Transactional Leadership

Transactional leadership involves a social exchange. It "focuses on interpersonal interactions between managers and employees" (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2005 p. 613).
In transactional leadership "Leaders are seen as engaging in behaviors that maintain a quality interaction between themselves and followers" (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2005 p. 613).
The two characteristics of Transactional leadership are: "Leaders use contingent rewards to motivate employees, and leaders exert corrective action only when subordinates fail to obtain performance goals" ( Kreitner & Kinicki, 2005 p. 613). A charismatic or transformational leader involves transforming the thoughts of the people. A transformational leader focuses on "visionary and inspirational messages, nonverbal communication, appeal to ideological values, intellectual stimulation of followers by the leader, display of confidence in self and followers, and leader expectations for follower self-sacrifice and for performance beyond the call of duty"(organizational Science, 1993 p. 577-94). Transformational leadership can generate major changes and stimulate people to work towards organizational goals over self-interests (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2005).
I think that Hitler can definitely be described as a transformational leader throughout his career.
Hitler gained, and kept his popularity and leadership with his people through actions involved with the charismatic approach. However, once Hitler gained power he also began to fall under the characteristics of a transactional leader. At that point of his career he had the power to reward or punish his subordinates or followers. If his followers were loyal to him, he rewarded them by giving them a higher authority or helping them with some other request. In the same way, if one of his followers would happen to go against him, he would punish them by
death.
French and Ravens five bases of power are: reward power, which means that you have the ability to give or have a say of whether someone gets a reward; Coercive power is when you have the ability to impose a punishment on someone; Legitimate power is when you have a position of power do to cultural reasons, Hierarchical reasons, or you are designated by someone to that position; Expert power, which is when you have a certain knowledge or expertise; Referent power, which means that you have a charisma which makes people want to follow you.
At the point where Hitler begins his career and just starts to transform people into following his goals, he possesses legitimate, expert, and referent power over his followers. At that beginning stage of his career, Hitler speaks with confidence and shows great expertise over the cause and cure of Germany's downfall. He possesses legitimate power because he was appointed to that position by government officials. When Hitler spoke he possessed extraordinary charismatic characteristics which transformed people in such a way that they would begin to believe and follow Hitler's devious plans that seem unimaginable that a human being with mere common sense would even consider. When Hitler progressed into his career, in addition to the bases of power he possessed before, he acquires reward and coercive power. At that point he not only possesses legitimate, expert and referent power, but he now has the power to punish and reward his followers. At that point, Hitler possessed all of the bases of power described by French and Raven.