Attached is the leadership profile organizer. Provide a 250-500 word summary that further explains the role of power and influence within leadership. Which traits do you believe will inspire others? What qualities do you believe will foster effective leadership? Provide at two to five references, which may include the textbook.
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Leadership Profile
The Leadership Profile assignment seeks to expose you to leaders that exemplify leadership
qualities. This provides an opportunity to consider (if you have not already) the qualities of
leadership with which you most identify.
Identify effective leadership traits. Search for a three business leader that exemplifies the
leadership trait. Identify the company and job title for each business leader. Include a description
of how the leader exemplifies the leadership trait. Describe if the leadership trait inspires
followership and why.
Leadership Matrix:
Effective
Leadership
Trait
Name of
Person That
Exemplifies
Leadership
Trait
Company
Job Title
Description of
How Leader
Exemplifies
Leadership
Trait
Describe if
the
Leadership
Trait Inspires
Followership,
and if so,
How
Leadership Summary:
Provide a 250-500 word summary that further explains the role of power and influence within
leadership. Which traits do you believe will inspire others? What qualities do you believe will
foster effective leadership? Provide at two to five references, which may include the textbook.
APA format is required for essays only. Solid academic writing is always expected. For all
assignment delivery options, documentation of sources should be presented using APA
formatting guidelines.
2
Leadership as a Vocation
A common thread in the myriad definitions of leadership in the literature is the exercise of
influence over others. The leader exercises influence to help an individual or a group of
individuals achieve a set of agreed-upon goals. Therefore, leadership can be thought of as a
process of exercising influence over others in order to achieve a common goal (Northouse,
2004). This process can be either smooth or rough depending on the leader’s style and personality
variables of both the leader and the followers.
Effective leaders make moral and ethical decisions and apply those decisions by drawing on a
collection of skills acquired through experience and training. That collection of skills can be
likened to the toolbox of a skilled craftsperson who knows exactly which tool to use in a given
situation. Also like a skilled craftsperson, a leader’s application of tools is somewhat of an art,
developed through trial and error over time. Both a leader and a craftsperson make careful
decisions with an eye to end products, exerting influence to shape and develop where necessary.
Much like dedicated craftspeople or artists who acknowledge their artistic endeavors as a
vocation, or calling, that gives direction and purpose to their lives and positively affects the lives
of others, so too can leadership be considered a vocation or calling. There are numerous
examples of dedicated and visionary leaders throughout history who have leveraged their
position as leaders to selflessly improve the lives of individuals, organizations, and society at
large.
A person may adopt the vocation of leadership due to a desire to make a difference in an everchanging world of diversity and economic growth. Such a leader may feel called to make a
difference through guiding and directing others to achieve their own goals. The leader does not
take on the position for power, personal glory, or money, but because the leader truly cares about
others and making a difference by helping everyone to improve upon their strengths and abilities
to make themselves or the organization successful.
The clergy or ministers may be the most obvious examples of leaders in society who have
adopted leadership as a vocation. Just like ministers of the gospel know they are called to lead
people to a relationship with Christ, secular leaders recognize what it takes to reach goals, and
apply their abilities to help others achieve their desired end results in the most effective and
efficient way possible. In this case, like ministers, secular leaders work in a self-sacrificial
manner to help others achieve their own ends for their own good.
In particular, this school promotes a specific vision of secular leadership as service to others,
which combines faith with work in order to promote the good of all. The school’s statement on
the integration of faith, learning, and work states:
Our work within the world matters to God and our neighbors and must be carried out
with integrity and excellence. While few doubt that it is possible to serve God through
ministry and mission work, we are convinced that God is also honored by faithful service
within so-called secular vocations. Integrating faith and work is a practical and logical
extension of faith-learning integration.
