The UnlearnT Podcast
The UnlearnT Podcast is designed to help you gain the courage to change your mind about things you never thought you would change your mind about. Our hope is that you will begin to move towards a life of freedom after hearing stories from individuals who have chosen to unlearn some things in their lives.
The UnlearnT Podcast
What's Your Leadership Style?: UnLearning Transactional Leadership
We unpack transactional leadership—why it feels natural, where it works, and when it fails—and show how to pair it with relational styles so people and performance both thrive. Clear goals help, but autonomy, mastery, and purpose keep teams engaged and growing.
• definition of transactional leadership and its roots in school rewards
• where transactional systems fit: scale, sustaining growth, clear metrics
• strengths: clarity, consistency, fast runway for new hires
• weaknesses: micromanagement, pressure, shallow incentives
• autonomy, mastery, purpose as durable motivators
• pairing transactional with servant, transformational, and democratic styles
• co‑creating goals versus top‑down mandates
• producer‑to‑leader shift and ambition with boundaries
• organization‑first vs team‑first bias and how to balance
• whole‑self leadership and avoiding the pizza‑party trap
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Hello, everybody, and welcome once again to the Unlearnt Podcast. I am your host, Ruth Abigail, aka R A.
SPEAKER_03:What's up, friends? It's your girl, Jaquita.
SPEAKER_00:And this, folks, is the podcast that's helping you gain the courage to change your mind so that you can experience more freedom. More freedom on the way, friends. Freedom. Freedom.
SPEAKER_03:My lord.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. More freedom. Um, and uh uh Quita, how you doing today?
SPEAKER_03:Man, today's been a great day. You know, I got I've been in a super productive season out here in these streets, you know. We like that. Just getting things done, knocking them out. I love that. Knocking tasks out, you know. My to-do list is she getting shorter and shorter. And that makes me feel really good about myself because that's not my norm. Okay. It's not my norm. That's good. Oh, I'm we're on a roll right now.
SPEAKER_00:We are on a roll. I love that for you. That's amazing. Um, how about yourself? Oh, great. My my to-do list doesn't seem to really get be getting shorter, but I do tick things off that are necessary to tick off, and but then I look back and I'm like, oh, but three more have just been added. You know what I mean? Oh my lord. But that's okay, because you know, I I like it. I have no problem with that. You know, it keeps me going, you know. Um, so you know, I have a I have a rhythm, you know what I'm saying? I have a kind of a system that I work, and that to-do list is part of that. Uh so yeah, yeah, but pretty good. Speaking of rhythms and systems, you see what has it there? I'm just gonna make that pivot. Come on, pivot.
SPEAKER_03:Come on, I'm proud. That's a very natural pivot.
SPEAKER_00:Go ahead and do it. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. We are uh in our leadership um leadership style series, and today we're talking about a very familiar leadership style, which I actually think is a style that when people think about leaders um or leading something, particularly like teams and in the workplace. This is probably the style that we kind of understand the easiest because we kind of start off with it as kids, right? Like um this this idea of transactional leadership. Um, like it's a very parental style of leadership, very parental, right? Very, we like whether it's parents, whether it's teachers. I mean, the school system is transactional. If you get an A, right, you get a piece of candy, right? Um in third grade, we had handwriting. We had like we got good. They don't do it no more. We got the big, we got the uh big candy bars for good handwriting. Like we had the king, you know, the king-sized candy bars.
SPEAKER_03:Y'all was off the chain. I already know.
SPEAKER_00:Guess how many candy bars? Guess how many candy bars I got?
SPEAKER_03:Zero, because you're zero. Not gonna lie about it.
SPEAKER_00:Not gonna lie about it. And I got no big candy bars, like no, no lie. I never could get it.
SPEAKER_03:There was this one girl, her name was Amy, and Amy sounds like she has beautiful handwriting.
SPEAKER_00:I really didn't like her, right? For like I'm sure you did it. Because I was like, how do you get she could do a little bubble, like bubbly letter? I was like, that's not fair. Like, I who cares? But she always got the best, the the big candy bar. She always got praised for her for her for handwriting.
SPEAKER_03:I was like, dude, I sound like you know, I I honestly feel like it's it's almost a little unfair because handwriting is almost something you can't get. That's what I'm saying. You know, like I feel like you can, you know, now through the years, I ain't gonna lie. Your girl, I spent a lot of time working on my handwriting. Like, I would during the summers when I was bored, I would just sit there and write the alphabet. And I was like, oh, this year I'm gonna do my E's like this, and I'm gonna cross my T's like this. Really? They're not ready for how I'm gonna loop-dee-de-loop this cute, okay. Listen, I spent my time, okay. Congratulations to you. Because I wanted, I wanted pretty handwriting. I wanted when somebody, and also I had a friend, he had the neatest handwriting. Yeah, like it was beautiful. Yeah, and I was the girl in the group, and so I didn't want to be outdone. So yeah, I practice and my handwriting, my signature, I mean, I ain't gonna show y'all because I don't need y'all stealing my signature, but my signature, top tier.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know what? Good for you. And um, so you you would have gotten the big candy bar, but I never got the big candy bar, and I was always very salty about that. But you know, um, we got to uh we did like the summer reading stuff. Did y'all do summer reading? And you got absolutely so you got like certain things for reading some number of books. I mean, this this idea, no, but you did.
