Please discuss the theories of the Trait Approach and the Skills Approach to Leadership. Please be sure to discuss Stogdills survey and the 10 traits associated with leadership and ho

Trait vs. Skills Approach to Leadership

Hello, Welcome to the University homeschool of government, a PhD, I'm 510 fundamentals of Public Safety Leadership. This is Module 2, trait versus skills approach to leadership. Trait theory actually involves one of the first systematic attempts to study leadership. Leadership traits were studied to determine which traits made certain people great leaders. It was believed that people were born with these traits and that only great people possess them. While in the early days, it was believed that people were born with traits that only great people possess in order to be a great leader. In 1948, Stogdill determined that there was no consistent set of traits that differentiate leaders from non-leaders across a wide array of situations. Someone who might be a leader in one situation may very well not be a leader in another. Leadership was re-conceptualized as a relationship between people in a social situation. Trace may be associated with individuals perceptions of leadership. And ultimately, it was determined that this approach emphasizes that having a leader with a certain set of traits is crucial to having effective leadership. The skills approach to leadership is similar to the trait approach. The skills approach takes a leader centered perspective on leadership. We shift from traits to an emphasis on the skills and abilities that can be learned and developed. This approach emphasizes the capabilities, knowledge, and skills that are needed for effective leadership. In examining and comparing the trait approach versus the skills approach. Skills are what leaders can accomplish, whereas traits are who leaders are, such as their innate or inherent characteristics. So are good leaders born or made? The studies and the debate is something that has gone on for many years and will most likely to continue to go on for many more. Trait approach focuses upon the traits that leaders are born with and may utilize across a broad spectrum of situations. Skills Tim relate to topics such as technical skills. For example, knowledge about an proficiency in a specific type of work or activity. Skills can also relate to human skills, skills and knowledge about the ability to work with people, for example, noticed people skills and skills can also relate to conceptual skills essential to creating a vision and strategic plan for an organization. When we discuss the trait approach versus the skills approach and public safety are both or either beneficial to public safety. How might you utilize either or both? And again, are some people born leaders? Possibly, but some leaders are actually made good leaders as well. Some leaders become great leaders through the acquisition of new skills. Experience provides greater opportunities for the development of better leadership skills and abilities. In closing, I would like to leave you with a passage from James 31. Now many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly as leaders or managers. You will eventually put in a position to teach others. And another great quote by Dr. John Maxwell, a leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.

,

Assessing the trait theory of leadership using self and observer ratings of personality: The mediating role of contributions to group success☆

Author links open overlay panelAmy E. Colbert a, Timothy A. Judge b 1, Daejeong Choi a 2, Gang Wang c 3

Show more

Add to Mendeley

Share

Cite

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2012.03.004 Get rights and content

Abstract

The trait theory of leadership suggests that personality traits influence leader emergence and effectiveness. While initial empirical evidence supports this perspective, the majority of studies have examined the relationship between personality and leadership using self ratings of personality. We believe that this research may underestimate the relationship between personality and leadership. We propose that personality assessed using both self and observer ratings explains more variance in leadership than self ratings of personality alone. Results from 155 participants in leaderless group discussions supported this hypothesis. Further, relative weight analysis revealed that observer ratings of extraversion explained the largest percentage of variance in leadership, followed by self ratings of openness to experience and observer ratings of openness to experience. Results of two-stage least squares regression analysis showed that the relationship between personality and leadership was mediated by contributions to group success. The implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed.

Introduction

The trait theory of leadership proposes that certain traits differentiate leaders from other individuals. Tests of trait theory, searching for the traits of effective leaders, dominated leadership research during the first half of the twentieth century. However, the results of these studies were often inconsistent. Reviews by Stogdill (1948) and Mann (1959) expressed skepticism regarding the trait theory of leadership and consequently the theory fell out of favor with many leadership researchers. House and Aditya (1997) noted, “There developed among the community of leadership scholars near consensus that the search for universal traits was futile” (p. 410). In part, the inconsistent results that led to this skepticism were due to the numerous traits that had been considered in this research. In a comparison of reviews of the literature, Bass (1990) noted 43 separate characteristics that were examined in these studies. With this large number of leadership traits, the lack of an organizing personality framework made it difficult to compare results across studies. House and Aditya (1997) noted, “One problem with early trait research was that there was little empirically substantiated personality theory to guide the search for leadership traits” (p. 410).