Leadership is one of the most obvious of the “so-called secular vocations” in which a person can
exemplify professional and personal excellence and integrity through faithful service to God,
others, and the good of the community. The perspective of leadership as vocation requiring
service to others echoes the definition of leadership in the Bible:
Be shepherds of God’s flock, the believers who are under your care. Serve as their
leaders. Don’t serve them because you have to. Instead, do it because you want to. That’s
what God wants you to do. Don’t do it because you want to get more and more money.
Do it because you really want to serve. (1 Pet 5:2)
Again and again, the Bible offers up the image of the good shepherd, the one who lays down his
life for his sheep, as the most perfect model of leadership (John 10:11).
Who Is Called?
Historically, leadership was viewed as a trait and it was assumed certain people in society
possessed innate qualities that made them leaders. Scholars of the 20th century focused on the
trait approach in leadership. Their studies were the first systematic efforts to examine the concept
of leadership. Several scholars examined what makes certain people great leaders and others not
so great. From these studies emerged the concept of “great man” theories of leadership, which
identify the innate qualities and characteristics of great social, political, and military leaders.
Trait theorists tend to focus on the leader traits and what the differences are between a leader and
a nonleader. The traits studied included physical stature, appearance, social class, emotional
stability, fluency of speech, and sociability (Northouse, 2004).
Trait theory, however, is a restrictive view of leadership that posits the idea that only individuals
possessing special characteristics can be leaders. The development of contemporary leadership
theories and approaches offers a much broader perspective of leadership, redefining it as a
process that can be learned. For example, Kirkpatrick and Locke (1991) suggest that leaders are
different from followers, identifying six trait characteristics to support their argument. They
indicated that leaders are different from followers based on their drive, desire to lead, honesty
and integrity, self-confidence, cognitive ability, and knowledge of the business. Significantly,
they added that while it is possible for these traits to be inborn, they can also be learned. This
argument supports the thinking that leaders can be made, inasmuch as they can be taught and
helped to acquire these trait characteristics.
Stogdill (1948) reviewed 124 traits of leaders and concluded in his study that no particular trait
had a high correlation with leadership effectiveness. Traits that leaders used varied to fit different
situations. Stogdill concluded that a leader did not become a leader because of the possession of
a particular set of traits. Yukl (1989) also concluded that two different leaders can be successful
in the same situation using different sets of traits. Despite the efforts of researchers, no one set of
traits has been identified to differentiate leaders from nonleaders (Boje, 2000).
Contrary to traditional trait theory, contemporary leadership scholarship indicates anyone called
to the vocation of leadership can be trained and developed into successful leaders. The key, as
indicated in the work of Stogdill (1948) and Yukl (1989), is knowing what leadership tools to
apply in which contexts to drive the most successful outcomes. This course presents an overview
of those tools while prompting the self-reflection and discovery process necessary to further
develop desirable leadership qualities and traits for the purpose of serving the common good.
References
Boje, D. (2000). Traits: The journey from will to power to will to serve. Retrieved from
http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/teaching/338/traits.htm
Kirkpatrick, S. A., & Locke, E. A. (1991). Leadership: Do traits matter? The Academy of
Management Executive, 5(2), 48-60.
Northouse, P. G. (2004). Leadership: Theory and practice (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Stodgill, R. M. (1948). Personal factors associated with leadership: A survey of the literature.
Journal of Psychology, 25, 35-71.
Yukl, G. A. (1989). Leadership in organizations (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
1-2 Links
Read “The Four Principles of Conscious Capitalism,” from the Conscious Connection Magazine.
URL: http://www.consciousconnectionmagazine.com/2014/05/four-principles-conscious-capitalism/
Watch “Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action.”
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4
Watch “Conscious Capitalism: Conscious Leadership.”
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm3_CGwYyP4
LEADESHIP’S TRAIT THEORIES
Raul MALOŞ1
ABSTRACT
The paper tries to highlights the main traits that a successfully leader need to have in
order to achieve performance. It shows that certain traits alone do not guarantee leadership
success, and there is evidence that effective leaders are different from other people in certain
key respects. The key leaders traits that the paper intended to point out are: drive, which
includes achievement motivation, ambition, energy, tenacity, and initiative; leadership
motivation; honesty and integrity; self-confidence; cognitive ability, and knowledge of the
business. The paper also reminds that the new methods and techniques that leadership
researches have access to reveal the significant relationships exist between leadership and
individual traits.