SPEAKER_03:What did you get? I forgot about it. Y'all were really into this transactional. We were, they gave us a lot of stuff. No, this was not my uh this was not my school upbringing. You didn't get nothing, you got a test when you came back. All right, quiz. Who did the summer reading? Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_00:That's fair. Which is still transactional, actually. It is, that's what I'm saying. Like, you know, and and so I think like we are so familiar with this particular style because we we were birthed in it. Like it, it was very much a part of our childhood. And then, you know, home, you get, you know, some people get allowance for A's, you know, you got certain all of that. You could, if um Oh, now we did used to get the free pizza.
SPEAKER_03:Y'all remember the free pizza? You got A Bionaro? Okay, you got the free little personal pan, pizza, okay. I listen, my family. When it was when it was report card time, it was like, hey, which one of you, you me or my sister, is treating us to dinner tonight? Nice, okay. Like nice. I got the free pizza, I got the free frosty from Wendy's, okay. I got the free donuts from Krispy Kreme, okay. I got us. That's okay. I'm feeding the family tonight off of my good grades.
SPEAKER_00:Hilarious. But that's so, but you know what? Like, I miss those times. Like, it's actually it it's Yeah, nobody gives me nothing no more. No, like you get a paycheck for doing good. You know what I'm saying? That's what you get, you know? And or for not even doing good, you get a paycheck for doing. And you know, for doing good, you might get a little something different. But I think like that, I this this idea of you do this, you get that. You don't do this, you don't get that. Um, and we grew up with that. So leadership, I think the the first level of leadership that we really understand is transactional leadership. Um so because of that, I think it a lot of leaders lean into that um probably faster than the other ones because it's so familiar. Um, and like like others, you know, like all of them, it doesn't belong everywhere. And and transactional leadership really is a I would say um, I don't want this to sound like I don't want this to sound less than, but but I would call it like I would say it was it was level one leadership. That's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing.
SPEAKER_03:It's a little disrespectful, but I get what you're saying. I'm not trying to be disrespectful. I'm not gonna put you. I just don't want you to think that you're not doing any harm here. I'm not trying to out here calling people level. You know, you're just a level one leader, and one thing you're gonna find another style and you can become a level let me be clear.
SPEAKER_00:Let me be clear. I'm not calling anyone level one leaders. I am saying that.
SPEAKER_03:She calls somebody else level one leader.
SPEAKER_00:That type of leadership because as we know, healthy leaders have to hit all of them at some point. That type of leadership I can I would consider to be kind of level one. In other words, because it's again, it's familiar and it's very like systematized and and um you know that that it's it's a it kind of just works, it just kind of works itself. Like there's there's not a there's not once you've got the system, yeah, but once you have the system in place, you do the thing and it happens, right? Like, and that's not a bad thing, it belongs in some areas.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So I think now's a good time for us to give just a really solid definition of transactional leadership. All right, so transactional leadership, it's really marked by uh uh a system that incentivizes positive productivity and kind of disciplines or applies consequences for substandard performance. Um, so I think that it is a rewards initiative, you know. So when you think about uh examples Ruth Abigail brought up, you know, education, you know, we wanna we wanna continue to reward good behavior, and then you might get your name on the board for bad behavior. You might get you, you know, you might get, you know, in school suspension. You know, you might get that uh what the thing is called after school when you gotta stay? Detention? Detention! You might get hilarious for bad. Listen, okay, you never got detention, did you? Uh we didn't do detention. Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I don't remember. In school suspension was their thing. They was like, pick it up.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, wing, wing, but didn't nobody wannabody want to stay after school? No, you can go right now. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Um, and so uh it's it's so it's gonna create an environment where we're gonna really focus on structure um and culture is built around this idea of, you know, we got goals, we're gonna set company goals, we're gonna really uh push everybody to peak performance, right? Um, and so it's really about building the productivity of team members versus necessarily some of the things the other um leadership styles were building, you know, your internal, you know, right, you're becoming, you know, this is like bump all of that. We want you to produce. And when you produce, we are going to reward what we want to see more of.
