Transformational And Transactional Leaders In Higher Education
Lloyd Moman Basham Texas A&M University-Commerce Abstract This paper discusses the following issues: (1) the climate, environment, challenges, and issues in higher education; (2) an overview of leadership and its application to education; (3) transformational leadership as the current focus on concepts relating to organization leadership; (4) transactional leadership as being management by exception; and (5) a comparison of transactional and transformational leadership. Climate, Environment, Challenges, and Issues in Higher Education
The growing consensus among educators and policy-makers is that the current process of education must change dramatically. A different approach is needed to prepare today’s leaders to meet tomorrow’s challenges. The new structure should enhance preparation, allowing for innovation and futuristic thinking in a collaborative setting (Rodriguez, 1999). Americans, at all levels, have had great faith in the power of education to improve their quality of life. Education has been viewed as an escape route from poverty, an antidote to intolerance born of ignorance, a primary source of national prosperity, and the foundation of democracy (Swail, 2003). Scientific and technological advances have intensified in the past two decades and for the first time in human history created a truly global community. Modern telecommunications have linked all the corners of the planet as never before. Like the technology that helped create the emerging worldwide marketplace, the global community is in a dynamic period of change. Business communications, capital and financial services, research, and educational programs increasingly move across national borders. The pace of change will accelerate, and the urgent need for highly educated men and women who possess competence, perspective, human