KEY WORDS: leadership, leader, trait, theory, methods.
JEL: M20
1. INRODUCTION
Humanity was preoccupied with personal security, maintenance, protection, and
survival. Now humanity spends a major portion of waking hours working for
organizations. The need to identify with a community that provides security, protection,
maintenance, and a feeling of belonging has continued unchanged from prehistoric
times. This need is met by the informal organization and its emergent, or unofficial,
leaders.
Organization expresses the personal objectives and goals of the individual
membership. Their objectives and goals may or may not coincide with those of the
formal organization. The informal organization represents an extension of the social
structures that generally characterize human life, the spontaneous emergence of groups
and organizations as ends in themselves.
Leadership patricians emerge from within the structure of the informal
organization. Their personal qualities, the demands of the situation, or a combination of
these and other factors attract followers who accept their leadership within one or
several overlay structures. Instead of the authority of position held by an appointed head
or chief, the emergent leader wields influence or power. Influence is the ability of a
person to gain co-operation from others by means of persuasion or control over rewards.
Power is a stronger form of influence because it reflects a person’s ability to enforce
action through the control of a means of punishment.
Leadership has been described as the process of social influence in which one
person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.
Other in-depth definitions of leadership have also emerged. Leadership is ultimately
about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary
happen, or effective leadership is the ability to successfully integrate and maximize
available resources within the internal and external environment for the attainment of
organizational or societal goals.
1
Lecturer PhD., Faculty of Economics, Eftimie Murgu University of Reşiţa, România, [email protected]
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2. TRAIT THEORY IN LEADERSHIP
Leadership traits have a controversial history. In the 19th and early 20th
centuries, “great man” leadership theories were highly popular. These theories asserted
that leadership qualities were inherited, especially by people from the upper class. Great
men were, born, not made (in those days, virtually all business leaders were men).
Today, great man theories are a popular foil for so-called superior models. To make the
new models plausible, the “great men” are endowed with negative as well as positive
traits.
Early in the 20th century, the great man theories evolved into trait theories. Trait
theories did not make assumptions about whether leadership traits were inherited or
acquired. They simply asserted that leaders’ traits are different from non-leaders. Traits
such as height, weight, and physique are heavily dependent on heredity, whereas others
such as knowledge of the industry acre dependent on experience and learning.
The trait view was brought into question during the mid-century when a
prominent theorist, Ralph Stogdill, after a thorough review of the literature concluded
that “A person does not become a leader by virtue of the possession of some
combination of traits.”(R.M. Stogdill (1948)) Stogdill believed this because the research
showed that no traits were universally associated with effective leadership and that
situational factors were also influential. For example, military leaders do not have traits
identical to those of business leaders.
Characteristics alone, however, are not sufficient for successful business
leadership, they are only a precondition.(Kirkpatrick et. al. (1991)) Leaders who possess
the requisite traits must take certain actions to be successful (e.g. formulating a vision,
role modelling, setting goals). Possessing the appropriate traits only makes it more
likely that such actions will be taken and be successful. After summarizing the core
leadership traits, we will discuss these important actions and the managerial
implications.
Six characteristics on which leaders differ from non-leaders include: drive, the
desire to lead, honesty/integrity, self-confidence, cognitive ability, and knowledge of the
business. (B.M. Bass (1990))
a) Drive
The first characteristic is labelled “drive” which is not to be confused with
physical need deprivation. We use the term to refer to a constellation of traits and
motives reflecting a high effort level. Five aspects of drive include achievement
motivation, ambition, energy, tenacity, and initiative.
