How useful is the Trait Approach to Leadership
How useful is the Trait Approach to Leadership
1. Introduction
Leadership defined as position (power and responsibility relation) or person (personality traits) or result (outcomes) or process (Grint, 2010). Person-based leadership resonates with the traditional traits approach. Trait theory, as the name gives away, is an approach to identify human personality and measure patterns of thoughts and behaviours from individual to individual. Lord et al (1986) indicated that personality traits show relatively strong relations with individuals’ perceptions of leadership.
Therefore how a leader’s character or personality influences leadership. This paper will critically evaluate how useful is the trait approach to leadership. It begins with early scholars work on the trait approach to identifying the qualities of great leaders; the following section will analyse strengths and criticisms of the trait approach to leadership; and then implications and application of trait theory will be discussed in order to gain insight into how the trait approach plays an indispensible part of leadership. A conclusion will be drawn on the key discussion: despite the shortcomings of the trait theory, it gives us benchmarks of personal leadership attributes. Trait theory is a useful tool for leaders to modify their approach as the situation demands and assist the organisations to improve their overall leadership effectiveness by using trait information.
2. The Trait Approach to Leadership
Fleenor (2006) indicated that early trait researchers viewed leadership as a unique set of characteristics that could be naturally possessed by great people (i.e., great man theory to leadership). In other words, great man theory stated that leaders are born either with or without the necessary traits of leadership. Around the mid-20th century, the trait theory questioned previous leadership traits studies and considered personality, social, physical or intellectual traits to distinguish leaders from
1. Introduction
Leadership defined as position (power and responsibility relation) or person (personality traits) or result (outcomes) or process (Grint, 2010). Person-based leadership resonates with the traditional traits approach. Trait theory, as the name gives away, is an approach to identify human personality and measure patterns of thoughts and behaviours from individual to individual. Lord et al (1986) indicated that personality traits show relatively strong relations with individuals’ perceptions of leadership.
Therefore how a leader’s character or personality influences leadership. This paper will critically evaluate how useful is the trait approach to leadership. It begins with early scholars work on the trait approach to identifying the qualities of great leaders; the following section will analyse strengths and criticisms of the trait approach to leadership; and then implications and application of trait theory will be discussed in order to gain insight into how the trait approach plays an indispensible part of leadership. A conclusion will be drawn on the key discussion: despite the shortcomings of the trait theory, it gives us benchmarks of personal leadership attributes. Trait theory is a useful tool for leaders to modify their approach as the situation demands and assist the organisations to improve their overall leadership effectiveness by using trait information.
2. The Trait Approach to Leadership
Fleenor (2006) indicated that early trait researchers viewed leadership as a unique set of characteristics that could be naturally possessed by great people (i.e., great man theory to leadership). In other words, great man theory stated that leaders are born either with or without the necessary traits of leadership. Around the mid-20th century, the trait theory questioned previous leadership traits studies and considered personality, social, physical or intellectual traits to distinguish leaders from