SPEAKER_00:When you grow, and I think this you you again, a lot of people are more familiar with this. When you're in, I mean, the corporate space, right? Corporate America, um large, larger organizations are even medium-sized or larger organizations, um, have to have this style, right? You have to have this type of style embedded into your culture because you get to a point where you don't have as a leader, you don't have the time anymore to spend right uh that kind of energy with individual people. Um, you might get to that place or you you don't uh there there the the uh the mission is uh not necessarily as as impacted by the um relational aspects of leadership, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um I mean there are just there are just different, there's different cultures uh in different spaces. And and I think again size matters. Like if you if you it's different when you're leading a team of five versus 15, right? Or 20. For sure. Um all of a sudden, you gotta have you, there's there is a uh there's a different way that you have to go about doing things. And so this this is a really, really healthy thing. I think the other thing that I think about when I think about this leadership style is um is is is a structure and a framework uh that where people can what people know uh and are clear on what their uh what their production is actually producing.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Right. And you're clear on what is expected of you and what success looks like in this and what's success that's exactly right. Yeah, and that's not really good. And transactional leadership, we're not asking you to create something new.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's it. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:What I'm asking you is to do exactly what this company does and produce.
SPEAKER_00:Produce, right? Um produce when when we talked about um I don't remember what episode it was, we went through the different um uh like uh what's the word I'm looking for? The different seasons of of an organization. I'm blanking on the language, but the different seasons of an organization, you have your startup, you have your you know, turnarounds, you have uh and so you have that was a while ago, Ruth. That was a while. That was a while. Yeah, it was a while. Yeah, yeah. But we did we we talked about it, and um, but uh I one of the ones was sustaining growth, right? And so you the this is this is an example of a type of leadership style that belongs in a sustaining when you're sustaining growth. Like you're sustaining something, you're not looking to make a whole lot of change. The status quo has been set. This is what we do, this is how we do it.
SPEAKER_03:We're not we're and we're not trying to create an identity as a company. Correct.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_03:You know what I'm saying? So we're not, you know, we want to be cutting edge, but really I think what it does is it takes the competition from out of the marketplace and puts it within the team. Because when you are using this transactional leadership style, it really is whichever rabbit gets to the carrot first, yeah, gets to have the reward. And I will tell you, I was under a transactional leadership style. Now that I think about it. Okay. All right. Um the organization, I'm gonna try my best not to name it. Yeah, sure. You know, but it was my first job out of grad school. Sure. And we would have these weekly meetings. Don't you love those? Oh my gosh. Weekly meetings. And in the weekly meetings, we would have, I I forget what they called it. It was like a wow meeting or something, like, you know, like you did something wonderful. And they would sit in those meetings and then they would give us all awards. Not all, because I rarely got them. But they would give out rewards to, you know, who got the most uh people to sign up for the organization, who got the most uh new uh clients, let's just call that, who uh got the most new community partners, and then like they were handing out rewards. They was like, you know, they were like free massage,$50 gift card, da-da-da-da-da. And I was sitting in there and I was like, I hate this so much. Yeah, yeah. And it did not make me try harder. I was not out there like, man, I need to, I need to roll out for that$50 gift card. I was just like, y'all playing in my face. Like, you know, and it and I think that there's some strengths to this, right? Because we all knew what the job was, we all knew what success looked like in that role, but it was also a lot of pressure without as much intuitive support for how we were gonna manage this. They just kept putting more. They it their answer to us whenever we weren't doing well, their answer was more structure, more, you know, more expectations, more rewards and incentives. And it's like, yeah, yeah. I knew it was time for me to go out when they started having this weekly report where they wanted us to do like five this, get fifty, make 50 calls, uh, create five new partnerships, and da-da-da-da-da. And they looked at my and I never filled that report out. Yeah, one day they they went and checked the report, and they was like, just tweet a and I was like, Yeah, I'm just gonna go ahead and head on that. Uh-huh. I'm just I'm just gonna I ain't even gonna waste your time no more. Let me let me just go on here.