– Achievement. Leaders have a relatively high desire for achievement. The need
for achievement is an important motive among effective leaders and even more
important among successful entrepreneurs. High achievers obtain satisfaction from
successfully completing challenging tasks, attaining standards of excellence, and
developing better ways of doing things. To work their way up to the top of the
organization, leaders must have a desire to complete challenging assignments and
projects. This also allows the leader to gain technical expertise, both through education
and work experience, and to initiate and follow through with organizational changes.
– Ambition. Leaders are very ambitious about their work and careers and have a
desire to get ahead. To advance, leaders actively take steps to demonstrate their drive
and determination. Ambition impels leaders to set hard, challenging goals for
themselves and their organizations.
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– Energy. To sustain a high achievement drive and get ahead, leaders must have
a lot of energy. Working long, intense work weeks (and many weekends) for many
years, requires an individual to have physical, mental, and emotional vitality.
Leaders are more likely than nonleaders to have a high level of energy and stamina and
to be generally active, lively, and often restless. Leaders have been characterized as
“electric, vigorous, active, full of life” as well as possessing the “physical vitality to
maintain a steadily productive work pace.”(J.M. Kouzes and B.Z. Posner (1987))
– Tenacity. Leaders are better at overcoming obstacles than nonleaders. They
have the “capacity to work with distant objects in view” and have a “degree of strength
of will or perseverance.”(B.M. Bass (1990)) Leaders must be tirelessly persistent in
their activities and follow through with their programs. Most organizational change
programs take several months to establish and can take many years before the benefits
are seen. Leaders must have the drive to stick with these programs, and persistence is
needed to ensure that changes are institutionalized.
– Initiative. Effective leaders are proactive. They make choices and take action
that leads to change instead of just reacting to events or waiting for things to happen;
that is, they show a high level of initiative.
b) Leadership Motivation
Studies show that leaders have a strong desire to lead. Leadership motivation
involves the desire to influence and lead others and is often equated with the need for
power. People with high leadership motivation think a lot about influencing other
people, winning an argument, or being the greater authority. They prefer to be in a
leadership rather than subordinate role. The willingness to assume responsibility, which
seems to coincide with leadership motivation, is frequently found in leaders.
Psychologist Warren Bennis and colleague Burt Nanus state that power is a
leader’s currency, or the primary means through which the leader gets things done in the
organization. (W.G. Bennis and B. Nanus (1985)) A leader must want to gain the power
to exercise influence over others. Also, power is an “expandable pie,” not a fixed sum;
effective leaders give power to others as a means of increasing their own power.
Effective leaders do not see power as something that is competed for but rather as
something that can be created and distributed to followers without detracting from their
own power.
Successful leaders must be willing to exercise power over subordinates, tell
them what to do, and make appropriate use of positive and negative sanctions. Previous
studies have shown inconsistent results regarding dominance as a leadership trait.
According to Harvard psychologist David McClelland, this may be because there are
two different types of dominance: a personalized power motive, or power lust, and a
socialized power motive, or the desire to lead. (D.C. McClelland (1965))
– Personalized Power Motive. Although a need for power is desirable, the
leader’s effectiveness depends on what is behind it. A leader with a personalized power
motive seeks power as an end in itself. These individuals have little self-control, are
often impulsive, and focus on collecting symbols of personal prestige. Acquiring power
solely for the sake of dominating others may be based on profound self-doubt. The
personalized power motive is concerned with domination of others and leads to
dependent, submissive followers.
– Socialized Power Motive. In contrast, a leader with a socialized power motive
uses power as a means to achieve desired goals, or a vision. Its use is expressed as the
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ability to develop networks and coalitions, gain cooperation from others, resolve
conflicts in a constructive manner, and use role modelling to influence others.
c) Honesty and Integrity
Honesty and integrity are virtues in all individuals, but have special significance
for leaders. Without these qualities, leadership is undermined. Integrity is the
correspondence between word and deed and honesty refers to being truthful or nondeceitful. The two form the foundation of a trusting relationship between leader and
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