Pros And Cons Of Trait Theories Of Leadership

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

There are a variety of ways to define both leader and leadership. There is not, however, a clear definition of how to become one. There is no set list of mandatory traits, either innate or learned, that a person must embody to be considered successful or proved a failure. What I feel it takes is the right mix of strengths and weaknesses in a given situation to demonstrate effectiveness. No one person has abilities without accompanying deficiencies. It’s all in the way they are balanced. The balance in the way one uses his or hers’ abilities will ultimately determine the type of leadership one has throughout time. To support these claims I will examine a well-known leader throughout the military, General James “Mad Dog” Mattis. This essay

In the Leadership Challenge, 4th edition, it is Kouzes & Posner (2007) intention to present a road map for individuals to follow on their leadership journey. The authors stress that “leadership is not a gene and it’s not an inheritance.” Leadership they assert is “an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to all of us” (p. 23). They make clear that the “great person” theory of leadership is “plain wrong.” Leaders are our everyday heroes who do extraordinary things on a regular basis (p. 23).

As a growing debate, the question at hand is whether great leaders are born with specific leadership traits, or if one can be taught certain traits over time. According to (Wikipedia.com) the approach of listing leadership qualities, often termed "trait theory of leadership", assumes certain traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership. I believe that leadership traits such as honest, competent, initiative, inspiring, hardworking, intelligent, and the ability to lead the masses, are some of the leadership traits one should possess. Within this paper, I will examine the overall concept of leadership traits, while observing the traits that were, or can be associated with successful leaders.

According to Sullivan and Decker (2009), leadership is influencing others into working toward accomplishing a common goal. Some people are born with an innate leadership quality within them. Others require learning leadership and management skills. It takes a certain personality trait that makes them a natural leader. Intelligence, personality, and abilities are three categories of the trait theory that is a part of the profile of successful leaders (Sullivan & Decker, 2009). I will discuss my personal views of leadership. It will

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.

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

While many are inclined to believe that a leader's innate leadership traits account for a small portion of his or her success, some leaders actually exploit their abilities to a full extent and manage to demonstrate that such traits can play an essential role in distinguishing between someone who is well-acquainted with what it means to be a leader.

Trait theory bought out the characteristics which not only determine the factors which should exist within a leader but also consist of preconditions that endow people with leadership potential (Management Study Guide, 2016).

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.

The best leaders are those have the adaptability to flex their behavioral style, and choose the right style suitable for each situation. According to this theory, people can learn to become leaders through teaching and observation and certain behavioral patterns may be identified as leadership styles. Advantages of Behavioral Theory of Leadership: Behavioral theory promotes the value of leadership styles with an emphasis on concern for people and collaboration. It promotes participative decision making and team development by supporting individual needs and aligning individual and group objectives. It helps managers evaluate and understand how their behavioral style as a manager affects their relationship with the team and promotes commitment and contribution towards organizational goals. This theory helps managers find the right balance between different styles of leadership, and helps them decide how to behave as a leader, depending on concerns for people and for productivity. Criticism / Arguments against - Behavioral Theory of Leadership: As there were inherent limitations with the Trait approach to leadership, when early researchers ran out of steam in their search for traits, they turned to what leaders did, how they behaved and came with behavioral theory of leadership. This became the dominant way of approaching leadership within organizations in the 1950s and early 1960s but this

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 leadership began with a search for inherited characteristics that differentiated leaders from non-leaders and

The trait leadership theory believes that people are either born or are made with certain qualities that will make them excel in leadership roles. That is, certain qualities such as intelligence, sense of responsibility, creativity and other values puts anyone in the shoes of a good leader. In fact, Gordon Allport, an American psychologist,"...identified almost 18,000 English personality-relevant terms" (Matthews, Deary & Whiteman, 2003, p. 3).