SPEAKER_00:That that's you, you know, okay, so I think you make a this is a good, I think, another segue into I have two things. Number one, I think transactional leadership, especially in something like that. Transactional leadership rarely doesn't work as well, I don't think, without um the presence of uh our more personable or relational type of leadership style, servant leadership, transformational leadership, even democratic leadership. Um it it it when you pair it with that, it it works, I think it works better, right? Especially when you are on teams that are a little smaller, where you are you do know each other, right? Um I no, that's the first thing. But the other thing is, and you said like I was not at all motivated by these incentives. And the reality is most of most people in in roles, um, uh I won't say most people in certain roles, and the one that you're describing is one of those, people are not motivated by that. I think we have to we have to rem um uh understand what really motivates people. Um I I heard a TED talk and um one day and I used to teach this uh to uh uh youth workers when I was training them uh years ago. But um there are three things that really motivate people. Uh we think money motivates. Uh that's our first thing, right? Money incentives, you know. If you do this much, you get this much. If you do this, you that all that. Uh we think that that's what it is. That's really not it. Money motivates in two two uh situations. Number one, it motivates when you don't have enough of it. If you're not paying somebody enough, then yeah, money's a motivator. Um the other situation is when you're not doing something that is very mentally involved. Okay. Um, and so money can be a motivator for something where where you are really just kind of uh doing the task, right? Like this is just what you do. Um uh if it you you're uh uh physical, like a lot of physical labor, like where you're doing things like that, money can be a motivator. You're not really doing a whole lot mentally, you're not having to um uh expend a lot of emotion, right, in your in your in your work. Um construction workers, things like this, right? Like things, things where your hands are involved more uh the most. Money can be a decent motivator there. Outside of that, the uh motive the three things that really motivate people are autonomy, the ability to control what you do, mastery, the ability to perfect something, um, and the purpose, uh, the um you know the understanding your reason behind doing something. So when you can have those things and in in a in a workplace, that is more motivating for most people, again, out that are that that uh where a lot of their labor isn't necessarily physical, um that's where they find more motivation than the incentives that the incentive package. And I think like, you know, if you think about your example at your previous uh place of employment, um you know if you had those things, if you could opt out, if you could just do what you do and not have to do this report, right? If you could um set your own goals, right? Yeah. Like, hey, I think I can get like I'd like to try to get five partnerships this this semester, but you say that as opposed to them, there that that it it is more of an incentive to do it, as opposed to somebody telling you, I want you to get this many.
SPEAKER_03:What what what ended up happening was because they started telling us how to do our jobs, yeah. They were like, all right, this is what y'all are gonna do. You're gonna call five corporate sponsors a week. And I was like, I'm gonna do what? Yeah first of all, let me again, this was my first job outside of grad school. My pay started with a three. Yeah. And not a high three. Okay. Y'all have gonna run me ragged. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know what I'm saying? Like, and telling me I need to make 50 calls every week when I this is on top of what I actually do. Absolutely not. Yeah no, I won't be doing that. Yeah. Um, and so what happened was was that they pushed so hard for us to do that, that my creativity, my innovation, everything that's good about me. Yeah, it dwindled. Yeah. And they wanted us to kind of fit the mold of this robotic, you know, community manager. And it was like, this, this is not, this ain't this, this is not me. You know, it's like David trying to wear Goliath's armor. There you go. I can't do that. Yeah. So sorry. Um, and also I I I really felt unheard in that commun in that in that organization. And I think that that's trans that transact that is a kind of pitfall for transactional leadership, is because anything that goes against the set order of things, it's really hard to hear. Because it's gonna be honestly really hard to change. Yeah. And you know, and I think honestly, I think transactional leadership, when I think of it, I'm thinking of it like existing within a system. Okay, and not there just being one transactional leader. Because a transactional leader, it's hierarchical. Yeah, hierarchical. Hierarchical. Yeah, there you go. You got hierarchy, all right? You know, and so like your transactional leader is is reporting up to somebody that has agreed to the transaction. Correct, correct. Who is reporting up to somebody that has agreed to the transaction? That's right, that's right. Right. And so if you come in as an employee that doesn't have that transaction mindset, that mindset of, you know, yeah, man, I'm gonna work hard for the money. You know, I believe in, you know, I'm I'm naturally goal-oriented. I think in order to thrive under a transactional leader, you have to be somebody that is already like um uh uh uh goal achievement oriented. Right? And I'm not. Yeah. And it took me a while to figure that out. Yeah. When someone puts a goal in front of me and says, hey, you know, if you work hard, you can get this. Yeah. I'm gonna look at it and be like, oh, uh, why? Yeah, why is that important? Yeah, why should I, why should I want this? You know, I'm not like, yeah, man, something to go after. No, how does this help other people? How is this gonna help me to become? I'm all about a becoming, I'm not about a doing. So if you come at me and say, hey, I'm gonna help you be better at your doing, I'm gonna say, Well, well, how can you help me become better? And if you can't, then I'm gonna be like, All right, well, thank you. Yep. Uh-huh. Yeah. You know, but that's but I had to learn that about myself because I could not figure out, you know, this is this is you're talking to the girl who went to a great undergraduate school, went to a great uh graduate school program, had a lot of success in everything I had ever done. And then in this first job outside of being in school, it wasn't just like, oh, I'm not used to working. It was, what? This transactional style, I went to divinity school. Right. There's no transactions in divinity school. