Are Leaders Made or Born: a Critique of Great Manand Trait Theories

From the vantage point of the present, it is easy to look back at the tenure of any great leader and draw conclusions about just what it was that made him/her great. We can examine the circumstances under which their leadership flourished; piece together what we know of their character and personality traits; delve into the factors that may have driven them; and dissect their leadership style all in an effort to pinpoint the source of their success. The ‘Great Man’ theory, popular in the 19th century and now thoroughly debunked, held that leaders are born, not made; suggesting that men like George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., and Winston Churchill were born with the innate capacity to change the world (Landis,

Leadership is, and always has been, a vital aspect of social and economic constructs. It is essential to the survival of societies, industries, organizations, and virtually any group of individuals that come together for a common purpose. However, leadership is difficult to define in a single, definitive sense. As such, theories of leadership, what constitutes a great leader, and how leaders are made have evolved constantly throughout history, and still continue to change today in hopes of improving upon our understanding of leadership, its importance, and how it can be most effective in modern organizational cultures.

For centuries leaders have been analyzed in order to determine what the traits and characteristics of a successful leader are. Leadership, as defined by Koontz and Weihrich (2008) is “the art or a process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals” (p. 311). Leadership plays an important role in employee’s participation, creativity, recruitment to an organization, their commitment to the organization, and productivity levels. Over the years, there have been a number of theories surrounding leadership such as the “Great Man” theory, which, according to Riaz and Haider (2010), “assumes that leaders are born and have innate qualities, therefore, leaders

What is leadership, and how do we attain the best and most effective leaders? These are questions that are as old as civilization itself. Bass (1974) wrote that, “from its infancy, the study of history has been the study of leaders” (as cited in Wren, 1995, p. 50). Since the study of history in the West is commonly held to begin with Herodotus of ancient Athens, it is not surprising that we should examine the historical views of leadership through the eyes of two titans of Greek thought: Plato and Aristotle.

As was mentioned earlier, the trait theory contains highly subjective perspectives. It means that the perception of leadership traits is associated with the assessment of leadership. Barry et al (2003) conducted an

Throughout time the question of “ Are leaders born or made?” continues to be debated. This question has been part of several myths that try to explain what makes a person a leader. According to the trait approach theory, it sets a benchmark for what certain traits an individual must possess in order to make them a leader. Before leadership traits were considered innate. However, as time has progressed research has indicated that situations differentiate leaders from non-leaders. Therefore, an individual does not possess certain traits, rather it is the relationship between the person and its society that make him/her leader. All leaders must have a set of skills that help them lead subordinates to reach an overall vision. A vision must originate from both the leader and its followers, and it is the leader's job to articulate the vision. Furthermore, leaders demonstrate the capacity to lead their followers and

Leadership many times can be misinterpreted by many individuals. Leadership is an ability that not everyone is meant to have nor develop. In fact, many can be called, “leaders” but that does not imply that their leadership role plays a positive impact on others. At times, some people seek leadership in a form to only obtain power and abuse it for their own self-interest. While there are others that create great influences to following generations. For instance, there are those like Plato and Thomas Jefferson who have established philosophical thoughts that for past centuries, have revolutionized many people’s ideals. Through their principles many people have identified, what they consider can exemplify, true characteristics that make someone have successful leadership qualities. In their own way, they have influenced others, with the purpose to communicate a foundation of important ideals which have helped guide many. Whether it is one or a group of individuals. Many people should consider in practicing and adapting to those philosophical principles, manifested in Plato’s, “The Allegory of the Cave” and Thomas Jefferson's, “The Declaration of Independence” essay who illustrate certain ideals and aspects of leadership in their own unique way.

In the research carried out by Bass (1990), they found out that trait leadership theory believes some people are born to lead because of their personal qualities, while others are not. Trait theory also suggests that leadership is only accessible to the chosen ones and not available to all. In the past researchers focused on traits that were able to measure such as physical characteristics, aspects of personality and aptitudes. The current trait research has pointed the focus to more specific traits like stress tolerance, energy level, emotional maturity, integrity and self-confidence. Reviews of the trait research have found all of the above traits to be related to managerial effectiveness Bass (1990) and Marques (2010). When looking at the results of

7) points out that a review of his leadership research, there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it” (p. 2). Kouzes et al “in other words, it doesn’t matter who you are. What does matter is how you as a leader behave.”

A quick Google search for “Leadership” will yield over 490 billion entries with results ranging from Forbes Magazine to the Harvard Business Review, and on Amazon.com there are over 140,000 books written on the topic. If you limit your query to trying to find a definition of leadership the results be come only slightly clearer, with 298 billion results and thousands of websites trying to clearly articulate the definition of a leader. This focus on building great leaders stretches throughout history with philosophers like Plato extolling the virtues by which good leaders could be identified, and examples like Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and George Washington litter the annals of history giving us living examples by which to model leadership.

Researchers have focused their efforts towards the link between effectiveness of leaders and personality traits. They tend to reach a consensus indicating that the effectiveness of a leader is established by her/his personality traits. In this context, the performance and success of leaders is measured by personality traits. Organizations use different models to assess an individual's personality traits. Some strategies employed to determine included the use of trait approach in establishing whether a leader is charismatic (Anderson, Reckenrich & Kupp, 2011).

The trait leadership theory focuses on the individual leader’s personal characteristics as the basis of its investigations. It is one of the earliest leadership theories upon whose tenets many researches on leadership have been done. Although it is not very coherent, its heuristic nature has contributed to its significance in leadership research. Zaccaro and Klimoski (2002) define traits of reference to leadership as the stable personality characteristics, which result in a consistent leadership performance pattern, given different scenarios and groups. They include individual personalities, temperament, rationale, prowess, as well as cognitive abilities. Initially, the theory explored both physical and psychological characteristics that tell apart leaders from non-leaders.

There has been vast amounts of research done on the topic of leadership, and yet despite this it continues to be ‘‘riddled with paradoxes, inconsistencies, and contradictions’’

Moreover, the trait approach gives a deeper understanding of the leader element in the leadership process by emphasising exclusively on the leader, (Gore et al, 2011). The trait theory does not offer hypotheses about the role of situational variance or characteristic of the followers. Instead, this approach provide information about leaders, and about which traits cause which behaviours and that certain set of traits are central to the leadership process and play an indispensible part of effective leadership.

However, the primary factors that accounts for the failure to establish a definite link between personality traits and leadership is the same factor that limits the value of great