Margaret Thatcher was the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain. Born into a conservative family, she grew up above her family’s grocery store. She was brought up with the values of hard work and public service.

She attended the University of Oxford graduating in 1947 with a degree in chemistry. She was a scientist but longed to be in politics. She joined the Young Conservatives and went on to study as a barrister at the Inns of Court Law school, becoming a tax attorney in 1954. It was during this time that she improved her leadership skills. She married a wealthy business man and was the mother of twins. She ran for parliament but was defeated due to the existence of male partiality in her conservative party. Her determination to succeed enabled her to became a member of the house of commons in 1959 and she rose up through the ranks in parliament serving until 1992.

She was elected three terms as Prime Minister, serving eleven years in power (1979-1990). Margaret Thatcher passed away in 2013 at the age of 87 and is considered one of Britain’s most influential Prime Minister of the 20th century. Margaret Thatcher’s leadership style was a combination of autocratic and transactional. Margaret Thatcher received the moniker “Iron Lady” because of her authoritarian and autocratic leadership style. Her leadership style was characterized by making the decisions and expecting her followers to follow her instructions. She needed individual control over the decisions she made. She needed to make decisions quickly so that she could accomplish what she set out to do.

Margaret Thatcher came to office with one deliberate intent, “To change from a dependent to a self-reliant society – from a give-it-to me, to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.” She had a clear passion that she believed in and she wasn’t going to compromise her principals. She came into power when the economic conditions were poor and the trade unions had shut down public services. Public expenditures were out of control. With her style of leadership, she was able to take on the unions, nationalize industries and put Britain back on its feet. Margaret Thatcher also exhibited a transactional style of leadership.

This was evident by the hierarchal structure of the British government where she had the power and authority over those beneath her but was still accountable to those in parliament. Transactional leaders are coercive and rely on rewards and punishment as influence. Margaret Thatcher reprimanded her colleagues by making hand written notes and comments in the margins of proposals and policies when they didn’t match her views or plans and went so far as to indicate it was a very poor paper and “please translate into English”. Transactional leadership is centered around the idea of the relationship between the leader and followers where the followers agree to obey the leader and suffer the consequences if they resist. One of Margaret Thatcher’s ministers was dismissed because they were against her governments economic policy. She was trying to change the status quo, and this included fighting against her ministers and the departments that were behind them. She exhibited leadership traits such as motivation, self-confidence, ambition, decisiveness, honesty, and integrity.

Personality traits of leaders vary greatly, but great leaders tend to have a specific set of personality traits that define their style of leadership and the legacy they leave behind.