Human Resource Management: Leadership

HRM Course Name School Date Human Resource Management Leadership is observed as the art of motivating and inspiring individuals to behave or act on achieving certain set goals (Barker, 1997). In a business environment, the above explanation can mean directing people to a common purpose of achieving the business needs. Thus, effective leadership is based on the utilization of ideas, which might be original or borrowed. These ideas will however not function until they are communicated to the target group and this should be conducted in a manner that the target group will be engaged to act as the leading advocates. Leaders do help others and themselves to do things right. By setting direction, creating something new and developing an inspiring vision. According to Eisenhower (1991) leadership is the art of getting an individual to do something that the leader wants it done because the individual wants to do it. As human beings are not static and behave differently to the same nature of factors, different leadership skill and theories tend to perform differently. This paper is going to analyze whether transformational leaders are superior to the transactional leaders and look at why people resist change. Among the common leadership model in the world today, the transformational leadership model has gained popularity and in this generated great research and discussion (Jung, Chee, and Wu, 2003). One of the reasons it has received all this attention is because it represents a change in what is observed as effective leadership. The concept of transformational leadership is honoured to James MacGregor Burns a leadership expert. According to Burns (1993), this type of leadership is witnessed when followers and leaders make each other in a manner that they reach higher levels of motivation and moral. The transformational and transactional models are widely compared, but MacGregor distinguishes the two by explaining that a transformational leader will engage with his/her followers, will raise consciousness about the implication of precise outcomes, will focus on higher order intrinsic needs and will engage in new ways on achieving outcomes. Burns observes transactional leader as those who reward with tangible gifts for loyalty and service/work from the followers. Distinguishing characteristic of the transformational leadership and transactional include; transformational leadership tends to be proactive, change the organizational culture by utilizing new ideas, while in transactional leadership the model tends to be responsive and functions within the organizational culture. In transformational leadership setting the employees, the objective is achieved through a high level of moral values and ideas and the leader motivate the followers through encouraging them to put the interest of the group first (Bass, 1999). While in the transactional leadership the employee's objectives are achieved through punishments and rewards developed by the leader who motivates by appealing followers to their self-interest. Transformational leadership model does promote innovativeness and creative ideas while solving problems and it does direct each behavior to individuals (Gregory Stone, Russell, and Patterson, 2004). On the other hand, transactional leadership is...