Leadership traits

LEADERSHIP TRAITS

GREAT MAN THEORY

Researchers said that “Great leaders are born, not made” – Capacity for leadership is inborn.

States that leaders and followers were fundamentally different.

Great man theory led to many studies to attempt to discover which physical attributes, intelligence, personality characteristics differentiated leaders from followers.

DEFINITION:

Leadership trait says that there are defined personality traits that distinguish leaders from followers.

Successful leaders share 3 abilities: Get along with others and build teams Make timely decisions. Ability to get things done.

Unfortunately, only a small percentage of leaders possess all three of these attributes.

RALPH STOGDILL CONCLUSION

He was the first leadership researcher to summarize the results of these studies and he came to two major conclusions. Leaders are not fundamentally different

than followers, many followers have the same characteristics as the leaders.

There are certain characteristics which do contribute to leadership success.

WHY DO SOME LEADERS FAIL?

DARK-SIDE PERSONALITY TRAITS are some of the key reasons for the high failure rate of leaders.

These traits are irritating, counterproductive behavioural tendencies that interfere with a leader’s ability to build cohesive teams and cause followers to exert less effort toward goal accomplishment.

There are 11 common dark-side traits that affect the leader’s ability.

DARK-SIDE PERSONALITY TRAITS

1. EXCITABLE:Difficult in team building.Emotional outbursts.Inability to persist on projects.

2. SKEPTICAL:Mistrust of others.Questioning the motives.disloyalty


3. CAUTIOUS:Fearful of making “dumb” mistakes.Overly cautious and reluctant decision

makers.Impose old solutions to problems.

4. RESERVED:During the time of stress these leaders

become:UncommunicativeDifficult to findUnconcerned about the welfare of their staffs.


5. IMPULSIVITY:Ignore feelings of followersFail to keep promises.Neglect to consider the consequences of

their action.6.BOLD:

Overly self-confidentSelf -centeredExtremely ambitious


7. MISCHIEVOUS:Quite CharmingBreak commitments, rules and laws.

8. COLORFUL:Believe that they are “hot”.Unable to share creditMaintain focus


9. IMAGINATIVE:Leader often change their minds.Make strange and odd decisions.

10. DILIGENT:Leaders have perfectionist tendenciesFrustrate their staffs through micro-

managing.11. DUTIFUL:

Conscientiously or obediently fulfilling one's duty.

PERSONALITY

Personality emphasizes the underlying, unseen structures and processes inside a person that explain why we behave the way we do; why each person’s behaviour tends to be relatively similar across different situations, yet also different from another person’s behaviour.

Relationship between personality and leadership success has been based on the Trait Approach.

WHAT ARE LEADERSHIP TRAITS?

Recurring regularities or trends in a person’s behaviour People behave the way they do because of the strengths of the traits they possess.

Traits cannot be seen but they can be inferred from consistent patterns of behaviour and reliably measured by personality inventories .

Traits do not predict specific behaviour, but can provide a general picture of what people will do.

FIVE FACOR MODEL OF PERSONALITY

SURGENCY

(Traits: dominance, sociability) - dominance, self-confidence, the need for power, dynamic.

This person is also outgoing, competitive, decisive, impactful, and self-confident. Leaders usually have higher sugency scores than non leaders.

AGREEABLENESS

(Traits: empathy, friendly) – empathy friendliness, need for affiliation.

Concerns how well one gets along with others.

This person tends to be empathetic, approachable, and optimistic

DEPENDABILITY

(Traits: organization, credibility, conformity, achievement orientation).

Relates to work patterns. This person is planful, hardworking, follows through on commitments and doesn’t get in trouble.

Persons low in dependability tend to be more spontaneous, creative, rule bending and less concerned with following through on commitments.

Tends to be more related to management

ADJUSTMENT

(Traits: steadiness, self-acceptance). Relates to how people react to stress,

failure or personal criticism. This person tends to be calm and not

to take mistakes and failures personally.

Calm and thick-skinned under pressure.

INTELLECTANCE

(Openness to new experience) How a person responds to new experiences.

This person tends to be imaginative, broad-minded, and curious; they seek out new experiences

IMPLICATION OF FIVE FACTOR MODEL

INTELLIGENCE AND LEADERSHIP

Intelligence is defined as a person’s all-around effectiveness in activities directed by thought.

Tri-archic theory of intelligence offers some of the most significant implications for leadership, it focuses on what a leader does when solving complex mental problems.

Analytic intelligence is general problem-solving ability and can be assessed using standardized mental abilities tests.

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Practical intelligence are also known as “street smarts”. People with street smarts know how to adapt to

shape, or select new situations in order to get their needs met better than people lacking street smarts.

Creative intelligence is the ability to produce work that is both novel an useful. It helps to eliminate many of the more outlandish

solutions to a potential problem by ensuring that adopted solutions can be realistically implemented .

COMPONENTS OF CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE

1. SYNTHETIC ABILITY:Help people to see things in new ways.Recognize novel connections between unrelated issued or concepts.

2. ANALYTIC INTELLIGENCE:Helps to evaluate the usefulness of potential solutions to problems.

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3. PRACTICAL INTELLIGENCE:Based on relevant knowledge and

experience.4. THINKING STYLE:

Modify what already exists or completely start over with new solutions.

5. PERSONALITY FACTORS:Lower prudence, higher openness to

experience and higher surgency scores are related to creativity.

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6. INTRINSIC MOTIATION:People tend to generate more creative

solutions when the problem at hand is personally interesting.

7. ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS:Supportive leadership, a lack of time

pressure, team stability and weaker social ties are all related to generating more creative solutions to problems.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Salovey and John Mayer discovered that many of the people ran into trouble because of their lack of interpersonal sensitivity and skills and defined emotional intelligence as a group of mental abilities that help people to recognize their own feelings and those of others.

It consists of two models: Ability model Mixed model

ABILITY MODEL

It focuses on how emotions affect , how leaders think, decide, plan and act.

This model defines EI as four separate but related abilities which includes: Perceive one’s own and other’s emotions Generate thought and action Understand the cause of emotions & meaning

they convey Regulate one’s emotions.

MIXED MODEL

Mixed model not only include the abilities, but also includes a number of other attributes.

It provides a much broader, more comprehensive qualities that most leaders should have.

Mixed model is very, very similar to the Five Factor Model(FFM).

ABILITY MODEL MIXED MODEL

SELF AWARENESS Emotional awareness Self confident

SELF REGULATION Self control Trustworthiness innovation

INTRAPERSONAL Self regard Assertiveness

ADAPTABILITY Reality testing Flexibility Problem solving

COMPARISION

ABILITY MODEL MIXED MODEL

MOTIVATION Achievement Commitment

EMPATHY Understanding others Service orientation Diversity

STRESS MANAGEMENT Stress tolerance Impulse control

INTERPERSONAL Empathy Social responsibility Interpersonal relationship

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BY•DEEPA. K

Business

Leadership traits