Reflective essay
Case 1 o Situation
Two of my flat mates and I usually rotate our roles of being the ‘manager’ for each of the study vacation’s activity arrangement. It was then D’s turn to be our group leader and plan the trip to Melbourne.
o Complication
D is a smart, considerate and genuine person, but she has trouble making decisions. She resembles a full-on shy kid when she has to communicate to people from different agencies or book any appointments on a face-to-face basis.
o Resolution
The plan itself is very detailed, plausible and sound but due to the fact that D lacks a certain amount of elements that contributing to an efficient leader, we encountered a few problems.
Firstly, we almost missed our last chance to get the
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Her low self-assurance, indecisiveness and introversion stood in the way of her effective communication with others.
Trait approach (Lang 1999) leadership theory can function better for D by making a few adjustments.
Firstly, being more innovative and sharp when encountering problems and being ready for possible consequences of the decisions made earlier. She could talk straight to the flight agencies to get desired tickets based on the fact that those subtle differences between times and prices are acceptable for us.
Secondly, she should be able to distinguish the rest two of us flat mates’ personalities and assign respective tasks for us instead of handling all the problems by herself. For example, S is talkative, so she could run the communication routines; I’m decisive, so I could book the events and tickets.
By promoting her own leadership traits and assigning tasks for us will establish a clearer and logical link between traits and position. An informal hierarchy is set up (Judge, Piccolo & Kosalka 2009) and therefore lead to a more efficient decision making process and desirable outcome.
Trait approach may serve its purpose in this case because D can practice public-speaking or through daily communicating exercise to boost her socializing skill so as to match the leadership criteria. However, with regard to the dimensions like integrity and intelligence, this approach
The Dust Bowl brought upon grueling times to the hard-working farmers of the Southern United States. As shown in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, everybody was changed due to the horrid conditions of the time, especially the migrants. One character who changed throughout the course of the novel, was Ma. At the beginning of the book, Ma was a quiet mother who cooked and cared for the Joads, and was there to fall back on to help and judge tough situations. Near the end of the novel, Ma transforms into the head of the family, making decisions, and keeping the family from splitting.
The Trait approach in leadership focuses exclusively on the leader, not on the followers or the situation (Northouse 2016, p 29). There are five major traits (intelligence, self-confidence,
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
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
Communication: Deborah conducts herself in a manner consistent with the DPS Courtesy policy. She actively listens and asks relevant questions to ensure understanding of the assigned task.
The essay classifies leadership into four key approaches: (1) trait approach, (2) behaviour approach, (3) the
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
There are different leadership theories developed throughout the history. Most popular ones are trait theories, behavioral theories, contingency theories, and leader-member exchange (LMX) theory. The author of the post will briefly discuss two theories, Fiedler contingency theory and Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), and compare and contrast their strengths and weakness.
There is no consensus that has been reached regarding this controversy, but many theories are centered on it. Chronologically, popular leadership theories include the great man theory, trait theory, behavioral theories, role theory, participative leadership, situational leadership, contingency theories, transactional leadership, and transformational leadership. Each of these theories presents a unique perspective of what comprises leadership. The main focus of this research paper is, however, the trait theory (Bass & Stogdill, 1990).
The Trait Approach was the 1st systematic attempt to study leadership. In the 20th century it was known as the “great man” theory. This approach takes a look at the leaders personal attributes such as but not limited to: motivation, energy, intuition, creativity, persuasiveness and foresight. Some of the traits that are essential to this list include: intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability. Thus it focuses mainly on the leader and not on the followers or situations. The strengths of the Trait Approach includes: 1) it is intuitively appealing, 2) it has research to back it’s theory, 3) it highlights the leader, 4) it identifies what the traits of a leader should have and whether the traits we do
If we focus on the idea that people can poses different personality and characteristics can be linked to successful leadership across various situation this would be defined as the trait theory of leadership. Some researcher believe that the ability to lead was something that a person was born with and not something that could be developed or learn. Many people still believe that leaders just have an intuition that makes them good at making decision and developing
Trait approach has a long history of research covering more than a century; no other leadership theory can make this claim of credibility.
This theory is based on the premise that there are certain personality characteristics that are essential for a person to possess in order to be a leader. The main emphasis is on what the person is in terms of a constellation of personality traits. This theory searches for that set of universal leadership traits that will assure success. Numerous traits have been suggested: courage, integrity, loyalty, charisma, ambition, intelligence, honesty, clairvoyance, persistence, arrogance, health, political skill, confidence and vision.
Research on management and leadership in organizations over the past century shows there are still no clear definitions or answers about what counts as effective and successful leadership; the field remains varied and argued. Actual studies of leadership began in the early twentieth century. The research and studies on leadership have resulted in defining what characters, traits and attitudes are considered to be significant for leaders to possess. The early studies of leadership theories focused on the person and their behaviors, currently known as leadership trait theories and behavioral theories. It is important for organizational leaders and managers to understand what characteristics, traits and actions of an individual mark a great leader when forming a strong diverse workforce.