Organizational cultures are in turmoil as they navigate a new environment of employees’ attitudes toward work. There’s a distinction between the transactional work of followers and cultivating a team environment of leaders.
As a leader, you’ve no doubt felt the effects of the rise of employee turnover and the stresses as employees are demanding more flexibility and autonomy.
There’s a big schism that’s occurring in the workplace right now. It’s not a right or wrong thing. It just is.
There’s a choice that organizations face. To grow, they must choose to create a culture that attracts followers or a culture where leaders are developed. Some are trying to straddle both philosophies and are struggling to get ahead. They’re losing their sense of purpose.
The Effects of Transactional Work
Some businesses are making the choice to go more transactional, not only with their independent contract workers but even with employees as they work through the issues of remote and hybrid work environments.
There are employees that are remote that have never met their coworkers. They don’t go to meetings. They just touch base with their boss here and there. The interaction is very transactional and it’s not building interacting relationships with others in the organization nor is there a strong connection with the mission.
When building a culture through transactional work, you’re building a workforce of followers.
Leaders who look at their employees as an extension of their hands have more transactional tendencies. The attitude “I tell you what to do, you go do it, you come back to me… rinse and repeat” has a very narrow purview.
The mindset is that things are done the way you’re told. Leaders in a transactional environment are not looking for input, just tasks done the way they’ve developed. They’re not about building relationships.
There isn’t anything inherently wrong with a transactional culture. A transactional environment can be attractive to both employers and employees. The organization can create a culture to treat everyone fairly, however, at the same time they’re not expecting to build a team. The employee punches in to do the steps of their job they’re told and is not expected to be a part of a team. The expectation is that everyone should be an individual contributor and get the work done.
Growth can happen in a transactional environment, however, an increased number of followers will be needed. In this environment, leaders are capped at their own capabilities and knowledge base.
The Compounding Effect of Developing Leaders
There’s a difference between being able to create an environment where leaders will thrive, and creating an environment where followers are attracted. If you want exponential growth in your organization, you should be developing and leading leaders, not followers.
“To add growth, lead followers – to multiply, lead leaders.”
— John C. Maxwell
Sometimes, it makes sense to shift for a period of time into a transactional mode to accomplish a goal. Often, the shift is short-term and during crisis avoidance.
One problem that arose out of the long-term effects of the pandemic on the workforce is that “crisis mode” turned out to last much longer than anyone was prepared for.
Employees are demanding flexibility. They want autonomy and they want their own growth track. This has led to many employers continuing to work in a transactional environment. They are forced to add more workers to do individual jobs. For transactional cultures, when you add one person, you get the skills and abilities of that one person to accomplish the one slice of work needing to be done. To achieve another slice of work, another worker with different skills and abilities must be hired.
But flexibility and autonomy would also exist in a culture that leads leaders. In these relationship-building environments, building cohesive teams to accomplish the mission of the organization is the center of focus rather than individual task accomplishment.
When you lead a leader, you get growth by multiplication because you get all of the things that one person brings to the table, plus all of the people that they influence, plus all the resources from their network because they’re bringing that whole thing to the table. It’s a compounding effect of adding skills and resources for each leader you develop.
Some argue that growing leaders is a harder path. There are differences in opinion and differences in style to accomplish the overall goal of the organization. However, leaders are very much mission-driven and are creative in finding ways and solutions to improve upon and grow an organization’s mission that they believe in.
There is no ceiling to possible growth when leading leaders in a mission-driven organization.
Employers and Employees Must Make a Choice
It’s important to create the culture you want in your organization. When you do, you as an employer will attract the right people.
If you try to please everyone and straddle both transactional and mission-driven cultures, you’ll limit your business’ growth. You’ll continue to see the churn of higher employee turnover.
You can’t lead leaders in a transactional environment. It won’t work. Leaders won’t show up for that. Followers don’t want the responsibility of being connected to a mission. They want to stay in their lane and do what’s asked of them and nothing more.
Whether they’re followers or leaders, prospective employees are self-selecting the organizations they want to work for. When the culture of transactional or mission-driven is clearly defined, employees aren’t confused by expectations. Clearly defined cultural expectations lead to happier and more productive employees and employers.
Making the choice and clearly defining your organizational culture’s expectations to attract and retain the right people is no doubt hard. It’s hard but worth it in the long run for the prosperity of your organization.
Additional Resources:
- The Compounding Power of Teamwork | Free Download
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership | John C. Maxwell
