Leadership Chapter 2 Textbook Notes

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Trait Approach

First systematic attempt to study leadership.

“Great man” Theories

Identifying innate qualities and characteristics possessed by leaders.

Believed people were born with these traits

Only the “great” people possessed them

Research questioned universality of leadership traits

Might be a leader in one situation and not be in another

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Charismatic Leadership

Emphasis given to visionary and charismatic leadership

Forefront of public attention when Obama was elected

Possess traits of self monitoring, motivation to attain social power, motivation to attain self-actualization.

Traits

Distinct characteristics, qualities, or attributes that describe a person

Inherent and relatively unchanging over time

Comprise personality and make us unique

There are eight distinct leadership traits

Intelligence, alertness, insight, responsibility, initiative, persistence, self-confidence, sociability.

Leadership Characteristics (Page 3)

Situational factors are associated with leadership

Persistence in pursuit of goals

Risk taking and originality in problem solving

Originality

Sense of personal Identity

Willing to tolerate frustration

Certain traits could differentiate leaders from non leaders

Masculinity

Adjustment

Dominance

Extraversion

conservation

Intelligence:

Individuals can be born with these traits, they can learn them, or both.

“Social Intelligence” (page 4)

The ability to assess one's own and others feelings, behaviors, and thoughts and act appropriately

Select and enact the best response given the situation and social environment

There are traits that individuals might hope to possess or wish to cultivate if they want to be perceived by others as leaders. These are the Core 5: Intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, sociability

Intelligence page 32

Is positively related to leadership

Leaders tend to have higher intelligence than non-leaders

Strong verbal, perceptual, and reasoning abilities appear to make one a better leader

If, however, the leader’s IQ is too high, it can be counterproductive to leadership.

Why?

Optimal IQ for perceived leadership appeared to be just one standard deviation above the mean IQ of the group membership. Interesting…

Self-Confidence

The ability to be certain about one’s competencies and skills.

Includes a sense of self-esteem and self-assurance and the belief that one can make a difference.

Steve Jobs: never doubted himself. “He believed he knew more about it than anyone else, and he probably did.”

Determination

The desire to get the job done

Natural leaders show initiative, persistence, dominance, and drive.

A willingness to assert oneself, be proactive, and persevere in the face of obstacles

Includes showing dominance at times in situations where followers need to be directed.

“Grit” - the degree of perseverance toward goal attainment

Leaders with grit recover quickly from setbacks. Obstacles don’t stop them.

Dr. Paul Farmer example with securing health care for the poor of Haiti

Integrity

The quality of honesty and trustworthiness.

Adhering to strong principles and taking responsibility for actions = integrity

Leaders with integrity inspire confidence in others because they can be trusted.

Impeachment of Bill Clinton; George Bush and Iraq invasion: question integrity

We have become skeptical of leaders with weak integrity: makes country cynical

Education is starting to develop character curriculums. Necessary?

Sociability

A leader’s inclination to seek out pleasant social relationships.

Friendly, outgoing, courteous, tactful, diplomatic.

Sensitive to others’ needs and show concern for others’ well-being.

Dr. Bacani greeting in the morning and attending lunch sessions.

Emotional Intelligence (pages 38-41)

Emerged in the 1990’s as an important area of study in psychology.

Deals with the interplay between our emotions (affective domain) and thinking (cognitive domain).

Emotional intelligence is concerned with our ability to understand emotions as they relate to life’s tasks.

Formal definition: the ability to perceive and express emotions, to use emotions to facilitate thinking, to understand and reason with emotions, and to effectively manage emotions within oneself and in relationships with others.

Goleman: emotional intelligence consists of a set of personal and social competencies such as self-awareness, confidence, motivation, empathy, and social skills.

Shankman and Allen: leaders must be conscious of three fundamental facets of leadership: context, self, and others.

Emotional intelligence is not considered mainstream in leadership research,

It is debated whether or not emotional intelligence plays a major role in people leading successful lives.

Some people do have more emotional intelligence than others. It is developed over a lifetime and can be improved with training.

How the trait approach works

It focuses exclusively on the leader, making it more straightforward than other approaches.

The trait approach focuses on what traits leaders exhibit and who has these traits.

It believes that having a leader with a certain set of traits is crucial to having effective leadership.

This approach suggests that organizations will work better if the people in managerial positions have designated leadership profiles.

Trait assessment instruments are used to measure a person’s ability to lead a specific organization by focusing on strengths and weaknesses of the candidate.

Overall idea is that leaders are a special kind of people with gifts that enable them to do extraordinary things. People have a need to see their leaders as gifted.

There is a century of research behind trait leadership.

Criticism is that determination of the most important leadership traits is highly subjective.

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