Recently, however, a consensus on the structure of personality has emerged around the five-factor model of personality (Digman, 1990). Factor analysis of both trait adjectives and personality inventories has revealed that personality traits can be categorized into five main factors: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. The Big Five personality traits have been shown to be predictors of diverse criteria of interest in the field of industrial and organizational psychology, including job performance (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991). Using the five-factor model of personality as an organizing framework, Judge, Bono, Ilies, and Gerhardt (2002) meta-analyzed studies examining the relationship between personality and leadership and found that extraversion, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness were positively related to leadership. As a group, the Big Five personality traits predicted both leadership emergence ( R = .53) and leadership effectiveness ( R = .39).

Despite the abundance of research testing the trait theory of leadership and the promise offered by the five-factor model, questions still remain regarding the relationship between personality and leadership. The true-score correlations between the Big Five personality traits and leadership range from .08 to .31 and can be considered, at best, moderate in magnitude. Morgeson et al. (2007) suggested that modest relationships between personality and outcomes may be due, in part, to the near exclusive use of self reports of personality. Self reports of personality may be biased due to faking or self-deception (Hooper and Sackett, 2008, Paulhus and Reid, 1984), and the relationship between personality and outcomes may be higher when other means of assessing personality are used. For example, Oh, Wang, and Mount (2011) recently compared the validity of self and observer ratings of personality in predicting job performance and found that the validities of the Big Five are higher when observer ratings of personality are used. Chang, Connelly, and Geeza (2012) recommended using a multirater approach in personality research, noting that “trait ratings from a single rater are not solely an indication of true standing of the target's personality traits, but also bias from the rater's response tendencies” (p. 423). Thus, the first purpose of our research is to extend these findings into the leadership domain by examining the relationship between personality and leadership using both self and observer ratings of personality. Following Lord, De Vader, and Alliger's (1986) meta-analysis, we include both leader emergence, or the degree to which an individual is perceived as leaderlike (Hogan, Curphy, & Hogan, 1994), and perceived effectiveness, or the degree to which an individual is seen as effective in influencing and guiding the activities of the group (Stogdill, 1950), in the leadership criterion in this study.

In addition to examining the effect of self and observer ratings of personality on leadership, more research is also needed on the mechanisms by which personality traits affect leadership (Judge, Bono et al., 2002). A small body of research has begun to shed light on the mediators of the relationship between personality and overall performance. For example, Barrick, Stewart, and Piotrowski (2002) found that three cognitive motivational work orientations (i.e., communion, achievement, and status striving) mediate the personality–performance relationship. However, very little is known about why personality traits are related to leadership emergence and effectiveness. Given the growing body of research that supports a link between personality and leadership, an important next step is to shed light on the mechanisms by which personality influences leadership. Understanding what leaders do when interacting with others that causes them to emerge as leaders and be more effective as leaders will help to illuminate the “black box” through which personality traits affect leadership. In addition to contributing to an improved theoretical understanding of the personality–leadership relationship, a clearer understanding of mediating mechanisms may be useful in leadership development. If we can isolate the trait-consistent behaviors that influence leadership ratings, these behaviors may be integrated into leadership development programs to increase the use of the behaviors even for those individuals with low levels of the traits that have been linked to leadership. Because we test the relationships between personality and leadership in the context of a leaderless group discussion, we focus on one potential mediator that is especially relevant in this context — contributions to group success.

Section snippets

Self versus observer ratings of personality

As defined by Cervone and Pervin (2008), personality traits refer to “psychological qualities that contribute to an individual's enduring and distinctive patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving” (p. 8). Most personality research has relied on self reports to assess personality, and self ratings of personality have been linked to a number of important work-related outcomes, including job performance (Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001), job satisfaction (Judge, Heller, & Mount, 2002), and

Participants and procedure

Data from participants in leaderless group discussions were used to test the hypothesized relationships between the Big Five personality traits, contributions to group success, and leadership. Leaderless group discussions were used in this study because our interest was in understanding the display and emergence of leadership when no single individual has been designated as the leader. In this controlled setting, ratings of contributions to group success and leadership were based on

Results

Descriptive statistics and correlations among the personality, mediator, and leadership variables are provided in Table 1. The correlations between self and observer ratings of the Big Five personality traits ranged from .48 to .60. Both self and observer ratings of extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness were significantly correlated with leadership. Observer ratings of neuroticism and conscientiousness were marginally significantly correlated with leadership.

We tested

Discussion

In their review of the leadership literature, House and Aditya (1997) concluded, “There has recently emerged a modest body of trait theory and evidence relevant to leadership” (p. 412). Consistent with this conclusion, Judge, Bono, and colleagues (2002) used meta-analysis to aggregate estimates of the effects of personality on leadership and found that self ratings of four of the Big Five personality traits – neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness – were

References (79)

· D. Watson  et al.

