Role of Personality in the Development of Leadership - Case Study Example

?An assessment of the role of personality in the development of leadership qualities Introduction Leaders are seen as instruments that help in achieving goals for the organization. A leader is distinguished as a person who has a defined objective and a direction that helps them in moving the whole team in accomplishing a common goal. Again, leadership has been defined as a process in which members of the team along with the leader is arranged in such a way that the goal is achieved with minimum time and maximum economy. The concept of leadership is an expanding and evolving topic. Till the last few decades of twentieth century, leadership was considered as a concept for impressing and bringing about obedience among others. After that, in the age of information, leadership is seen as shared decision making and consulting. Leadership role is argued to be derived from a certain set of attributes that reflect the willingness and motivation of an individual to lead in an organization. The personality attribute of leadership is supported by Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) model designed by Schneider (B.M. Bass and R. Bass, 2009; Mumford, 2009; Ciulla, 2008). This model has argued that due to different mixes in the attributes of personality, individuals are seen to be differentially attracted towards the organization and career. This study focuses on the role of personality in the development of leadership qualities among the individuals. Research Objective Deciding on the objective to be accomplished by the research plays a vital role in the study. If the objective of the research is clearly defined, then it will be easier for the researcher to plan the study and accomplish the objectives within a specified time frame. The main objective of this research is to unearth the role and contribution of personality in developing leadership qualities in an individual. Literature Review The association between leadership outcome and personality development has been widely acknowledged (Hogan and Kaiser, 2005) and a majority of the research aims to create a link between leadership outcome and phenotypic traits of the well-known Big Five or the Five Factor Model (FFM) (Goldberg, 1993; McCrae and Costa, 1995). The characteristics emphasized by Big Five Model include openness, neuroticism, consciousness, agreeableness and extroversion. For instance, meta-analysis, in order to determine the relationship between emergence of leadership effectiveness and Big Five traits of personality, had found that all the four factors, except ‘Agreeableness’, share a robust relationship with the leadership outcome of an individual (Judge, et al., 2002). In recent times, a meta-analysis that was conducted to determine relationships between specific individual differences such as, energy, self-monitoring, self-confidence and need of power and effectiveness in leadership, concluded that these personality traits hugely support the effective outcome of the leaders (Hoffman, et al., 2011). Though there is huge amount of literature related to the impact of personality on leadership, there is limited amount of literature related to the influence of personality on the changes in the effectiveness or development of leadership over time. Leadership development involves changes in the patterns of behaviour, perception, competencies and motivations of the individuals in the leadership position, so that they can function more efficiently in their present roles. These changes can be achieved in both formal and informal manner which may involve several years or even few minutes. Although there are several literatures that stress on the fact that the rate of leadership development differs from one individual to another, many of these literatures have ignored the importance of personality as a moderator of this change (R. Hogan, J. Hogan and Kaiser, 2010). Certain personality traits are associated with the rate of leadership development such as, uncooperative individuals, who are seen to be less eager to change their behaviour as a response to the prevalent cultural norms in the team and individuals with personality disorder such as, narcissism, are found to be unwilling to react to the developmental demands. On the other hand, the research scholars have stressed on the fact that high self-control helps an individual to pay long-term attention towards the team. They have also advocated that the individual should have a balanced self-confidence to protect themselves against criticism and remain self-assured. High psychological-mindedness is essential in an individual as it makes one more responsive towards feedback through intrinsic motivation (Hogan and Warrenfeltz, 2003). Kobasa (1979) and more recently Barton (2000) has argued on the fact that as a personality dimension hardiness in the early life of an individual transform into more stable one in the near future. Hardy persons are seen to exhibit high sense of work and life commitment, openness towards challenges and changes in life and greater amount of control on whatever they do. A critical aspect of the resilience mechanism of hardiness involves interpretation of the meaning that people attaches to different events occurring around them. The painful and the stressful situations experienced by them are seen as normal aspect of life and are interpreted as a worthwhile and interesting situation. Hardiness has been associated with performing under stressful situation and with good health. Bartone (2000) has argued that people who have higher amount of hardiness interpret stressful situations as a constructive approach and the event of challenges are seen as valuable learning opportunities for them. An individual with higher amount of hardiness believes to influence or control events and remain strongly committed to their interpersonal relationships. Thus, hardiness take be granted as a significant aspect of personality that contributes towards leadership development. Research philosophy This research will be based on the research philosophy of interpretivism, which is mainly based on human perception and micro-sociological issues. It is employed for the research that does not use any statistical methods for interpreting the results. The main aim of this philosophy is