Trait Leadership Theory Paper

There are some actions that can determine a leader’s characteristics; due to the fact that these characteristics are determined by their leader’s actions when protecting his or her comrades. A lot of leaders show characteristics toward the situations they encounter; such as being cunning to save themselves and others, showing bravery, and being loyal to other people and to himself. Leaders use these characteristics as leadership in order for him or her to solve the situations that they are currently experiencing. During real life situations, people are sometimes cunning when they are trying to solve their situations in a stealthy way. There are also some people who use the characteristics of bravery when facing their situations

My weaknesses include not being able to take some type of leadership role in a group setting, or being able to speak up for myself when it is needed. Although

StrengthsFinder 2.0, written by Tom Rath, was a book I chose for a purpose. Rath mentions that when we live within our shortcomings/ our weaknesses, we tend to live in this world unhappy and unmotivated (Rath, 2007). In this paper, I will discuss some background and major topics presented in his book. I will describe how his topics can be useful in nursing practice, as well as my own practice. I will end this paper with a look into how his book helped me to grow in my own soon-to-be leadership role.

For this assignment, I have decided to use the leadership trait, skills and style questionnaires. For this questionnaire, I asked 5 different people that know me in different contexts in life, such as personal, school, and work environments. For the majority, I rated myself higher on the traits than my fellow colleagues. On some of the traits however, I was rated higher than what I thought. Overall, I averaged a 4/5 which means that everyone agreed with the traits that were given. For the style questionnaire, I found out that I place more emphasis in building relationships rather than completing tasks. Finally, the skills questionnaire, my leadership skills are in the high range for technical skills, and my human and conceptual skills are in the moderate range.

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.

Two other weaknesses are time-management and organization. These two goes hand in hand and I realized that I suffer tremendously from lack thereof and have found multiple solutions to help enhance these weaknesses as I expressed in the IDP. I feel these two will be challenging as well because I realize that organization at work is limited. It is much more of filling in the gaps and

Leadership is something that we are all born with because we are all born. Therefore, who is a leader and who is not depends on who really wants to be a leader and who does not. Leadership is a skill and so it can be learned. As anything that is learned it demands practice and practice to be the best. It would not be something that will happen in a matter of a day. There are multiple elements that make a leader. Collaboration is a key element for successful teamwork. Therefore, a leader must always be in the look for ways to foster collaboration. Creating trust within the team, support face-to-face collaboration, transfer responsibilities when making decisions, and ultimately teach other how to be leaders. All of this is not done if it is not done from the bottom of your own heart.

believe that I will bring to my leadership positions. The main gift that I will bring is my ability to listen to anyone. No matter what the problem is, big or small, I am always available to listen. I believe that being a good listener is a great quality. These retreats really force you to open up and talk about things that you really do not want to talk about. However, when you do finally get comfortable tot talk you are going to want a good listener there to support you. I like to think that even the smallest problems or stories I am always listening. With a good listener, you are always going to need a person who is good at giving advice. I know that if I am selected to be a retreat leader I will try my hardest to give good advice. With

Identify and explain a workplace leadership and management role familiar to you. Describe how the role aligns with leadership theory.

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.

Chapter 2 talks about Leadership traits and how non-universal it is due to cultural differences but, there are exceptions to the traits. We can see this by analyzing The Big Five Model of Personality that goes in depth of surgency which includes dominance, extraversion, and high energy with determination. Agreeableness which includes traits of sociability and emotional intelligence, adjustment includes traits of emotional stability and self-confidence, conscientiousness includes traits of dependability and integrity, and openness to experience which includes traits of flexibility, intelligence, and internal locus of control (pg37). In chapter 7 we see an association with the three follower influencing characteristics (pg258-259) for example

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

However, I am human so I am not perfect and lack certain traits of a good leader. For instance, I often do not use language that is easy to understand because I use many “big” words, I do not really give people second chances because I feel that one chance is all they need, and also I am not the best person to communicate. Most of the time I try not to do these things, but these bad things still happen once in a while because I am frustrated or aggravated at something. For the most part, I am a calm and reasonable person that helps people out.

There are multiple theories of personality and leadership assessments that have proven effective in helping individuals achieve their full career potential. The “Big Five” theory of personality, for example, measures the five broad areas of personality, including extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience (Srivastava, 2015). Other types of assessments, such as the more simple leadership assessment we explored, simply measure leadership qualities, such as emotional intelligence and confidence. In exploring a couple of such resources in more depth, such as the leadership assessment provided by the University of Kent’s Career Enhancement Center, as well as the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, it is clear that understanding more about oneself can lead to enhanced career choices.

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.