example is a covid-19 situation where doctors worldwide need extra motivation to feel empowered. Transformational leadership can be applied to long-term strategies to blend healthcare workers into future leaders within the industry.
References
Buil, I., Martínez, E., & Matute, J. (2019). Transformational leadership and employee performance: The role of identification, engagement and proactive personality. International Journal Of Hospitality Management, 77, 64-75.
Hansen, J., & Pihl-Thingvad, S. (2018). Managing employee innovative behaviour through transformational and transactional leadership styles. Public Management Review, 21(6), 918-944.
Thompson, G., & Glasø, L. (2018). Situational leadership theory: A test from a leader-follower congruence approach. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 39(5), 574-591.