What Is The Trait Approach

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.

The trait theory focuses on innate qualities and personality characteristics. Based on this theory, “leaders are born, not made” (Northouse, 2013). Throughout the 20th century researchers, including Stogdill, Mann, Locke, and Zaccaro, were challenged to identify universal traits to distinguish leaders

Throughout time the question of “ Are leaders born or made?” continues to be debated. This question has been part of several myths that try to explain what makes a person a leader. According to the trait approach theory, it sets a benchmark for what certain traits an individual must possess in order to make them a leader. Before leadership traits were considered innate. However, as time has progressed research has indicated that situations differentiate leaders from non-leaders. Therefore, an individual does not possess certain traits, rather it is the relationship between the person and its society that make him/her leader. All leaders must have a set of skills that help them lead subordinates to reach an overall vision. A vision must originate from both the leader and its followers, and it is the leader's job to articulate the vision. Furthermore, leaders demonstrate the capacity to lead their followers and

The theme of leadership is relevant today for many areas of life. After consulting the dictionary, one can construe the leadership as an inner force that manifests in the ability to influence and to control others. A person possesses this quality when he/she can guide masses and move them to the goal, take the consequences and realize the responsibility for himself/herself and others. Shakespeare once remarked that to be a good leader, first of all, one should serve faithfully and loyally. Otherwise, leadership is a destructive force: either you succeed, or it destroys you. “Macbeth” and “Lord of The Flies’ are epitomes of both leadership patterns and worth.

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.

The essay classifies leadership into four key approaches: (1) trait approach, (2) behaviour approach, (3) the

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 history of trait theory has…(still working on this part). The leadership traits that are involved in trait theory can be defined as relatively coherent and integrated patterns of personal

The trait approach to leadership can be summarize by what early researchers believed to be noticeable among leaders and some of the unique set of qualities or traits exhibited that distinguish them from their peers which endured throughout history. This trait approach to leadership led researchers to focus on identifying the essential leadership traits, intelligence, dominance, self-confidence, energy, activity versus passivity and knowledge about the job.

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

Kendra Cherry (2016) describes the trait based approach to leadership as “different personality traits and characteristics that are linked to successful leadership across a variety of situations”. In addition Zaccaro, S. J. (2007) has a view that “the unique attributes of such individuals in their inherited or genetic makeup and that personal qualities defining effective

The skills approach to the study of leadership moved beyond innate characteristics and showed that knowledge and abilities may be learned and developed to make a person a more effective leader (Northouse, 2013). Katz (1955) argued that effective leadership depends on technical, human, and conceptual skills that are very different from personality traits (as cited in Northouse, 2013). Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, and Fleishman (2000) expanded on this concept by formulating a skill-based model of leadership that examined the relationship between a leader’s competencies and the leader’s performance within an organization (as cited in Northouse, 2013). Problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge are competencies that serve as the most important aspects of the model (Northouse, 2013). Mumford et al. (2000) propose that these competencies are

Therefore how a leader’s character or personality influences leadership. This paper will critically evaluate how useful is the trait approach to leadership. It begins with

Leadership is something that can be taught (Northouse, 2015. There are some valuable theories, which will be discussed later in this paper, how a leader can develop into having a strong influence in any daily aspect of their lives. Also later in this paper it will be discussed the various styles of leaders that can affect the behaviors of the actions of each leader. Each leader can learn these attributes or some of them just have the natural capability of being a leader.

A leaders traits display certain personality traits, these traits are developed from the theories of leadership, and it is used to determine what personality an individual have. There are many approaches to leadership theories, starting with attributes and traits, also physical and personality’s traits characteristics, competencies and values. A Leader Traits mainly focuses on behavior effectiveness, Traits theory concentrates the personality of a person, it help to understand the differences and what independent traits the person possess. It establishes what traits the person has; such as if, the person is clever, generous. It is a belief that leaders display certain key personality traits, and it is determined that no particular trait is consistently identified with good leadership. Leader’s traits are very important and necessary to provide a description of an individual’s personality, because it offers insight into a person psyche.