Trait Theory

In last week’s class, we discussed the “trait approach.” A component of the trait approach is the “great man theory.” This approach focuses more on leaders than the other approaches to leadership. It is concerned with looking at traits and characteristics of people who are in leadership positions in order to gain a better understanding of what “makes” a leader. This theory generates the idea that there is a specific composition of leaders that a person can be born with, or that a person can work to create for themselves.  Initially, it was thought that only “great” people had these traits, hence the name of the theory. This theory was eventually challenged by speculation of researchers in the mid-20^th century. They purported that someone can be a leader, and have the appropriate traits for one situation, but not be a good leader with the appropriate traits in another situation. That makes sense to me. How could someone be a great leader and have traits that are compatible with every situation? However, it’s been recently shown that personality traits are “…strongly associated with individuals’ perceptions of leadership.” (pg. 16) Needless to say, the trait approach is something which is still being studied to this day. Much research has been done on this topic, keeping it alive in the study of leadership. More than a hundred traits have been synthesized and attributed to great leaders. After it was ascertained that a leader can be good in one situation and terrible in another, the idea that traits had to be relevant to certain situations arose. Stogdill, a researcher who published work in the 1970’s, did a study that linked certain personality traits to effective leadership. The major leadership traits are: intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability. I remember being the president of the art club and having to display sociability and self-confidence. It took a lot of confidence to speak to them and be confident about what I was saying, and of course I needed to be a social person to be in this position. I needed to be willing to speak with people and hear their points of view. I also needed to collaborate with all the other group members and make compromises. It was definitely a group effort. We were all the presidents, in different ways. Personality factors correlated to leadership are: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Neuroticism, of course, has a negative impact on leadership abilities. It can really hinder one’s ability to reach his or her full potential in a leadership role. I’d say that the one factor I need to work on the most is conscientiousness. I can be pretty indecisive at times. My opinion completely contradicts what I learned about myself in class, however. That was one of my highest scoring traits in the “Leadership Motive Profile.” Though the trait approach has generated way too many different traits, it is a very helpful approach. This approach really focuses on the leader, which makes it pretty unique.