Trait Approach to Studing Leadership

Meindl, J. R. (1990). On leadership: An alternative to the conventional wisdom. Research in Organizational Behavior, 12, 159-203.

Effective Leadership and Management in Nursing Shirley J. Mitchell University of Phoenix HSC 492 Instructor: Linda Westermann March 12, 2012 Effective Leadership and Management in Nursing 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

Casse, P. (2014d). The new drivers of leadership. Training Journal, p. 30. Retrieved from academicguides.walden.edu/library

There are many theories that explain leadership. Chapter 10 presents each of the leading theories. Each student will choose one of the theories he/she agrees with, one theory that he/she disagrees with, and one theory he/she finds interesting (pick three different theories). Each student will write a short paragraph for each of the above choices (agree, disagree, interesting). Each student will post his/her three paragraphs as one (1) response to the discussion board entitled “Leadership”.

Is the “traits” approach to the study of leadership valid? If so, in what ways? How does recent research on the links between personality and individual behavior contribute to our understanding of leadership?

Trait Theories of Leadership Research on leadership began with a search for inherited characteristics that differentiated leaders from non-leaders and

When one thinks of a leader in the Unites States, the first person they might think of is the President. History portrays Ronald Reagan’s Presidency as a successful period in our country and credits his leadership as the main catalyst. President Reagan has been credited with an economic

Leadership Traits 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.

Northouse, P. G. (6th Ed.)(2013). Leadership Theory and Practice . New Delhi 110 044, India: SAGE.

Absolutely. It allows other associates to realize the possibilities when they strive to attain the best; actually, associates do encourage each other to work tirelessly, in order to receive an invitation to the dinner celebration. Leaders also encourage their associates and provide regular feedbacks, without feedbacks, associates won’t know how

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

This evolving trend of leadership can generally be seen 19). Still a part of the Great Man Leadership era, these trait theories just went a step further in attempting to pinpoint exactly which traits of these “great men” were consistently associated with the leaders, in an effort to more clearly define what a great leader was. This was again a further attempt to be able to identify a leader early on and predict which individuals were born to become leaders. It is thought that a major flaw with these theories was the failure to account for external factors, such as the environment in which the individuals were brought up in, as well as the situations they experienced (Horner, 2007, p. 270). Still today we do continue to study the characteristics of leaders in order to better define and understand what makes someone a good leader.

How useful is the Trait Approach to Leadership 1. Introduction Leadership defined as position (power and responsibility relation) or person (personality traits) or result (outcomes) or process (Grint, 2010). Person-based leadership resonates with the traditional traits approach. Trait theory, as the name gives away, is an approach to identify human personality and

Great man leaders owe, at least, some of their greatness to circumstances and followers. Leadership trait theory 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.

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