...Leadership Abilities and Traits Leadership Abilities and Traits What type of leader are you? Leadership abilities and traits have been debated many times over the century. The definition of leadership and management are very similar but have some primary differences. To understand leadership qualities and traits one must understand leadership theories, how leadership differs from management and the importance of time management. Leadership Concepts Understanding leadership theories are useful in understanding your style of leadership. There are several different types of leadership theories. The Great Man Theory implies that a leader is born into a leadership role. This theory portrays a person being born into a noble family, and the rights of leadership are inherited. The Trait theories attempt to identify traits that are common among leaders. Situational theories give the situation and the environment important factors in regards to the success of a leader. Other nursing leadership theories are the Contemporary theories. The Contemporary theories combine the situation, the environment, the leader and the followers. Other theories are the Behavioral, the Participative, Contingency, the Quantum, Chaos, the Transactional, and the Transformational Theories. Reviewing the differences and similarities in leadership and management is important in learning leadership concepts. The roles between the two have been widely debated. As a nursing professional, understanding...
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...Trait Theory of Leadership 6/29/14 Leadership Theory and Effective Management Personality in simple words means distinctive personal qualities which help one to establish one's identity. Personality traits of a human specifically leaders develops in a very natural process, which certainly can be improved further by proper guidance of parents, teachers and influential members of the community. To some extent, a child may inherit its leadership traits from its parents. Coming to the specific question how to develop a leader’s personality, it is imperative to know about the main factors that constitute the core traits of a leader. Broadly speaking these are the core traits of a leader which should be visible to their peers, Achievement drive, Honesty and integrity, Self-confidence, Cognitive ability, Knowledge of business, Emotional Maturity, Creativity. How leadership traits will develop, to a great extent, depends upon the way he or she is allowed to socialize, interact with others during their childhood, the parent's behavior with him/her, how the child is treated by his near and dear ones, the cultural environment in which he/she t is brought up, the amount of care and love it gets from its parents, the contribution made by the school, and the facilities provided to leaders in their development stages for their physical growth and mental development. Does personality change? If I get married will I assume some of the personality traits of my spouse? Will my children...
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...Leadership is defined as the process through which a group or individual influences others to obtain certain objectives and goals which results to improve in the direction of an organization. It can also be defined as the ability to inspire and motivate others to take a new direction that will improve the efficiency and coherency of the group. Leaders are able to do this by applying their leadership skills and knowledge. Though leadership is learned the knowledge and skills that are processed by the leader are often influenced by their traits and attributes such as character, ethics, values and beliefs. Leadership is more strategic in nature. Management is a process of exercising supervisory, administrative and executive direction of an organization in order to improve organizational performance. An act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively. Managers direct are preoccupied with the right way to do things by following policy and procedure and get results from subordinates through authority. There is an ongoing argument in the field of leadership regarding whether or not leaders and managers are two completely different parts of an organization. A person can be a great manager, a great leader or both, but both these two areas often require a mastery of certain competencies and skills. While management produces consistency and order, a leader produces change and movement. A leader innovates while...
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...Leadership Styles and Traits Robin Carle-Schindel Leadership goes far beyond just directing a process. An effective leader creates a partnership with a group of people. In business, a leader’s constituents are comprised of managers and other employees, all of whom share a subordinate role to their leader. As a leader you must actively inspire those constituents to embrace the philosophy and goals of your company. “To build an extraordinary management team, you’ve got to light the fire in their bellies” (Vogan. 2013). You must imbue them all, with a motivation directed toward your vision, and the optimal outcomes of aligned goals. Without a mission and vision shared by all of the personnel involved, reaching a state of synergistic cooperation required to move a company toward real evolution, cannot exist. You must exercise excellent communication skills, both as a listener and speaker. You want your words to paint a living picture of your vision. A leader takes ultimate responsibility for the consequences of all decisions, regardless of how those decisions are reached. As a leader you can choose and adapt various leadership styles according to given sets of circumstances and personnel. “Everyone is unique, and there are no universal sets of standards for everyone,” (www.Leadership-toolbox.com/leadership 2012). As you function in a leadership role, you may want to consider and reference some basic leadership traits and styles. If you understand your strengths...