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? We're like, hey, did you did you help someone believe? Yeah. Did you help lead somebody to to the Lord? Yeah. How do you, you know, my entire mindset, my entire mind frame was I I'm moving, everything I do is to make people and organizations better. Yeah. And then I come into a system where they're like, we don't need you to make us better. We need you to fulfill the goals for the day. Yeah. And don't ask us any questions and don't say anything else. I was like, everything about who I am is trained against that. And so I think if you are a transactional leader, I think the biggest thing, the biggest point of us going through the leadership styles is so that you know that one day your leadership style will not work with someone. That's right. It will not work. It just like I had to learn that my leadership style didn't work with somebody. Because I thought I thought I had one that could go with anybody. I was like, everybody needs to become, everybody needs to be transformed. And then someone came and they were like, don't care. I'm achievement oriented. Yeah. Yeah. I want the recognition. Yeah. You know, when we did strengths quests, one of my uh his uh one of his strengths was uh, oh my goodness, I forget the name of it. It's like self-import, like important significance. One of his strengths was significance. He wanted to be significant, he wanted to be known for something. Yeah. He wanted to do something at the level to where it would be recognized. Right. Transform transformational leadership is not gonna fit that as well as trans as well as transactional.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, as well as transactional. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's yeah, no, you're right. And I I I love what you're I I think what you're what you're hitting on is so important. Um, understanding who who you have on your team. Like, and this is also uh again a good reason to learn how to pivot. You have to learn how to pivot into certain styles. Um, I have someone on my team who would be who is more transactional in in in how she how she thinks. And that's that's great. I have no problem with that. Like, um, I then I have somebody who's absolutely not she's more like you, right? She is all about like I want to be better, help me to be better, right? Yeah, um, and and so you have to learn how to navigate that tension. Um, I again the transactional system, I almost think like and you may have said it, I don't know, I I don't remember exactly how you said it, but when you whatever you say earlier, there's something you said earlier that made me think about um this that I've interpreted in my mind, like tr the transactional leader is is within a system. I I I I don't I almost don't even know if I would label somebody as a transactional leader as much as you have leaders in transactional systems.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And you're kind of put in that position to check boxes, right? Because that's what's expected of you. Because, like you said, the hierarchy says, uh, hey, we need you to do this, and then it's your job to make sure that the team gets this done, right? And then you're judged based on what the team does. So you have to put that in place. Um so you can still be you can be a transformative leader in a transactional system. You can be a democratic leader in a transactional system, you can be a servant leader in a transactional system, you can pair more relational styles with this system. Yeah it it really is just a matter of understanding who you're working with, uh, and and understanding like and also under understanding how to um uh allow for the people who you are who are who are under your leadership to speak into uh this the certain that speak into certain things. So I think like one of the things that we do um at Angel Street is is we have uh two sets of goals. We have our goals and then we have your goals, right? And so they there are there are goals we set together, like what we call high-level goals. We set them at the beginning of each semester. And and I have them speak into it, right? At some some. I won't say all of them. Some are just this is what it is. We got it. This is our this is the system. We're gonna need to change it. So there are some that change every, you know, every year, you know, depending on, you know, like how many girls do we need to recruit based on um based on the number that we would like to see at the end of the year, how many do we need to recruit in the fall, right? And um, and and you know, this particular year we have more space. So we have the opportunity to recruit more girls. So how what is that number? And I let them speak into that so that for for them, because they're the ones that are gonna do the recruiting, not me. And so I don't want to give it to them. You say it, right? But then we do hold there is an accountability to that, right? But it is much easier to hold somebody accountable to something they speak into, um, and also to incentivize something that they speak into. Okay, cool. Like the incentive, if we get this, we're going to lunch. Like, cool. Um, and and so I I don't know that I'll actually do that. But I was gonna say, you be taking people to lunch. I we do, we do a lot of lunch. Angel Street, y'all watching, y'all heard it. Yeah, chill out, chill out. Sound like she might owe you a lunch. Chill out, chill out, chill out, because chill out. Um, so but but you know, I think that's important. And I think it's important for people to speak into stuff. The other thing that we do though is that they set personal profession professional goals for themselves within their role. And so it's like, within my role, this is what I want to do. And then they are incentivized with a bonus to do that. So if you if you meet the goal you set, you will get a monetary bonus at the end of the year, provided we raise enough money to do it. Um, and so say what? So, like, but it motivates. I I don't do it. No, no, no, no, no. I get to set my own goal.
SPEAKER_03:You can set your own goal. And if I if I meet my goal, they know not to do that in higher ed. They know we will blow them goals. They wouldn't have enough money. Oh, okay, because the way don't let me set up. I mean, we our performance management system, we do set our own goals. Yeah. But there is no guarantee, you know, that you will be compensated.
SPEAKER_00:Well, no, there's not really it's it's if we raise the money. Now, that's that's like if we if we have a good year, then that will happen, right?
SPEAKER_03:So if y'all have a good year and I don't reach my goals, you don't get the money. Y'all going around telling everybody, man, Angel Street had a great year. Fantastic year. And you just sitting there like, man, I was too I was too short.
SPEAKER_00:Sorry. Uh no, but but I found that that's been really effective. Um, and and you know, I think the I think and I'll I'll I I think this will be my my final thought on this. I think my the other thing that I have found is that transactional leadership is also a it's a good place. Um it's a good let me say that the transactional system is effective for new employees. Oh yeah. Right. So people or new people that are new to the to the industry, new to the space. Yeah. Because it gives them a runway to success quickly. Um and and so when you have people who are kind of fresh in their role giving them that to say, okay, you know, this this this week, let's try to hit uh, you know, X, Y, you know, this, the this, right? Let's try to hit three, three, uh, uh, you know, three new partners. Let's let's try to meet, you know, 10 new students. Let's um, you know, whatever. And they and it's like, okay, but after they have done it, you can't, you can't keep dictating to people what they need to do.
