Traits and Skills Theory: A Doctoral Learner Comparison Approach in Understanding Leadership Traits and Skills

Over the past couple of months, we discussed several traits, skills, and behaviors that have contributed to the success of both past and present leaders. Intelligence, integrity, charisma, and confidence are some of the traits that characterize many of these leaders. Interpersonal skills, oratory skills, and conceptual skills are some of the more important skills that helped to shape their leadership style. Some of these skills go hand in hand with the traits that are essential for strong leadership. Meanwhile, the behaviors that drive these leaders include inspiring and motivating others, collaboration, having a strategic perspective and trust. Combined, these traits, skills and behaviors make for effective leadership.

I can identify the following traits, proposed by Zaccaro, Kemp, and Bader in their Studies of Leadership Traits and Characteristics on 2004, as part of my leadership believes (Northouse, 2016):

Belasen, A & Frank, N 2008,"Competing values leadership: quadrant roles and personality traits", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol. 29 no. 2 pp. 127 – 143.

Assessment tools can be a good start for individuals to assess their leadership characteristics and skills, such as Grossman and Valiga’s Leadership Characteristcs and Skills

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.

Leaders are human, and every human is different. Individual attributes play a large role in leadership, and can support or hurt a person’s efforts to apply their competencies to their position. The skills model identifies four individual attributes as having an influence on leadership. General cognitive ability refers to a person’s aptitude or intelligence. It is an attribute that is not thought to develop through experience, but rather as ability that grows and expands into adulthood, and then declines with age (citation needed text pg 52 p 4). Crystallized cognitive ability refers to the information and expertise that is learned over time. It helps increase our leadership potential with increasing experience. Another, more complex, attribute of the individual leader is motivation. The skills model offers three concentrations within motivation that a leader may bring to the table. When these concentrations are in

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.

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

The queries in the study addressed several hypotheses: (RQ1): Does passion and tenacity directly predict venture growth? (RQ2): What direct effects are related to venture development? (RQ3): Does passion and tenacity increase skills among entrepreneurs? (RQ4): Does tenacity and passion have an effect on

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.

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

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

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.

There has been extensive research conducted on the characteristics that successful entrepreneurs possess. These attributes vary widely across literature, however there are common key traits that are required to achieve any form of success. Frederick et al (2013) suggest entrepreneurs are risk takers, optimistic, have sound judgement and an ability to manage. While a review of literature relating to the psychology of an entrepreneur reveals a large variety of characteristics in a successful entrepreneur, these can be consolidated to a a few into only a few traits that are essential for a successful entrepreneur. Whilst taking into

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.