BUS660: Contemporary Issues In Organizational Leadership

Leadership Traits
BUS660: Contemporary Issues in Organizational Leadership
Karen Ivy
October 7, 2013

Leadership Traits The words leader and leadership often times are confusing to lots of people. A leader is a person while leadership is an action or process a leader performs. The words managers and leaders can be used as a substitute for each other. A manager usually hold an authoritarian position in an organization where they perform leadership skills for managerial purposes. A leader in an organization works as an manager and administrator of tasks in a business. A leader is also responsible for professional output of their subordinates. Leadership is a complicated hum conduct (Anonymous, 2013). It can be considered
in a number of ways. If one aims to become a successful leader, one must focus on the many leadership types and theories. An effective leader is devoted to develop positive values, achieving goals, creating trust and energizing and inspiring their followers (Anonymous, 2013). According to (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2012), leadership can be defined as "the process of inspiring a structured team to the achievements of its aims". Also, leaders come with intrinsic leadership skills. An effective leader should be capable to take decisions and give firm instructions. Leadership means the capacity to adjust a situation in a way the all the contributors feel fairly treated and authorized to help solve the problems productively (Smith, 2012). Leadership trait theory concentrates on a leader 's principals and morals, character, direction to authority, gender, need for accomplishments and recognition, self-assurance and physical, psychological and sentimental traits.
Previously, leadership trait theory presumed that individuals have specific intrinsic traits and traits associated with leadership. Most individuals thought that having the required traits would help them become the most effective leaders. Studies recently have found out that having specific intrinsic traits does not warrant leadership effectiveness. A promising leader most possess determination, ambition, sincerity, thinking ability, self-assurance and knowledge about the
company. Business leaders must have some particular traits that would bring success and development of an organization. Learning the common traits of leaders is essential as acquiring the qualities that characterizes an effective leader is an indispensable tool for the success of an organization. Determination- is an extremely precious trait in a leader and consists of various concepts. It is comprised of "greater need for accomplishment, consistent struggle for betterment, drive, intensity, persistence, perseverance and instigation" (Bateman & Snell, 2009). Both the organization and leader gains greatly from this quality, but can bring harmful effects as well. When a leader shows extreme ambition and determination, they do not entrust others with constructive responsibility and creativity suffers in turn. Leadership motivation- is also a vital trait the leaders must hold. It infuses creativity in the company as employees are driven by high motivation. This trait also provides that an effective leader must have strong drive and a determination to command. If this trait is combined with high moral values, the resulting behavior can infuse respect, faith and devotion to the leaders (Bateman & Snell, 2009). Integrity- is one of the most esteemed traits of effective leaders. A leader portraying integrity will instigate confidence from followers (Bateman & Snell, 2009). It is imperative for a leader to show sincerity, honesty and dependability and such a trait is extremely valuable in a business setting. Self-confidence- is a decisive trait for business leaders. Business leaders normally face hundreds of tasks daily to test their mettle. They face a number of challenging responsibilities and tensions everyday and therefore, self-confidence is extremely essential to help the leader deal with his work effectively, no matter in which business he works (Bateman & Snell, 2009). Self-confidence is an important leadership trait but arrogance must not overshadow a person 's true confidence. Knowledge of the business- is a trait all the leaders require to move up the ladder of success in their selected business. Successful leaders possess a strong insight about their organizations, industries and processes and they are well-equipped with the skills that help them evaluate and make use of their insight daily (Bateman & Snell, 2009). A strong insight about business is imperative to accomplish tasks and challenges that arise daily.
All these leadership traits are vital to become an effective leader in any industry and all leader show possess these traits to be dynamic. According to (Hughes, Ginnet & Curphy, 2012), typical behavior prototypes can be classified by using the general personality types.
Such a behavior is normally the introvert-extrovert, awareness-instinct, and cognitive-sensing and assessing-discerning personality dynamics. The importance of productive and sensible leadership intelligence is increasing. The intelligence can be distributed in three parts: The logical intelligence, functional intelligence and productive intelligence. Many studies provide that leaders enjoy a greater degree of logical intelligence than the normal public (Hughes, Ginnet & Curphy,
2012). The functional and productive leadership intelligence is also gaining increased importance. The functional intelligence or the insight into a person 's job is becoming a vital tool for today 's leaders. Those leaders having greater degree of functional intelligence are proving to be effective problem-solvers under straining conditions (Hughes, Ginnet & Curphy, 2012). About the logical intelligence, it provides that leaders impart better solutions to the problems and are sharper than the rest. They normally benefit greater from their experience. The emotional intelligence is a recent notion. This type of intelligence deals with the insight and reaction to personal and group emotions. Also, emotional intelligence has played a vital part in determining the role of emotions and feelings in effective leadership (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2012). In my opinion, the two vital leadership theories that can assist in developing effective leaders are determination and motivation. Being executives of a company, we should possess the determination and motivation to enhance the output and fulfillment of our employees. Motivation plays an important role in the output of our employees. Having the responsibility to lead them, we must be capable to motivate our employees to deliver the best of their abilities. If we become successful in motivating employees, we can have an effective creative team (Hughes, Ginnet & Curphy, 2012).

References:
Anonymous (2013). Leadership Traits. Retrieved from http://www.au.af. mil/au/awc/awcgate/sba/traits.htm
Ganly, Sarah, (2010). Traits of Successful Leaders in Business. Retrieved from http://voices.yahoo.com/traits-successful-leaders-business-5853366.html?cat=3
Hughes, R., Ginnett, R., & Curphy, G. (2012). Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Smith, Steven, (2013). What is Leadership? Retrieved from http://stevenmsmith.com/what-is-leadership