Transformational Leadership and Employee Retention

It's been a while since I've posted to my own blog.  I've been very busy with some management and hands-on engineering for a couple of companies.  I wasn't always a great manager.  I was fair and I don't believe I was too hard on employees in the early days of my own company, but I was more of an authentic leader than a transformational one.  But a lot has changed for me in the last 10 years.

I soon will be finishing my MBA and have learned some new ways of being a great leader.  Although I had learned quite a few things from running my own software company for 10+ years, I did learn a couple of new things when it comes to effective leadership.

I really have always been pretty honest and open with employees about everything and always strive to keep employees engaged and help them build their career, even if it was destined to be outside my company. You can see from my LinkedIn recommendations that I think I've achieved great success in being a truly transformational leader.

I have recently been working for a couple of people that aren't transformational leaders and are more transactional leaders.  It is very tough for a transformational leader to work under transactional leaders.  This is the most significant reason I have left companies recently.

A good infographic that I recommend everyone read and understand some of my goals with respect to becoming a better transformational leader can be found here: http://www.officevibe.com/blog/stats-employee-engagement-infographic 

In the mean time, I am engaging my reports with transformational leadership techniques and still trying to up-manage so that the executive staff will eventually learn how to keep employees engaged.  The rule-by-iron-fist techniques of the past do not work very well with the new generations.  Time will tell if the company can be successful or not.