Traits Approaches to Leadership

• Prior to 1949, studies of leadership were based largely on an attempt to identify the traits that leader posses. Starting with the "great man" theory that leaders are born and not made, a belief dating back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, researchers have tried to identify the physical, mental, and personality traits of various leaders. That theory lost much of its acceptabilities with the rise of the behaviorist school of psychology.
• Many studies of traits have been made. Ralph M. Stogdill found that various researchers had identified specific traits related to leadership ability: 5 physical traits (such as energy, appearance, and height), 4 intelligence and ability traits, 16 personality traits (such as adaptability, aggressiveness, enthusiam, and self-confidence), 6 task-related characteristics (such as achievement drive, persistence, and initiative), and 9 social characteristics (such as cooperativeness, interpersonal skills, and administrative ability).
• The discussion of the importance of traits to leadership goes on. More recently, the following key leadership traits have been identified: drive (including achievement, motivation, energy, ambition, initiative, and tenacity), leadership motivation (the aspiration to lead but not to seek power as such), cognitive ability, and an understanding of the business. Less clear is the impact of creativty, flexibility, and charisma on leadership effectiveness.
• In general, the study of leaders' traits has not been a very fruitful approach to explaining leadership. Not all leaders posses all the traits, and many nonleaders may posses most or all of them. Also, the trait approach gives on guidence as to how much of any trait a person should have. Furthermore, the dozens of studies that have been made do not agree as to which traits are leaderships are to actual instances of leadership. Most of these so-called traits are really patterns of behavior.
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Fundamentals of Management : Leadership [BBA 2305]
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