to recognise and understand the variables such as, perception of an individual, emotions attached and social motives. This research involves understanding the importance of personality in developing leadership qualities, which requires studying the human perception and cannot be solved using any statistical tool. Thus, interpretivism is the most appropriate research philosophy to be used in this study (Oates, 2006). Research approach In this research, inductive research approach will be involved. Inductive approach leads to creation of a new theory through observation of various situations in order to form a generalised view on the topic of investigation. The present research that looks at the role of personality in the development of leadership quality also involves making observation regarding the effects of different personality traits on the leadership quality and then finally, decides on their roles in developing leadership. Moreover, in this case, the research is not intended to prove any hypothesis; instead it aims to answer the research question. So, inductive approach seems to be the best (Wilson, 2010). Research strategy Case study, experiments, survey and archival researches are some of the popular research strategies that are used in business management researches. In this case, survey will be used to accomplish the research objectives. The survey will be conducted through questionnaire comprising of both open-ended and close-ended questions. The survey will be conducted on the managers of Barclay’s Bank (Loraine, Christina and Malcolm, 2010). Access and Ethical Measure As this research involves the employees, that is the managers of the organization, so it is necessary for the researcher to comply with the ethical measures involved in a research. This research will involve the following ethical considerations: The research will not reveal the identity of the respondents at any cost. This will be done in order to ensure that the respondents are not affected or harmed due to their participation in this research. The researcher will not force or pressurise the respondents to present their views in the interest of the former. The information that is provided by them should be out of their own free will. Research Methodology The followed research methodology in this research is qualitative in nature. The data collected will not be analysed using any statistical tool, instead it will involve the interpretation of human perception towards the research topic. The objective of this research cannot be reached simply through quantification of the collected data as it employs an in-depth analysis of thought and perception involved with the questions. Data Analysis and Findings Barclays is a leading financial provider organization that operates globally and is engaged in investment and wealth management, investment and corporate banking, personal banking and credit cards. They have extensive international presence in Asia, Africa, America and Europe. This study conducts a survey on the managers in Barclays bank who are the leaders and drives the team to derive profit for the organization. About 100 percent of the respondents had strongly agreed on the fact that personality of an individual plays a major role in developing leadership skills among the individuals. The managers stressed that the main aim of a leader is to drive the whole team and direct them in such a way that the end objective is achieved. In this process, the leaders need to motivate the whole team and in turn, the team needs to rest their full confidence in the leader. This aspect can be only achieved if the leader has a personality that can influence others working under his supervision. Therefore, apart from skills and competencies, the personality of a person is of high importance in developing leadership skills. Figure 1 When asked whether the big five factors such as, openness, consciousness, agreeableness, extroversion and neuroticism, are important aspects in the personality of a leader, about 50 percent of the respondents had strongly agreed on this fact, whereas 10 percent of them disagreed on it. Rest 40 percent of the respondents just agreed to the fact. The respondents who strongly agreed suggested that all these five factors are very important in developing leadership skills, whereas the respondents who simply agreed felt that few factors like, extroversion, openness and consciousness, are more important than the other two factors. The respondents who simply disagreed felt that Agreeableness has nothing to do with the development of leadership skill, since a leader always judges the situation from all aspects before deciding their course of action. Figure 2 Regarding stress tolerance and high level of energy, about 45 percent of the respondents strongly agreed on the fact, whereas 30 percent of the respondents simply agreed to it. About 25 percent of the respondents did not agree on this fact. According to them, the level of stress tolerance and high energy is not an important factor that leads to leadership skills, but analysing and ability to drive others is of more importance. The leaders are not involved in stressful work related to the team, instead they are there to coordinate, direct and organise the team in order to attain the objectives. Figure 3 Lastly, on being asked whether they think that emotional maturity is important, about 100 percent of the respondents stressed on the fact that it is a very essential aspect in every leader. The leaders should be emotionally strong while dealing with the team members and should not be carried away by emotions. This can affect productivity of the team and also, hamper the leadership skills of the individual. Thus, apart from self-confidence, emotional stability is an important personality trait too. Figure 4 Conclusion The overall analysis that is conducted to determine the role of personality in the development of leadership quality has shown that personality of an individual plays a vital role. The study conducted on the managers of the bank showed that, among the Big five factors that have been discussed in the literature review, agreeability and neuroticism are not considered as the important ones as compared to the other factors. Apart from this, energy level, emotional maturity, stress taking level and self confidence are the