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...830———Trait Approach to Leadership determining how an organization should allocate training resources. The organization–task–person model is less useful when it comes to reacting to a specific human performance problem, such as high turnover or poor sales. A thorough needs assessment relevant to this problem may prove inefficient; moreover, it would assume that some form of training is required to solve the problem. An alternative model has been offered to deal with these situations. It is a problem-solving process that begins with problem definition and then moves to root-cause identification Fleenor, John W. "TraitThis model isto and intervention design. Approach known as the Leadership." Encyclopedia of Industrial human performance intervention (HPI) process or and Organizational Psychology.(HPT). Although human performance technology 2006. relatively neglected in I/O psychology SAGE Publications. 16 Feb. 2011. research, this approach resonates with the consulting approach increasingly used by professionals in the human resource management and organizational development fields. —Kenneth G. Brown See also Job Analysis; Job Analysis Methods; Training; Trainability and Adaptability; Training Evaluation FURTHER READING leadership research. This approach focuses on the personal attributes (or traits) of leaders, such as physical and personality characteristics, competencies, and values. It views leadership solely from the perspective of the individual leader. Implicit in...
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...The Evolution of Leadership style of the new generation. In a global study involving 389 leaders from 28 countries, The Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL) found that 83% of the leaders surveyed believe that the definition of effective leadership has changed in the past five years. These changes to leadership styles can be attributed to a combination of issues including a shift in people’s attitudes as well as advances in technology. There is an imperative for leaders of organisations, including HR Managers, to plan ahead and adapt to the movement of these evolving trends to ensure the best outcomes for their organisations. The move has shifted from Authoritarian leaders who believed in top-down management, strict rules and exact orders, to a progression into white collar careers with more individualised thinking and individual ownership over tasks. It was here that participative leadership styles settled in, and this style is now one of the most common leadership styles in contemporary society. Changes in leadership styles can be seen across Asia-Pacific too as a Harvard Business School Professor explains that, “As Asian companies seek access to world capital markets, they will move toward professional managers who will employ leadership styles more akin to those now used in the United States” . The participative style of leadership management is where the group is central to the decision making process, and not the leader alone. The work environment is more flexible and...
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...“Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” (Robbin S, 2013). Trait theory suggests that leadership qualities create the separation between leaders and followers. It also specifies that the capability of a leader depends mostly on specific traits that may not be common to the followers (Laureate Education, 2010). “Leadership is the ability to articulate a vision and gain support for it” (Plachy, 2009). The core traits identified for successful leadership skills as highlighted in the Leadership Traits Questionnaire appear to take into cognizance so many characteristics associated with the theory. Trait Approach: emphasizes attributes like personality, motive, values, and skills. Leaders’ effectiveness is measured by the amount of influence a leader has on individual and group performances, follower satisfaction and overall effectiveness (Derue N, et al., 2011). My personal experience with the LTQ was that I became self-conscious at first with my response to each item. It could have been an interesting process if other people completed the assessment too, thus providing verifiable sources for comparison with my ratings. However I felt much better knowing that the instrument was meant to provide a synopsis of my strength and weaknesses. I have always seen myself having leadership qualities and that I possess...
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...5-22-16 Leadership Skills, Traits & Ethics Leadership can be defined as the ability or capacity to influence others behavior to reach a common goal. In the education industry a leader should direct, guide,and counsel subordinates so they may teach with confidence and zeal. Teachers focus should be on how and what to teach, and the leader's should be focused on moulding, and shaping the behavior of his/her staff. As the lead of the mathematics department it is his/her responsibility to lead the teachers to correctly plan the curriculum. Effort should be required of the leader to have more of an interactive part of the teachers adaptive environment, to give them an incentive to do better. Most first time teachers are not confident enough they can teach effectively, and soon become agitated. As head of the mathematics department the leader uses the situational style of leadership because each grade, and teacher have different methods, and situations they encounter. Leadership is specific to each situation. The purpose of this paper is to identify the traits of a leader in the mathematics department in an elementary school, and analyze to what extent the leader exemplifies the Big Five personality traits. Mr. Jacob is the mathematics department lead at Hilliard Elementary school in the Houston Independent School District. As the lead he must be honest, inspiring, competent, intelligent, and authentic. (Kouzes and Posner's, The Leadership Challenge) Mr.Jacob leadership exhibits...
