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My interview today is with Bruce Avolio, the Director of the Gallup Leadership Institute and a renowned expert in the field of leadership. Bruce has dedicated his career to studying leadership and developing strategies for effective leadership in today’s rapidly changing world.
According to Bruce Avolio, Executive Director at the University of Washington Center for Leadership & Strategic Thinking, both types of leaders are crucial for modern companies. It isn’t an either/or situation. The best leaders are the ones who can bridge transactional and transformational leadership.
In our conversation, we explore the topic of leadership and how to become a successful leader. Bruce shares his insights on the debate of whether leaders are born or made, and emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and innovation for leaders. He also highlights the growing emphasis on psychological safety in the workplace and the value of authenticity in leadership. As the name implies, transactional leaders prioritize day-to-day tasks and transactions to get work done. They focus on driving the business forward with efficient processes and moving the needle with tasks and metrics.
On the other hand, transformational leaders prioritize the bigger picture and innovation. Their goal is to change and improve their companies and people with large-scale solutions. It’s not about incrementally changing a company but leading large shifts and total transformations.
The old way of thinking is that leaders were either transactional or transformational. But Bruce and his colleagues proved that is no longer the case. Leaders can be both transactional and transformational. In fact, it is optimum to be both. You have to be transactional and get things done to provide deliverables to other teams and employees. Even with a big-picture focus, daily work still has to get done. Bruce likens it to getting the trains to run safely and stay on the tracks. Everything happens in the world through good transactions, and most leaders spend the bulk of their days on transactional work.
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