other important factors. However, the research has found some managers who do not consider energy or stress level as important components. Hence, it can be concluded that, apart from analytical skills, technical skills and supervisory skills, the personality of an individual plays the leading role in nurturing and enhancing leadership qualities. Reference List Bartone, P.T., 2000. Hardiness as a resiliency factor for United States forces in the Gulf War. Posttraumatic Stress Intervention: Challenges, Issues, and Perspectives, pp. 115-33. Bartone, P.T., 2006. Resilience under military operational stress: can leaders influence hardiness? Military Psychology, 18, pp. 131-48. Bass, B.M. and Bass, R., 2009. The Bass handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial applications. New York: Free Press. Ciulla, J.B., 2008. Leadership at the Crossroads. Connecticut: ABC-CLIO. Goldberg, L., 1993. The structure of phenotypic personality traits. The American Psychologist, 48, pp. 26–34. Hoffman, B., Woehr, D., Maldagen-Youngjohn, R. and Lyons, B., 2011. Great man or great myth? A quantitative review of the relationship between individual differences and leader effectiveness. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 84, pp. 347–381. Hogan, R. and Kaiser, R., 2005. What we know about leadership. Review of General Psychology, 9, pp. 169–180. Hogan, R. and Warrenfeltz, R., 2003. Educating the modern manager. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2, pp. 74–84. Hogan, R., Hogan, J. and Kaiser, R., 2010. American Psychological Association Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. Judge, T., Bono, J., Ilies, R. and Gerhardt, M., 2002. Personality and leadership: A qualitative and quantitative review. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, pp. 765–780. Kobasa, S.C., 1979. Stressful life events, personality and health: an inquiry into hardiness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, pp. 1-11. Loraine, B., Christina, H. and Malcolm, T., 2010. How to research. England: McGraw-Hill International. McCrae, R. and Costa, P., 1995. Trait explanations in personality psychology. European Journal of Personality, 9, pp. 231–252. Mumford, M.D., 2009. Leadership 101. Berlin: Springer Publishing Company. Oates, B.J., 2006. Researching information systems and computing. London: SAGE. Wilson, J., 2010. Essentials of business research: A guide to doing your research project. London: SAGE. Appendix I. Questionnaire for the managers 1. Personality plays a major role in developing leadership skills among the individuals. Please give reasons for your answer. a. Strongly Agree b. Agree c. Neutral d. Disagree e. Strongly Disagree 2. Neuroticism, agreeableness, extroversion, conscientiousness and openness are important aspects in a leader. Please give reasons for your answer. a. Strongly Agree b. Agree c. Neutral d. Disagree e. Strongly Disagree 3. Why do you feel the above are necessary? 4. Stress tolerance and high energy level is also important for developing leadership qualities. a. Strongly Agree b. Agree c. Neutral d. Disagree e. Strongly Disagree 5. Along with self-confidence emotional maturity is also important. a. Strongly Agree b. Agree c. Neutral d. Disagree e. Strongly Disagree Progress Report To: _________________________________ From: ________________________________ Id. No.: ____________________________ Date: _____________________________________ SUBJECT: Progress Report: The role of personality in the development of leadership qualities (3 Months) Introduction The purpose of this report is to unearth the role of personality in the development of leadership qualities. This report has been undertaken as there is only limited work in this area with limited amount of literature. The time period that has been covered in order to develop this report is three months, starting from 13 October, 2013 to 5 January, 2014. This progress report focuses on reporting the advancement made till ___ on the research report. Following are the details that have been covered in this report. Discussion The report has firstly provided a brief introduction along with the research objective and research question that is being explored. This provides the readers of this report with a brief idea regarding the subject and reasons for undertaking the research. It also makes the readers aware of the research question that this report is trying to answer. The literature review discusses about the previous research work that has been already conducted in this field, which will help the readers to identify the gap that has been left unexplored and the report has intended to explore the same. In this regards, the findings of few previous researches have been discussed. The research methodology provides a brief overview of the approach that is followed in order to accomplish the objectives. This discusses about the instruments which will be used to collect the data in order to acquire the result along with the strategies and approaches which will be involved. Finally, in the findings and analysis, the data collected has been analysed and interpretations are made regarding the research results. The conclusion was then drawn which summarised the findings of the research on the whole. The next task that will be taken up by me is to proofread the whole project in order to remove the flaws that remain within. This will also help in identifying the grammatical and spelling errors. This will be done in order to ensure that the report conveys the information to the readers in a proper and neat manner. Problems encountered while doing this study The first difficult task was to present the literature review for which I needed to select the journal articles with relevance to my topic. The data collection was the second most difficult task, since it involved the managers of a reputed multinational organization, who do not have much time to devote towards this type of study. Acquiring the authorization from them was also very difficult. Lastly, after collecting the data, its presentation and analysis was the next difficulty. I needed to take special care in this respect, so that the readers of this report get a clear picture about the gathered information and the analysis done. Conclusion I expected to complete within time in a correct manner. Signature Read More