SPEAKER_03:And I think you're pointing to another one of Transactional's leadership's kind of qualities that can easily become a weakness. And it's the micromanagement. Right? It's uh, it's the all right, did you hit your five goals? Did you hit your five? Have you hit your five yet? Well, what are your plans to hit your five? I need you to hit the five. And it's like, back above me. Yeah. Back above me. Because you you are still, you don't realize what you um, what you diminish, you take away what are those three uh motivators again?
SPEAKER_00:Autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. You when you put your transactional leadership in that way can become heavy-handed. Correct. You know, because it becomes, hey, I want you to succeed in the way that I have prescribed success. Um and I think as an employee, especially in like your first year on the job, you need to, you need to be mindful of um, sorry, you need to be mindful of, you know, this is the job. Like, when you're in that transactional culture and you know, like if you're a car salesman, right, you don't get points for, you know, the customers thinking you're funny. You get points when you sell cars. For selling cars, right, right, right. You know, that that's the business we're in. We are in the business of selling cars. That's right. So I can't give you a, I can't, I can give you some points if you're relational, but I can't give you full credit if relational does not turn into selling cars. Correct. And it is easy to be on a job and you're the person that everybody loves but nobody buys from. It's easy to become that person. So a transactional leader, this is where I think they have you have to learn another skill set because you can't just set out the rewards and expectations and consequences and say, all right, my leadership is done here. Right. Right? You have to say, you have to be able to help them pivot and say, okay, obviously these rewards and consequences are not working, you know, and there's something here that still needs to be developed. A lot of times in those, in those instances where you're in kind of that transactional world, it's kind of like a, hey, buddy, we're not, you know, we don't, we don't invest a lot of time into people.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, we invest a lot of trust. I trust that you're gonna be able to meet these metrics. Right. But I'm not gonna, I can't give you a lot of time to do it because the time that you're taking is taken away from somebody else who could have who who maybe could have did this faster. And so you have to, as a leader, you have to balance that. And I think I think also as a leader, you have to be able to balance where whatever your leadership style is, you have to be able to balance the needs of the organization with the needs of your team. 100%. Oh gosh. And and I think that, you know, whoever where wherever you are, I feel like everybody has one that they lean to more. I feel like there, you are naturally more an organization builder or a team builder. And you need to know who you are so that you can catch yourself when you go too too far on one side. That's right. Right? I'm naturally gonna be a team builder. Correct. You know, I'm gonna be such a team builder that I'm telling my teammates, listen, I don't know what this organization does. That's it. Let me tell you what we're gonna do. Yes, okay. You know, I'm the one you might need to be a little scared of. You know what I'm saying? They've all gone rogue. Jaquita has led her entire team rogue, but we're gonna we're gonna be right. Uh-huh. Okay, we're gonna get it done. Bump what's going on in the company. My team gonna be good. I created a little nest. Oh, all right, and we're good. You know, my name actually means fortress. I be trying to tell people. And I told my team that. I was like, hey, I need y'all to know who I am. You need to know who's leading you. I I'm gonna keep us all safe. Yeah, that's real. All right, we're gonna make it through the transition. I don't know what everybody else is doing, but we're gonna be all right.
