Transactional analysis and leadership

• Briefly, transactional analysis shows us that we relate to each other in one of 3 ways:
  • Parent to child - telling others what to do, talking down to them.
  • Child to parent - being submissive, throwing temper tantrums, flaunting authority.
  • Adult to adult - relating as equals, reason dominating emotion.
• We're not as ''grown up'' as we think, our emotions often get the better of us and we revert to either Parent or Child mode in our relationships.
• Any time you lose your temper, sulk, lash out at someone, tell people off, get revenge, you are operating in either Parent or Child mode - or a bit of both.
• Nuturing, coaching, sympathizing with people, if done in a paternalistic way, is also a form of Parent-Child way of relating to people.
• In some ways the emotional intelligence movement is about trying to get us to behave in a more Adult way more of the time.
• Traditional top-down leadership based on the authority of position fosters a Parent-Child mode of relating to subordinates. However much both sides might try to relate in an Adult-Adult manner, the reality of their power differential intrudes and one side or the other lapses into Parent or Child mode - especially common under pressure.
• A conception of leadership that is not based on positional power is more conducive to an Adult-Adult mode of relating to others.
• On this view, anyone can lead by advocating new directions, regardless of position in the hierarchy. An Adult-Adult relationship helps to keep emotional distortions at bay.
• Ironically, true leadership is harder for managers to display simply because it is hard, in practice, to separate genuine influence from authority.
• When your manager tries to persuade you to do something, is he/she genuinely trying to persuade you or are you politely being told to do it? The latter is not really leadership, but managerial decision making.