Transactional Leadership

Transactional leadership is a leadership style, most closely associated with the work of Bernard Bass building on earlier ideas from James MacGregor Burns, based on a structured exchange between leader and follower in which the leader clarifies role and task requirements and provides rewards or corrective action contingent on the follower's performance. Bass described transactional leadership through elements such as contingent reward and management by exception, in which the leader intervenes only when standards are not being met. The style is commonly contrasted in leadership research with transformational leadership, which emphasizes inspiring followers toward a shared vision rather than managing performance through a series of transactions.