SPEAKER_00:You gotta know. I I love that you said that. You gotta know which one you lean towards. Um because that the the that that the transactional style lends itself more to an organizational leading, right? Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And um, but it is you can't I think this is also it is also when you when we're kind of as we're unpacking this, it helps to understand, um, it helps to remind, at least me, uh, that leadership can't is not a a a um leadership the best type of leadership is shared. Um and so the transactional style doesn't really open itself up to that very well. Um in its natural kind of like is it that in its natural style, it doesn't really open itself up to shared leadership. It's kind of like this is the way it is, do it like this. Um and I think that that balance is is really important. Yes, as an organization, as a company, we have these things we have to do in order to remain uh you know, in a position to employ you, right? Um and at the same time, uh those of us who lean more towards organizational like uh thinking are like that this organization is nothing without the people who help to make it happen. So you have to care, you have to care about both. It's not an option. And so uh, you know, that that idea of how does a transactional uh system uh how do you how do you honor both there? Right. And I think you absolutely can. Uh and and you, you know, and I think we've been we've been kind of talking about ways to do ways to do that. So I I think the um you know that this is this is a this this style again is so familiar to us. It's so familiar that we can go to it too quickly. If you're not, if if it's like, okay, I don't know what else to do, so I'm just I'm gonna I'm gonna you know tell the team that we're gonna do this if you do this. Like like well, just hold on. I mean it's like it's like the adult pizza party.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you know, like when you were at school and they'd be like, hey, if you if if y'all pass the test, you can have a pizza party. Like, hey man, listen, let's go everybody get it together so we can get this pizza party.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, if that's what it is, and and sometimes that works, but sometimes it's not gonna work. Um, and so what do you do? Do you keep doubling down? No, I I think you gotta you gotta sit back, think, and and again you have to pivot into a different direction. I strongly suggest if you are in a uh structure that is more transactional, find ways to elevate some of these other relational styles. Um pair it together. You you have you have to pair it together and figure out a way to really involve your people. Hmm, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I also think you if you are a transactional leader, I I'm gonna go ahead and make an assumption that you are also achievement-oriented. Sure. Because in your mind, you like, yo, this will work for me. You know, like if somebody put a goal in front of me and then put and paired that with a reward, like I'm going for it. You know, you're ambitious. You are, you know, you you buy into the idea that success renders reward. Um, and I think that it would be really important that you as a leader, and I think this for all leaders, but I think you, if you are an ambitious person, I think it's really important that you have mentors around you who can place boundaries around your ambition. That's good. And place and and help you to learn, you know, the necessary character and ethics that go along with chasing ambition.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, because you need you need somebody that that can check you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And I think the more you have someone doing that in your life, the more you'll be able to see your team members as people and not just producers. Um, you need people in your life. I think it's kind of like being a celebrity, you know, like you need people in your life who don't treat you like a celebrity. That's right. Who you know, unimpressed. Right. Who are unimpressed. That's right. When you walk in a room, they like, hey girl, sit down. Yeah. All right. I don't care nothing about what you was doing on stage. Yeah. All right. I want to talk to you about your life. Yeah. You know, I want to talk to you about your heart. I want to talk to you about, you know, and because you probably got into a leadership slash management role because you were really good at something. You were really good at producing something. You're making a good point, Guida. You're making a good point. You were really good at producing something in that company or in companies before, and and you became that person. And so now your way of motivating people is hey, if you want to become that person, you gotta produce. But it is easy. If you are a high producer, it is easy to ignore the other parts of yourself. Um, and you need you need people around you that can catch your blind spots, and you can't get so high up that you can't hear from down below.
SPEAKER_00:You you make such a good point. I love that you brought up the fact that most people who get put in who get promoted are promoted because they do the thing that they were doing really well. And they're and what we don't this is good. Take your time. What we do is we we make we make the mistake of not preparing people from going to producing to leading. You don't have it's not the same skill set. And so just because you're able to do something really, really well, you are been promoted, and most promotion it it uh most of the time when you're promoted, you are promoted to a space where you're doing less, you're doing less. Um you are leading other people in doing, you're not you're not the one that's doing it. And so when you are used to being the one that's uh killing it, you would lean more. It would make sense to lean more towards this transactional leadership style when you are kind of put in a position to then manage a team to do that thing, right? Um but it's it is so important. What ex I I hope I hope y'all heard what Quita said, it's so important to put energy into learning these other styles because the truth is you are gonna have a deficiency in the other more relational styles of leadership because it's just not it's not the muscle you've used. And you need to practice that muscle uh because uh the the the quickest way to kill a team is to do what your team should be doing. Like the quickest way to do that is to do their job.
