My Style Of Transformational Leadership

I am fortunate to have served in the United States Navy for 26 years because throughout my career my style of leadership evolved as I matured and my level of responsibility increased. Initially, I was a transactional leader because it was a way of separating me from my peers to alleviate chances of fraternization. The chain of command was strict in giving direction and the expectations were exacting in standards in accordance with approved guidelines. About half way through my career, I was a middle manager and earned the respect of my peers through performance and longevity so my leadership style shifted to transformational. I was successful because my senior leadership afforded me the leeway and held me accountable for the product rather
than the process for which I used to achieve the job. The last five years of my career, I was a part of senior leadership where a group of middle managers worked for me and therefore allowed me to shift my style of leadership towards Situational Leadership. I used a loose version of this style because in many instances, I remained the subject matter expert and frequently had to shift back to a transactional style in order to effectively and efficiently achieve the desired outcome. On those occasions that I shifted from style to style, I took the opportunity to train my subordinates in not only the process but take the time to explain the “why” behind the decision that I made to reinforce their knowledge of the situation and my authority. Since retirement from the military, I have accepted a subordinate role in my civilian job and with that have had the opportunity to see a few different leadership styles. I am in a precarious position in my current job as one of my former subordinates is now my supervisor. I believe that because I was a good leader, it has allowed me to be a good follower within the guidelines of the company. My boss is primarily a transformational leader with some signs of situational leadership. My job is contract driven and requires the workers to be somewhat autonomous, but flexible enough to shift priorities based on the lifecycle of the contract. Since my boss’s responsibility is to manage the process, he trusts the expertise of the workers to achieve the goal while relying on inputs in order to keep the product on track due to outside influences. The situation leadership comes into play because of the team job diversity – subject matter experts, curriculum developers, quality assurance specialists and instructional design engineers.