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Margaret Thatcher's Leadership Theories Essay

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A report on Margaret Thatcher’s leadership style, approaches and personality attributes

Name: Noor Al Abdulla

Student Number: 08434474

Module: Leadership in Context

Table of contents: Page Number

1.0 Introduction 3

2.0 Leadership defined 3

3.0 Margaret Thatcher 3

4.0 Leadership Theories 4

4.1 An illustration of four theories 4

4.2 Trait Theory 4

4.3 Trait Theory Application to Margaret Thatcher 5

4.4 Trait Theory limitations 5

5.0 Personal Attributes 5

5.1 Personal attributes and leadership 6

5.2 Margaret Thatcher’s personal attributes 6

5.3 Traits and accomplishments 6

6.0 Motivation: Brief definition 6

6.1 …show more content…

While many different leadership theories have emerged, most can be classified as one of eight major types: great man theories, trait theories, contingency theories, situational theories, behavioural theories, participative theories, management theories and relationship theories. However, I found the trait theories are best applied when talking about Margaret Thatcher.

4.1 An illustration of four theories

17 Trait theory

“The trait theory of leadership, generally considered the first modern theory of leadership, became popular during the second half of the twentieth century and, despite scholarly criticism, has continued to be popular. The theory states that certain innate traits are common to leaders. Although the identified traits vary, the most common are intelligence, self confidence, determination, integrity, and sociability.” (Shriberg and Shriberg, 2009) the reason behind choosing this theory to be applied to my chosen leader is that I believe that the abovementioned traits are found in her. Moreover, trait theory remains prevalent today.

4.3 Trait theory application to Margaret Thatcher

The trait theory expects leaders to have certain characteristics or traits. Traits are stable & transferable across situations. Traits are clearly identifiable & measurable prediction. Traits such as: intelligence, dominance, self-confident, energetic, task-related knowledge. According to one of her biographies “Margaret

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