SPEAKER_03:Oh yes, because that's exactly what I experienced in that organization. Yeah, not only that organization I was talking about earlier, not only was I not motivated to do the things, my boss, who I love dearly, she put me in her car and said, Hey, we rolling out because you're gonna get these numbers. And she took me community to community, and we got we got the numbers. Then all of that was the only time I won an award. One of them weekly meeting awards, was because she she took me out and did it. But I felt no levels of success or growth. I didn't do it, and I also didn't really, I wasn't really motivated to do it the way she was doing it either. Yeah. You know, I was just, I was, I was, I became, I became numb to the whole process. I was just like, man, whatever. You know, I'm I'm just I'm just here so I don't get fined. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, and so you don't want, you don't want, because it is easy to ignore what's happening in other people. Now, I'm not, you know, I do think her leadership style was transactional at that time, but she also was like, girl, I got you. I'm gonna protect you, you know. Like she saw the good in me, but it wasn't, we both knew I wasn't made for that role.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And that I wasn't gonna be able to stay there. Like we both knew. I'm not, don't put me in no hustle role.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I ain't your girl. Don't don't put me out in the stream and be like, hey, quit it, go get it. You know what I'm saying? Go do it. I'm be like, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, because I'm gonna end up the people you trying to get me to to bring into the organization. I'm gonna be like, hey, baby, you listen, I see something on you. You look heavy today. Let's talk. All right, now you ain't gotta join this organization. I don't care nothing about that. I don't care nothing about that. And I leave feeling fulfilled because I changed the life and and and the numbers are still low. Don't put me. Let me tell you something. A shout out to all the transactional leaders. You might not want me on your squad. Uh okay. I I am not a numbers person. Quality over here, over quantity, okay. That's hilarious. That's exactly if you want higher survey results, okay. I can get you that. Okay, I can I can improve your satisfaction. That's hilarious. Okay, but don't uh don't you gotta know who you are. You gotta know who you are. You know, and I think that that's important, not just from a leadership standpoint, but a lot of you are thinking about your next career moves. You're thinking about, you know, like where where could, you know, especially as middle adult. I did not think I was gonna be here. I didn't think I was gonna be in a place where I was like, hmm, what what comes after this? Like what's next for me? You know, I'm in a I'm in an unfamiliar place. But I will tell you, no lie, Ruth Abigail. Talking through these leadership styles has helped me tremendously. It's helped me tremendously because it has reminded me of who I am, but it has also shown me what God is doing in my life now. He's like, hey, yeah, you're great at this transformational thing, but you're gonna need a little bit more than that. Yeah. You know, say I don't know about this transactional one, but you're gonna need a little bit, you're gonna need, you're gonna need to, to, to, to be able to delve into some other things for for your next, you know, stage in life. And that's just for everything. And so I think another thing we do as leaders is that we compartmentalize our lives. You know, and we say, hey, this is you know, this is me in my job. You know, I'm transformational or I'm you know, transactive, transaction. Yep, take your time. Transactional. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. There it is. We be streaking. That's all right. You can tell I took I took some uh some time off from school. You know, I it's like I forgot how to talk. I forgot how to say big words. Yeah, take your time. Okay, take your time, Jaquita, all right? Don't don't rush it. Take your time, you know, but but you are you are not a compartmentalized individual. Yeah, talking to you, leader, right? You're not a compartmentalized individual. Every area of your life is impacting, building, strengthening, supporting all the other areas of your life. Correct. If you are a husband and a wife, that's impacting the way that you lead at work, right? If you're a mother or a father, that's impacting the way that you're building relationships or that you are teaching people, you know, especially mother-father, you know, like you go in to work and you be like, I know exactly what we're doing here, right? Because you're looking, the lenses that we look through in our lives will impact the way that we lead. 100%. It it's just gonna happen. And so I think that it's it's really important that while you are thinking through how do I show up for the people that I lead, don't leave any part of you at the door. Bring it all. Yeah, that's good. Bring it all because that is gonna help you to be able to shift out of using only just one style. Yep. Because your life is molding and shaping you to be a better leader. But when we get into our leadership spaces and we're like, all right, turn off, you know, my mama hat, turn off my my sister hat, my auntie hat, turn off this, and I'm just in this workspace now, and I'm here, and we treat our roles as transactions. Yeah, that's like, you know, I'm here to do a job, and then when I leave, I'm gonna leave this job at the door. Every part of you will follow you everywhere you go. And you have to allow all of you to show up in these spaces. And that's honestly how we start experiencing burnout when we when we try to like dictate what parts of us get what energy or what just just show up.
SPEAKER_00:Just show up, show up, just show up, show up as your whole self, and that's that's really what healthy leadership is. Like you are a leader, like you, that's that's who you are everywhere. Like it's how you think, um, it's how you show up, it's the attitude you have, and all of that matters everywhere. So so if you truly are living into that reality, then you're not compartmentalizing. It it is it is a very you know, every place you show up, there is something distinct about you that says he's a leader, she's a leader. Yeah, and that's what you want to do, that's how you want to be. Um well, there you go, guys. Transactional leadership. Transactional leadership. Um, we have one more uh coming up after this, and we are that's gonna be really interesting, I think. Uh, this this last one. Um, and then we are we we will have completed this series. We thank you for rocking with us. And if this series has been uh of value to you, or you think it could be of value to anybody else, we want you to do what, Jaquita?
SPEAKER_03:We want you to like, share, and subscribe, okay? Become a part of the community, you know. Unlearn with us. We're really this is a process of unlearning together. Ru Gabigail and I are unlearning in real time with you guys. And so we want you to be a part of that. We want you to rock with us. Come on, man. Um, because this is a journey that we're doing together. Absolutely. We are right there with you. Share and subscribe. I know some of y'all, I know some of y'all be listening and not subscribing now. Y'all do that. All right. I know some of y'all be be looking at the clips here. If you like the clip, like the clip. Yeah. All right. Go ahead and hit that little, hit that little thumbs up. Okay. Do that. I need that extrinsic motivation. Okay. There you go.
SPEAKER_00:There you go. Hit the like button. There you go. Let's let's do it. Let's do it. Um, all right, y'all. We are done and we will see y'all next week. But until then, we're gonna keep unlearning together so that we can experience more freedom. Thank you once again for listening to the Unlearned Podcast. We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode. Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and to let us know what you think. We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom. See you then.
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