What do trait theories focused on

This approach has been used to differentiate leaders from non-leaders. Understanding the importance of these traits can help organizations select, train, and develop leaders.

The Trait Theory Approach. Stogdill and Mann found that while some traits were common across a number of studies, the overall evidence suggested that persons who are leaders in one situation may not necessarily be leaders in other situations. According to this approach, called contingency theory, no single psychological profile or set of enduring traits links directly to effective leadership.

Instead, the interaction between those individual traits and the prevailing conditions is what creates effective leadership. In other words, contingency theory proposes that effective leadership is contingent on factors independent of an individual leader.

As such, the theory predicts that effective leaders are those whose personal traits match the needs of the situation in which they find themselves. In response to the early criticisms of the trait approach, theorists began to research leadership as a set of behaviors. Vice versa, a person might have all the aforementioned qualities but fail when it comes to leadership. Anyway, according to the trait theory of leadership, these qualities appear in most leaders. So when thinking of traits that leaders should have, this list is what describes most of them.

In the earlier years, six to eight traits were seen as the common leadership traits, only to be reduced to three or four traits in the s. Later studies, in , resulted in a long list of fourteen different leadership traits.

Here are a few examples in chronological order. Here is an example of a shorter list. McCall and Lombardo concluded the following list of leadership traits in Let us end with a more modern take on the topic. Zaccaro, Kemp, and Bader concluded the following list of leadership traits in Traits concerning interpersonal skills, communication, integrity, and extraversion seem to become more common in the later lists, especially during and after the 80s.

I think this is also a sign of leadership changing over the years and adapting more to leading knowledge workers, rather than the old school Taylorism approach to humans as cogs in the machinery. The biggest advantage of the trait theory of leadership is that it moved away from the old Great Man theory that had no serious scientific background. All researchers were trying to find a correlation between successful leaders and a limited number of factors describing them.

But Carlyle showed that leaders have traits not included in the factors list. Nevertheless, the trait theory of leadership is one of the major theoretical areas in studying human personality. It tries to find differences between individuals. Carlyle's ideas inspired early research on leadership, which almost entirely focused on inheritable traits.

Carlyle's theory of leadership was based on the rationale that:. Even today, books, and articles tout the various characteristics necessary to become a great leader, suggesting that leadership is somehow predestined in some or is at least more likely while unlikely, if not impossible, in others.

Since the publication of Carlyle's thesis, psychologists have examined and argued about the trait-based theory of leadership. From the s to the s, psychologist Ralph Melvin Stogdill suggested that leadership is the result of the interaction between the individual and the social situation and not merely the result of a predefined set of traits.

Soon after in the s, James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner posited that credibility was a key indicator of leadership skills, characterized by such traits as being honest, forward-looking, inspiring, and competent. While the list of leadership traits can vary by whoever is drawing up the list, a recent study outlined behavioral traits that separated lower-level supervisors from higher-level supervisors.

According to the researchers, the traits most commonly associated with great leadership include:. Early studies on leadership focused on the differences between leaders and followers with the assumption that people in leadership positions would display more leadership traits than those in subordinate positions. What researchers found, however, was that there were relatively few traits that could be used to distinguish between leaders and followers.

For example, leaders tend to be great communicators. There are obvious flaws in the trait-based theory. While proponents suggest that certain traits are characteristic of strong leaders, those who possess the traits don't always become leaders.

Some have suggested that this may due to situational variables in which leadership skills only emerge when an opportunity for leadership arises such as in war, during a political crisis, or in the absence of leadership. Meanwhile, others have taken a contingency approach to leadership in which certain traits can be more effective in some situations and less so in others. Opinions vary on what those traits are and to what degree they can predict success, if at all.

More controversial yet is the contention that some people don't have the traits to become leaders. Traits are scored along a continuum, from high to low rather than present or absent all or none. This means that when psychologists talk about Introverts e. The five traits are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

For example, a person can be extremely high in Extraversion and be either high or low on Neuroticism. Similarly, a person can be low in Agreeableness and be either high or low in Conscientiousness.