Extraversion and its positive emotional core

· M. Uhl-Bien

Relational leadership theory: Exploring the social processes of leadership and organizing

The Leadership Quarterly

(2006)

· R.P. Tett  et al.

Situation trait relevance, trait expression, and cross-situational consistency: Testing a principle of trait activation

Journal of Research in Personality

(2000)

· J. Roelofs  et al.

Rumination and worrying as possible mediators in the relation between neuroticism and symptoms of depression and anxiety in clinically depressed

Behaviour Research and Therapy

(2008)

· L.R. Offermann  et al.

Implicit leadership theories: Content, structure, and generalizability

The Leadership Quarterly

(1994)

· R.R. McCrae  et al.

Conceptions and correlates of openness to experience

· R.G. Lord  et al.

A test of leadership categorization theory: Internal structure, information processing, and leadership perceptions

Organizational Behavior and Human Performance

(1984)

· T.A. Judge  et al.

The bright and dark sides of leader traits: A review and theoretical extension of the leader trait paradigm

The Leadership Quarterly

(2009)

· R.J. House  et al.

The social scientific study of leadership: Quo vadis?

Journal of Management

(1997)

· W.G. Graziano  et al.

Agreeableness: A dimension of personality

· S. Connelly  et al.

Leadership style and activating potential moderators of the relationships among leader emotional displays and outcomes

The Leadership Quarterly

(2010)

· J. Antonakis  et al.

On making causal claims: A review and recommendations

The Leadership Quarterly

(2010)

· T.M. Amabile

A model of creativity and innovation in organizations

Research in Organizational Behavior

(1988)

· M.R. Barrick  et al.

The big five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis

Personnel Psychology

(1991)

· M.R. Barrick  et al.

The FFM personality dimensions and job performance: Meta-analysis of meta-analyses

International Journal of Selection and Assessment

(2001)

· M.R. Barrick  et al.

Personality and job performance: Test of the mediating effects of motivation among sales representatives

Journal of Applied Psychology

(2002)

· B.M. Bass

Leadership and performance beyond expectations

(1985)

· B.M. Bass

Bass and Stogdill's handbook of leadership

(1990)

· P.D. Bliese

Within-group agreement, non-independence, and reliability: Implications for data aggregation and analysis

· K.A. Bollen

Structural equations with latent variables

(1989)

· P. Borkenau  et al.

Convergence of stranger ratings of personality and intelligence with self-ratings, partner ratings, and measured intelligence

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

(1993)

· D. Cervone  et al.

Personality: Theory and research

(2008)

· L. Chang  et al.

Separating method factors and higher order traits of the Big Five: A meta-analytic multitrait-multimethod approach

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

(2012)

· O.S. Chernyshenko  et al.

Individual differences: Their measurement and validity

· B.S. Connelly  et al.

Another perspective on personality: Meta-analytic integration of observers' accuracy and predictive validity

Psychological Bulletin

(2010)

· J.J. Connolly  et al.

The convergent validity between self and observer ratings of personality: A meta-analytic review

International Journal of Selection and Assessment

(2007)

· P.T. Costa  et al.

From catalog to classification: Murray's needs and the five-factor model

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

(1988)

· P.T. Costa  et al.

Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory professional manual

(1992)

· D.S. DeRue  et al.

Who will lead and who will follow? A social process of leadership identity construction in organizations

Academy of Management Review

(2010)

· M. Diehl  et al.

Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Toward the solution of a riddle

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

(1987)

· J.M. Digman

Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor model

Annual Review of Psychology

(1990)

· G.J. Feist

A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

(1998)

· B.A. Fisher

Small group decision making

(1980)

· D.C. Funder

On the accuracy of personality judgment: A realistic approach

Psychological Review

(1995)

· R.B. Gallupe  et al.

Electronic brainstorming and group size

Academy of Management Journal

(1992)

· H.G. Gough

Testing for leadership with the California Psychological Inventory

· D. Heller  et al.