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...Bryant Devine August, 2012 The Importance Leadership Traits and Virtues In the reading's I found several traits that continually repeat. Even past reviews continually repeat there traits; i.e., Self-confidence, integrity, sociability, emotional control and maturity: Even the six traits in Kirkpatrick and Locke relate to the "Big Five" in Judge, Ilies, Bono, and Gerhardt research on personality and leadership. Nonetheless, these trait help an emerging leader understand their role in leadership, and assists them in developing these traits. In order that we may understand the significance of these traits, we must seek comparisons the six traits and "Big Five". We can first compare Neuroticism, from the "Big Five", with Emotional control and maturity. "Neuroticism represents the tendency to exhibit poor emotional adjustment and experience negative effects, such as anxiety, insecurity, and hostility" (Judge, Ilies, Bono, Gerhardt, pg. 81). Conversely, with emotional control and maturity, leaders "generally do not become angry or enraged… leaders remain composed upon hearing that an employee made a costly mistake" (Kirkpatrick, Locke, pg. 76). Nonetheless, what is learned is that the best leaders can remain calm under-pressure, and help those around them stay calm as well. We can also compare self-confidence with Neuroticism. If there is a lack of self-confidence, one will positively reflect the trait of Neuroticism. Nonetheless, self-confidence along with emotional...
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...Leadership Approach: Trait Theory There are many approaches to leadership within an organization. “Early leadership theories focused on what qualities distinguished leaders and followers, while subsequent theories looked at other variables such as situational factors and skill levels“(Cherry, 2013). This paper chooses to evaluate the trait approach to studying leadership. Through the course of this paper, the implications, strengths, and weaknesses of the theory will be explored. Implications of the Trait Theory As previously noted, the trait theory assumes “that people inherit certain qualities and traits that make them better suited to leadership” (Cherry, 2013). The trait theory can be applied in multiple leadership positions within multiple types of organizations. Taking the information retained from this theory and its research, managers not only assess the current personnel within leadership positions but also can assess what traits can are currently successful in alternate leadership positions. The trait theory is not dependent on any particular type or organization or sect of leadership. “Scholars taking the trait approach attempted to identify physiological (appearance, height, and weight), demographic (age, education and socioeconomic background), personality (self confidence and aggressiveness), intellective (intelligence, decisiveness, judgment, and knowledge), task related (achievement drive, initiative...
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...Trait Approach to Studying Leadership Sheila Pounder LDR/531 May 30, 2012 John Healy Trait Approach to Studying Leadership The trait approach to studying leadership uses the assumption that some people are natural leaders with certain attributes that pertains to their personality, motives, values, and skills (Yuki, p. 13, 2010). The studies sort to identify what are the specific traits of leadership. Examples of some of the leadership traits the study found are high intelligence and action-oriented judgment, task competence, achievement-oriented, the ability to motivate people, courage, and resolution driven. This approach was one of the earliest processes used to identify what makes a great leader great. The studies conducted assumed that some people are born with leadership traits, and some are not. Those not possessing identifiable traits are designated as followers. A weakness of the trait approach is that “the previous research efforts failed to find any traits that would guarantee leadership success” (Yuki, 2010, p. 13). A person identified with the attributes of a leader is not guaranteed to be a successful leader. A second weakness of the approach is that it focuses solely on the leader and ignores the followers (Travis, 1999-2012). For a person to lead there must be someone to follow. If an identifiable trait is “the ability to motivate people,” there must be followers to motivate for there to be a leader. A third weakness is that the research also...
