Question

Lucille Brown is a nurse manager for a 26-bed critical care unit for a major teaching hospital in New York. She is very relationship- and people-oriented. Nurse Brown encourages and facilitates group discussion and group decision making. Teamwork is the focus for all projects on her unit, and she provides needed resources to the team. Nurse Brown makes sure that everyone has a role on the unit and input into decision making.

1. (a) What style of leadership does Nurse Brown seem to exhibit most of the time? (b) Where do you predict this places her leadership style in terms of Tannenbaum and Schmidt’s behavioral style continuum?
2. In what situations may this leadership style be inefficient?
3. What type of leadership style do you prefer your boss to use?

TRANSACTIONAL AND TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP, p. 14

Define and distinguish transactional versus transformational leadership.

• Is a transactional or transformational leadership style most effective?

Answer 1

a) Lucille Brown is very relationship- and people-oriented. And as she encourages and facilitates group discussion and group decision making. Teamwork is the focus for all projects on her unit, and she provides needed resources to the team. Nurse Brown makes sure that everyone has a role on the unit and input into decision making. According to her these behavioural pattern the style of leadership does Nurse Brown seem to exhibit most of the time is Participative Leadership (Democratic).

b) This places her leadership style in terms of Tannenbaum and Schmidt’s behavioral style continuum when she gives a complete freedom to her fellows. To understand this more cleary , one should know what Tannenbaum and Schmidt’s behavioral style continuum is. so, the Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum demonstrates the relationship between the level of freedom that a manager chooses to give a team, and the level of authority used by the manager. As the team’s freedom is increased, so to should the manger’s authority decrease. This is a positive way for both teams and mangers to develop. Tannenaum and Schmidt demonstrated that a leader has seven decision-making options. Likewise, Lucille Brown gives up on her power to make more group involvement.

In some situations her leadership style can become inefficient and It becomes regretful:In this leadership style, the foremost benefit can also become the biggest drawback. The style creates an environment where every individual might expect their input to be valued and implemented. In reality, only a few selected ones could be implemented from a large pool of opinions and recommendations, making the leaders spend more than ample time apologizing individuals whose ideas were not considered in the game plan..It eats more than affordable time:The consensus approach often leads to procrastination, leading the management to find it difficult of working within the allowed framework and timeline. Hence, a bad choice in case of time sensitive or urgent deliveries.. Processing decisions is time-consuming:Quite an extension of the last point, it’s obvious when management is to listen to a large number of people, the decision-making process is only going to get indefinitely delayed. Furthermore, integrating all the ideas at a single platform and then analyzing the applicability of each is going to require some real patience and intelligent brains. The element of uncertainty:Leaders deploying democratic leadership style sometimes tend to misfire or become inconclusive, especially in critical situations requiring immediate responses. Such managers and leaders would fail disastrously in situations demanding more of an authoritarian handling.

Though democratic leadership has some cons but it is filled with pros. I would like my boss to use the same type of leadership as Lucille Brown.

Both transactional and transformational leadership are needed. The transactional leaders ensure that routine work is done reliably, while the transformational leaders look after initiatives that add value.The transactional leaders (or managers) ensure that routine work is done reliably, while the transformational leaders look after initiatives that add value.A transactional leader is a leader who exchanges tangible rewards for the work and loyalty of followers.Transformational leaders are leaders who engage with followers, focus on higher-order intrinsic needs, and raise consciousness about the significance of specific outcomes and new ways in which those outcomes might be achieved.

Both transformational and transactional leadership were positively associated with providers’ having more positive attitudes toward adoption of evidence-based practice, and transformational leadership was negatively associated with providers’ perception of difference between the providers’ current practice and evidence-based practice.( This is a result of an experiment). So, you can find that different management styles are suited to different situations. When it comes to front-line supervisors of minimum-wage employees, for example, a transactional leadership style can be more effective. Shift supervisors at a fast food restaurant will be much more effective if they are concerned with ensuring all of the various stations run smoothly, rather than spending their time thinking up better ways to serve hamburgers.On the other hand, CEOs or sales managers can be more effective if they are transformational leaders. Executive managers need the ability to design and communicate grand strategic missions, passing the missions down to transactional leaders for implementation of the details.