The influence of work personality on job satisfaction: Incremental validity and mediation effects

Journal of Personality

(2009)

· R.T. Hogan

Personality and personality measurement

· R. Hogan

A socioanalytic perspective on the five-factor model

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

,

Trait Theory of Leadership

Hello and welcome to today's lesson where we're looking at the trait theory of leadership. Now, the trait theory of leadership sets out to help identify future leaders. And it's based on the idea that great leaders are born with inherent traits that enable them to become great. Now, from this idea, the aim of trait theory is twofold. So firstly, it aims to find the traits these great leaders have in common. And secondly, it aims to use these traits to identify future leaders. Now, it's one of the oldest leadership theories in existence. And in fact, it can trace its origins back to Thomas Carlyle's a 149 quote that the history of the world is but the biography of great men. Now, this belief or that quote is often called the great man theory. Now before we move on, in psychological terms, you are the combination of nature plus nurture. So you inherit your genetic makeup, but you're also the sum of your lived experiences. Now, the trait theory of leadership is based on the idea that great leaders are born and not bread. So trait theory does not take any account of how you might develop over time. It's entirely focused on nature and not nurture. Now, over the years, there have been hundreds of research studies done to identify the traits of great leaders. And no two studies have resulted in the same list of traits. You can see a sample of some of those studies in this image. And let's very briefly run through each of them. Now, the first happened in 1948. And a guy called rough Stockdale analyze data for more than a 100 previous studies into leadership traits. And from this analysis, what he found, It's not, there weren't many overlapping traits amongst the different studies. Now, because leaders have many traits, he argued that you don't become a leader or just because you possess certain traits. To be a successful leader. He said that you must possess those traits relevant to the situation in which you find yourself. So, for example, a startup founder needs very different traits to a Fortune 500 CEO, who in turn needs really different traits to a religious leader. Now, from the studies Stockdale analyzed, he noted that if you combined all the traits required to be a successful leader from all the different studies, then the lists became too long to be of any practical use in finding future leaders. But having said that, he did identify that the average leader is different from the average follower with regard to the eight crates you can see here. So intelligence, alertness, insight, taking responsibility, showing the initiative, persistence, self-confidence, obviously having high self confidence and being sociable or having sociability. Now, move along to the next column. Many years later in 970 for stroke to a, published another list of leadership traits. This time, the list was compiled by analyzing research on trait theory that took place in the intervening years since his last list of traits. And the critical difference between the first, second survey that he performed is that he moved away from implying that situational factors were the most important. To suggest. Both situational and trace factors are important. So next we have the study done in 1983 by Nicole and lumbar DO. And they examined both leadership, success and failure and identified four factors are for traits critical to leader success. And you can see those here. Emotional stability, admitting mistakes, interpersonal scales, and intellectual breath. Next we have cruises and Posner in 1987. Now between 8387, James cruises and Barry Posner surveyed over 600 managers about their positive leadership experiences and identified the list of traits you can see here. Now, it's important to know that this list wasn't derived by analyzing leaders traits. Instead, it was derived by asking followers what qualities they saw as important in great leaders. Next, we have the study in 990 one perform, performed by Shelley Kirkpatrick and Edwin Locke. And they suggested that there were certain traits in liters which equip them with the tools to then go on and develop into great leaders should they so choose. But the key thing to note here is that Kirkpatrick and Locke are not saying. By possessing all these traits, you will automatically become a great leader. But rather that by having those traits, you simply have the basic tools you need. Should you wish to then go on and work to become a great leader. And more recently in 2004, the Cairo camp and Bader proposed that leadership emerges from the combined influence and interaction between multiple traits rather than traits existing independently and being measured independently from each other. So hopefully that gives you a flavor of some of the work that's been done on trait theory to date. Now there are many advantages and disadvantages associated with the trait theory of leadership in terms of advantages than the idea that having certain traits predict so predisposes one to leadership is an easy to understand and fairly intuitive idea. Much research has been conducted to confirm the importance of traits, even if that search category on specific traits. And finally, the theory provides you with pointers on what to investigate if you want to improve your leadership ability. Now, in terms of disadvantages, then It's not possible to know the relative importance of the different traits. Also, trait theory ignores cultural factors. So what makes a great leader in the US can be very different to what makes a great leader in China, for example. Traits are also situation dependent. So a religious leader needs different traits to a business leader. And finally, the different traits studies do not agree on a core set of universal traits common to all great leaders. And really that makes trait theory almost impossible to use as a practical tool. So where does all this leave us? Well, trait theory has gone in and I've to fashion over the years. But it should be clear from this video that there are no universal traits common to all successful leaders. Also, even if there were, then those traits alone would not be enough to guarantee your success. A better way to think about the most common traits identified by trait theory is as a precondition to success. So if you have the necessary traits, then that's a great foundation. But you still need to take action to become successful. Now, this faction encouraged those. I believe they do not have the necessary traits. Do not let the absence of certain traits handicap you from being successful. With hard work, you can develop the traits you need. Now, a high school basketball coach named Tim knocked a summed this up beautifully with the quote, hard work beats talent, and talent fails to work hard. So that's it for this lesson. Really hope you enjoyed it, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.

,

                      

                      

                      

                      

                      

                      

                      

                      

                      

                      

             <img src alt='A picture con