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...Trait Approach to Studying Leadership Angela Pierce LDR/531 – Organizational Leadership Trait Approach to Studying Leadership The trait approach was one of the earliest approaches that people have used for studying leadership. “Underlying this approach was the assumption that some people are natural leaders, endowed with certain traits not possessed by other people”(Yuki, p. 13, 2010). During this early period leadership theories suggested that managerial successes could be attributed to the natural extraordinary abilities that people possessed such as tireless energy, penetrating intuition, uncanny foresight, and irresistible persuasive powers. This process is what was used in identifying what/who makes a great leader. It was also assumed during this study that some people just were born with leadership traits, while others were not and for those who did not possess these identifiable traits were designated simply as followers. Trait Approach Weaknesses The weakness of this trait approach is that out of hundreds of trait studies conducted and despite this the massive research failed to find any traits that would guarantee leadership success (Yuki, p. 13, 2010). “One reason for the failure was a lack of attention to intervening variables in the causal chain that could explain how traits could affect a delayed outcome such as group performance or leader advancement. The predominant research method was to look for a significant correlation between individual leader...
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...FOUR (4) leadership traits or personal characteristics Traits are distinguishing personal characteristics of a leader, such as self-confidence (personality), intelligence (intelligence and ability), cognitive ability (intelligence and ability) and achievement drive (work-related characteristics). Many of leaders’ dispositions are influenced by the traits that they possessed at birth. They can acquire certain traits from the environment they live in. It is possible to change one’s traits for better or for worse through conditioning. 1. Self-confidence A leader needs to have the ability to take risks. This ability comes with confidence in his decisions and himself. As examples, Tommy had a solution to solve the glass display production problem by rejecting Richard suggestion; he had already agreed to buy ReflecShine at 20% below its asset value; he chose Jimmy as general manager to run ReflecShine. Tommy had self-confidence and believes on his decisions to overcome problems. Tommy also has emotional stability during meeting. 2. Cognitive ability This is mental abilities and knowledge. Some cognitive skills are insight into people and situation, farsightedness and conceptual thinking. As examples, Tommy knew that they could not ramp up production in Brazil in to time to deliver and could not outsource to a supplier who could steal their design and methods; Tommy also knew that buying ready supplier in Singapore could solve these two problems and give them time until...
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...Assignment 2 Brenda M Healy Grand Canyon University: LDR 600 Leadership Styles and Development 7/4/2014 Based on the models of Katz and Mumford, The two do have different styles of coaching. Katz used a skills approach the key concept is of a leader is Mobilizing innovation and change, Managing people and task, Communication and managing self. Coach K conceptualizes has creativity, risk and visioning the future. Coach Knight has concept ability, takes risk, and visioning the future he lacks creativity. Coach Knight has all the qualities of managing people and task. Coach Knight has coordinating, planning, controlling, and organizing. However he does not have good decisions making he is controlling vs leading, he creates conflict and manages vs leading. Coach K has all interpersonal skills needed for communication where as coach Knight is lacking listening he does have the written and oral skills to establish goals for his vision. Finally managing self again coach K has all the qualities used in keeping himself calm and professional while being all business during the games. Again coach knight is lacking qualities needed he has difficult maintaining his emotions and does have high technical thinking but low personal management. Using the above skills the two coaches fit into the middle management which is the strongest type because they...
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...There are several different approaches to studying leadership and with determining what makes a good leader. Throughout this paper, I will discuss the trait approach, the skills approach, and the style approach. I will also discuss how each approach relates to me personally based on the results of the questionnaires provided in “Leadership: Theory and Practice” by Peter Northouse. I will begin with the trait approach. According to Northouse, “the trait approach is concerned with which traits leaders exhibit and who has these traits” (p. 40). The trait approach also helps people to learn about themselves. It helps to clearly outline strengths and weaknesses which will enable the manager to learn how he/she can be a better leader (Northouse, p.40). I completed the Leadership Trait Questionnaire and I was surprised with the results. I have always prided myself on my communication abilities and my work ethic. I have also always felt that I am an outgoing person and easy to get along with. After having colleagues rate me based on the questionnaire and comparing my responses with them, there were some surprises to me. My colleagues did rate me highly in articulation, determination, trustworthy, friendly and dependable. I also rated myself highly in these categories as well. The surprises to me were with the traits of self-assured, outgoing, and self-confident. I rated myself higher than the average of my colleague’s ratings. I can use this information going forward to help enhance...
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