Leading Organizational Change : Tragedy Or Transformation

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.

The Trait Theory is based on the innate characteristics that a leader should have in order to lead successfully. For example, sense of humor, caring, and friendly. People in the Trait Theory have to show certain qualities when they communicate and these qualities have to remain constant in different environments.

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

The trait approach is clearly flawed because it only takes into account one side of leadership; however, it does provide valuable insight on the leadership side. Trait theory provides an outline for feedback. Subordinates can quickly pick up on qualities that a leader does or does not have. This feedback can provide individuals with a good understanding of where they stand as a leader. Simple surveys such as the leadership trait questionnaire can be conducted to translate feedback into tangible evidence. I have distributed this questionnaire and collected results for myself to grasp my perceived leadership trait levels. For my example as a plebe, I had a clear perception of where the firstie stood as a leader. I unconsciously recognized many leadership traits without having a solid understanding of what I saw. This illustrates the nature of the approach. It identifies people who have demonstrated leadership traits and has no description for how a leader should act in an environment or situation. It is extremely easy to conceptualize but fails to take the leadership situation and context into account. The trait approach provides important concepts to better understand leadership but is clearly is not enough be used exclusively as a guiding theory.

Reinforcement: Encourage staffs to take initiatives and make the required contributions. Apply inclusive workplace culture to empower staffs to lead and manage decision.

Organizational change encompasses many challenges to both the individual, and the organization. An organization is a living system, as Flower (2002) states “living systems cannot survive without change, challenge, variety, and surprise” (Flower, 2002, p. 16). An organization requires the ability to adapt in to survive as Darwin states in The Origin of Man, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” (Read Me First, 2013, p. 1). It must adapt to the changing market, global economic pressures, stakeholder demands, and the diverse needs

The Trait theory is based on the innate characteristics that a leader should have in order to lead successfully. For example, sense of humor, caring, and friendly. People in the Trait Theory has to show certain qualities when they communicate and these qualities have to remain constant in different environments.

All leaders wield a certain significant level of influence within their organizations or over their followers based upon their own personal philosophy. Being a leader without considering on a personal level key values that one finds important can result in inconsistent outcomes. Establishing a leadership philosophy helps guide actions, behaviors and thoughts. A leadership philosophy is developed through a combination of internal and external forces that impact an individual over their lifetime. There have been a number of theories formulated that attempt to explain what the traits of a successful leader consists of. One theory is that certain traits such as extraversion, intelligence, openness, conscientiousness, and experience are often

Organic structures are flexible and decentralized and communication lines are more fluid and flexible (David et al., 2013). Employee job descriptions are broader and employees are asked to perform duties based on the specific needs of the organization. Organic structures tend to be related to higher levels of job satisfaction on the part of employees. These structures are conducive to entrepreneurial behavior, continuous improvement and innovativeness.

The history of trait theory has…(still working on this part). The leadership traits that are involved in trait theory can be defined as relatively coherent and integrated patterns of personal

The history of trait theory has…(still working on this part). The leadership traits that are involved in trait theory can be defined as relatively coherent and integrated patterns of personal

Trait leadership theory suggests that all leaders are born with or display certain key personality characteristics. Certain characteristics are particularly suited to leadership. People who make good leaders have a sufficient combination of these character traits. Most of the time the traits are considered to be naturally part of a person’s personality. Hence, leadership trait theory tends to assume that people are born as leaders or not as leaders. However, according to Shead (2007), the idea that leadership traits are inborn and unchangeable appears to be incorrect. He posits that it is true that many of our dispositions and tendencies are influenced by our personalities, but most people will acknowledge that it is possible for someone to change their character traits for the worse. Someone typically known for being honest can learn to be deceitful. Stogdill (1974) identified the following traits and skills as critical to leaders.

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

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.

Trait theories assume all leaders share a number of common traits. This theory identifies traits or characteristics that are essential when being a leader. Traits like assertiveness, good decision making, empathy, integrity, and confidence are some examples of traits of successful leaders; however, there is no magic combination of traits that will guarantee someone to be a successful leader. Traits are based on our inner thoughts and beliefs. Many different studies about leadership traits agree only in the general righteous qualities needed to be a leader. Those traits are known as core traits. The core traits include