The Trait Based Perspective For Situational Variance

The next big era of leadership theories was the Rational Management era. When the previous era failed to determine exact traits that could consistently be identified in great leaders, a shift occurred to begin looking at how these leaders behaved, and what made them into great leaders, rather than who they were in a specific sense. This was a major shift from thinking that people were born leaders, to now considering that perhaps leaders could be made, or trained to become leaders. The first of these theories, beginning in the early 1950’s, were the behavior theories. The focus of these theories was to study what these leaders do, and

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

The leader behavior approach is the focus of what people do as a leader or leadership style rather than the characteristics leaders inherit as a leader. It is the assumption that the actions of a person opposed to their innate mental state. Because leaders can learn through teaching and observation; specific behaviors are the focus of a leader. An important study of this theory was conducted by the Ohio State University, and the purpose was to identify common leadership behaviors. The study and research uncovered that there are two linked groups of behavior.

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.

Leadership theories that have developed over many generations through the baby boomers, generation x, generation y, and millennials suggests that leaders during each period exhibited characteristics of strong leadership based on many factors such as their hereditary, personality features including charisma, and the environmental, social and cultural conditioning, that they would have experienced during the period of time in which they were active. This paper having reviewed the more salient theories will take the position that all leaders, past and present, possess qualities attributable to various theories, whether it be trait theory, the transactional/transformational model, contingency/behavioral theories, depending on the situation or the

Leadership has become overly romanticized by popular culture, leaving little research and attention to followership (Meindl). This focus on leadership has left a deficit in the development of

Two large studies found that two types of leader behaviors were important concepts in leadership skills. While the two separate studies used different terms, they can be thought of as concern for people and concern for tasks. The study at Ohio State University identified these two behaviors: Consideration relationship behaviors, such as respect and trust concern for people. Initiating Structure task behaviors, such as organizing, scheduling and seeing that work is completed concern for tasks. The study at the University of Michigan identified these two behaviors (Joyce, 2012).

In today’s world, leaders are not defined by age, race or gender. They can be a high school basketball coach, the shift supervisor at the local coffee shop, or even the President of the United States of America. In as many ways that leaders can vary by appearance and responsibility, there is also a variance in the ways that they lead. This case study aims to compare three of the more popular theories of leadership. These leadership theories are situational leadership, trait theory and transformational leadership.

major problem leadership research and has been lack of agreement about which theory behavior categories are relevant and meaningful. It is difficult to integrate findings from five decades of research unless the many diverse leadership behaviors can be integrated in a parsimonious and meaningful conceptual An emerging solution is a framework. hierarchical taxonomy with three metacategories (task, relations, and change behavior). Confirmatory factor analysis of a behavior

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 study of personality traits is beneficial in identifying the many variables that exist from human to human; the combinations of these variables provide us with a true level of individuality and uniqueness. In the field of psychology, trait theory is considered to be a key approach to the study of human personality (Crowne, 2007; Burton, Westen & Kowalski, 2009). This paper aims to identify a number of significant contributors who have played crucial roles in both the development and application of trait theory. This paper then moves focus to these theorists, outlining their theory and analysing both the strengths and weaknesses of those theories. An illustration of the methods used in trait measurement is given and includes the

An effective leader influences their employees in a desired manner to achieve goals and objectives. Different leadership styles can affect an organization’s effectiveness and performance. The objective of this paper is to analyze the review of literature on various leadership styles over the past years and how effective and ineffective different leadership styles are in the workplace.

Leadership has been a topic that has been researched for a long time in many disciplines. Leadership as a personality focuses on the characteristics of an individual that gives them power to act as leaders. There is leadership as an attribution this approach views leadership as phenomenon that causes group of followers to have outcomes.(Wu et al, 2010, 90).Researchers have used the following approaches to study leadership; they are mainly trait, behavior, power influence, situation and integrative approaches. Trait approaches focuses on the characteristics, values, skill and personality of leaders. Behavior approaches is focused on the leaders behaviors, differentiating between the behavior of ineffective and effective leaders. Integrative approach combines all the approaches to have a holistic picture of the process, outcomes and determinants of leadership. The approach that this paper uses is situational approach that is not leader centered but more on the significance of the context as an influence of leadership. Leaders should be able to choose the leadership quality appropriate to a particular situation.

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.