Recently I’ve been reading The Qualified Sales Leader by John McMahon.
As a generalist, I look to lessons across a broad range of disciplines. This led me to this book.
I’m glad it did, because in one sentence the author reminded me of one of the most important lessons in leadership.
“A leader’s relationship with their people should be transformational, not transactional.”
John McMahon
It’s a deceptively simple sentence. This one line captures so much about what leadership is.
It also captures a lot about the leaders I’ve most admired.
We may not relate to the word ‘transformational’.
The focus here is on leadership having a larger impact in the lives of the people we work with – whether that’s by creating meaning, helping people develop, or motivating teams to do their best work.
What Great Leaders Do
Great leaders are present, listen and inspire.
They are present in that they show up and give others the respect of being there, without distractions. They listen, giving balance in conversation to those they’re with, to understand the full context of what is being said. They inspire by first identifying the circumstances, values, goals and motivations of their team and connecting these motivations with organisational objectives.
We know when we’re in the presence of great leaders, for all of the reasons above.
When you think about the leaders you most respect, have they shown these qualities?
Were the interactions you had with them motivating or transactional?
How Leaders Fail
When leaders are distracted and not present, do not listen with intention, and know little about what truly motivates and moves their team, leadership fails.
Interactions become transactional. An appreciation of the relationship falls away.
When we operate like this, we manage the outputs of the work only, and not the people who are responsible for producing those outputs.
This approach may yield short term wins (maybe that’s why it’s a tempting pattern), but ultimately leaves people feeling flat, anxious and unsatisfied. It is also the deflating territory of micro-management.
I wish it were simple.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just chose to be the leaders we want to be?
I used to think being a leader was like graduating. Once we got there, we’d know, and there’d be no going back.
But leadership takes effort and awareness.
In any given day we can switch between transformational and transactional leadership. Even the best leaders have moments where they exit a meeting, feel flustered and think they could have handled the situation better.
I realise now that great leadership is about knowing we cannot always get it right.
We’re human. We’re bound to slip occasionally.
What Separates Truly Great Leaders
What separates great leaders from others is their willingness to continually check themselves for how they are in any moment. The very best leaders constantly assess whether they’re being all they need to be, and quickly adjust when there’s a disconnect.
They do this because they know if they don’t, their people will not get the best version of themselves.
If you are ever feeling as though you’re slipping into a transactional pattern, there are steps you can take.
- Manage anxiety
Often we become transactional because we’re anxious about something. We might be worried about a deadline or the next budget. HBR has a very useful summary of of articles and podcasts on the subject of ‘leading through anxiety.’ - Manage energy and resourcefulness
The question of whether we are resourceful (a transformational state) or reactive (a transactional state) is also a question of how much energy we have to respond to any situation. We can manage ourselves and our levels of resilience to be better leaders, by using simple practices like getting regular exercise and downtime. - Assess against the ideal team dynamic
A useful test of our leadership is to assess ourselves against the question “right now are we supporting the principles of high performing teams?” Perhaps the most important principle is to support psychological safety for our team members, which becomes more difficult when we’re operating in a transactional pattern of leadership.
If you use or have seen other specific strategies to supporting strong leadership, consider sharing your view with others by leaving a comment below.
