Trait Theory of Leadership - Essay Example

? learning outcomes This paper enlightens that to explain, analyzeand to synthesize the important terminologies, theories and basic concept used in leadership, are the three basic course learning outcomes that are applicable to achieve the personal anf professional goal. It also gives a short review of the primary theories of leadership used for profit and non-profit organizations and their applications in business settings. Also enlighten the strength and weakness of contemporary leadership models. There is also a brief explanation of affect of power and influence, gender issue, corporate culture, personal values, globalization and outcome performances on the leadership. Ethical values are also important factor for the effective leadership. The paper also demonstrates the effective application of personal leadership perspectives. Learning outcomes are the educational aims and objectives. The learning outcomes are the skills and goals that a learner achieves after a period of specified and supported study. At the end of the course program student can reliably demonstrate his skills. University of Warwick (2004) categories the learning specifications into four categories: Subject knowledge and understandings Subject specific skills are practical skills, practice of which is integral to the course, e.g. laboratory skills, language skills and counseling skills. Cognitive skills, intellectual skills such as an understanding methodologies, synthesis, evaluation or ability in critical analysis. Key skills are skills that are readily transferable to employment in other contexts, such as written and oral communication, working within a team, problem solving, numeric and IT skills. The learning outcomes broadly specify the: needs of the learner, needs of the society, learner knowledge about the particular subject. During my studies, under the supervision of my teachers/instructors the personal skills I acquire are: Ability to work in team, Effective communication, Ability to solve problem. As a student of business administration my professional skills are related to the business planning and management. The basic course learning outcomes of my studies which help me in my profession are: I will be able to 1. Explain the important terminology, theories, principles, concepts and analytical techniques used in leadership. 2. Apply the known terminology, theories, principles, concepts and analytical techniques used in leadership when analyzing complex and complicated managerial situations 3. Effectively synthesize important terminology, theories, principles, concepts and analytical techniques used in leadership when solving the sophisticated problems in complex managerial solution. These outcomes help me to achieve my personal and professional goals successfully in my field. Now I highlight one by one on the benefits of these outcomes Primary leadership theories for profit and non-profit organizations There are number of leadership theories which fall into following categories: 1. Trait theory of leadership. 2. Behavioral theory of leadership 3. Contingency theory of leadership. 4. Transformation theory of leadership 5. Invitational theory of leadership. 6. Transactional theory of leadership. 1. Trait theory of leadership. Early trait theories argued that the leadership qualities are innate and instinctive qualities. You either have these qualities or not. These are inherited Like Great man theory. Early studies assumed that leaders are born not made. But now trait theory refers to the external behavior, particular personality and behavioral characteristics much depending on the internal beliefs and thinking power of a leader. Their main examples are: self-assurance, self-confidence, feelings and good decision making skills. Traits are the key features of the leadership. Edwin Ghiselli (1971) identified six traits for an effective leadership. These are: supervisory ability, need for occupational achievement, intelligence, decisiveness, self-assurance, initiative. Lot of researchers worked to explain the perfect traits for the leadership but still now no universal set of leadership traits exists. For the specific situation in a managerial program specific traits are required for effective output. 2. Behavioral theory of leadership. Behavioral theory is challenging for the trait theory as it argued that the leadership qualities are not the instinctive characteristic of a person. It gave the idea that leaders can be trained. The behavior of leaders is preferred over the innate physical or mental activities to make them remarkable and effective. The main focus of behavioral theory is on leader's behavior, their check over needs, and their capability to do team work and their support for their co-workers. Kurt Lewin (1930s), argued three types of leaders on the basis of their decision making behavior. These are: Democratic leaders: before making a decision allows their co-workers to provide input. This type is important when there is much importance for the team agreement. It was a little bit difficult as the each input have different perspectives and ideas. Autocratic leaders: such type of leaders usually relay on their own decision without bothering the decisions of their co-workers. Such types of leaders are considered when the decision is to be taken quickly. Laissez-faire leaders: this style is adopted due to the laziness of the leader. Such type of leaders allows the co-workers to take many of the decisions. It is necessary that team should be highly qualified and motivated and can be perform under a weak super vision other wise fails. Leader's behavior is responsible for its effectiveness. Many researchers analyze that according to the behavioral point of view those leaders are successful who can adopt varying behavioral styles and can adopt specific behavioral for suitable situation. 3. Contingency theory of leadership: It is also called situational leadership. This theory is about the impacts of various situations on the good leadership. This theory argues that the work environment and the leader's response for the environment prominently matters the effective leadership. It focuses on leadership with organizations. In this respect the leadership is categorized as: task-oriented leadership and relationship-oriented leadership. The task oriented leadership is usually prejudiced or somehow fanatical to the team members that are not actively engaged with the work. But relationship-oriented leadership tries to have good relationship with all the team members whether they are participative or not. This difference in behavior makes a big difference in achieving the goal. Task-oriented leadership performs the task in remarkable way as compare to relationship-oriented leadership. The contingency theory predicts the best way of leadership under specific circumstances. Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory is the most popular contingency based leadership theory which bridge the individual maturity if the team member with the leadership style. 4. Transformation theory of leadership: This type of leadership dealt with the effectiveness, enthusiasm ant interest of the leader. In many organizations there is a welcoming demand of the transactional and transformational leadership. The transformational leadership looks after the initiatives to add the new value. The keywords for the transformational leadership are the: enthusiasm, self-interest, passionate about the work, inspiration, wit and motivation. 5. Invitational theory of leadership: For a leader the invitational theory poses the question: "how can I be a great leader?" To answer these questions the leadership theory explores five key questions that are about the leader's context, task, allegory, measure and challenges. Its domain is to achieve a more unanimous team and a sense of belongings. 6. Transactional theory of leadership: Transactional theory of leadership checks the reliability of the routine work done. The transactional leader has the authority to reward and punish the subordinates. He has a strict super vision over the workers. Effect of power and influence on leadership In the leadership, power and influence are interconnected. The power of a leader is based on the intimidation and authority while the influence is about the inducement and domination of the leader. We can term power in two types: power over people & power through people. Power over people is a kind of social domination. A self-categorization theory argues the theory of power as: social power is the capacity to have effects on people and things through people, through being able to rely on, or get others to carry out one's will. Social power is being able to stop some one through ideas rather than force. Power is not exclusive to leaders and managements. It is the potential ability to influence others behavior. According to the new view there are three processes of power: persuasion, authority and coercion. Power is one's ability to influence the behavior and attitude of other. Here agents are the people who influence the behavior of the target. For power the synonyms relating to the leadership are the authority and influence. Generally influence can be termed as the effect of one party on another. Effective party is the agent and effected one is the target. The sources of the individual power are the: Legitimate power: here the legitimate position of the power holder is acceptable for others Reward power: target obeys the agent to get rewarded. Coercive power: target obeys the agent to avoid punishment from the agent. Expert power: it based on the expertise of the leader. Referent power: it is the self-liking of the target for the agent. The target obeys the agent because they respect the power holder. The leadership power highly influences the working area and definitely the outcomes of the work. It gives ability to the leader to create the positive and working environment to meet the challenges and high performance standards. Appreciation and punishment for the target by the agents and expression of appropriate confidence in subordinates are the results of the leadership power. Significance of leadership in initiating and managing change within organizations The performance determinants like efficiency, adaptation and human capital are widely influenced by the leadership behavior, external initiatives and structural forms. The effective performance of the leadership must be flexible and adaptive within the varying situation. The leadership assigns the positive influence on the success of the organization. There is a continuous race between the competing businesses. To meet the competing challenges leadership is responsible to speed up the positive and effective changes within and outside the organizations. The changes are made so that the organization can seize existing opportunities, and have systematic change management. Leaders thinking power to built strategy and clear vision for the required area are responsible for achieving the business strategic goal. A leadership can create a culture of common goal, regular communication at all level of organizations. Affect of corporate culture, personal values, and globalization and outcomes performances on the leadership "no matter what your business, the only way to generate enduring profits is to begin by building the kind of workplace that attracts, focuses and keep talented employees" (James Heskett). Most of the companies like to use their corporate culture to recruit new employees. Weak corporate culture means the deficiencies in leadership. The corporate culture and leadership are interrelated. The personal values of the leadership give the leadership the positive or negative aspects. There are many benefits of personal values on the leadership on many levels most of them are: Personal benefits: it gap between one's current and desired values, it is helpful in developing self-understandings and give an insight awareness of life priorities. Team benefits: it improves and enhances relationships among workers and resulting a strong bonding between team members. Organizational benefits: it builds the deeper sense of meanings, alignment and organizational/corporate culture for the organizations. Customer benefits: create a sense of trust, loyalty and emotional connection between the customer and organization. Leadership is an art which can be problematic under certain circumstances. The globalization makes leadership challenging for a person. Globalization complicates the process of effective planning, having visionary path, proper management to ensure the right track of planning and implementations of planning to meet the goal. The effective and positive the leadership gives the control on the globalization. The leadership style has a positive association with the work performance and organizational commitment of subordinates. The leadership style is also responsible to produce the higher outcomes, work performances. Ethics has to leadership within the organizations Ethics is concerned with individual's/society moral values that are considered appropriate and desirable. Ethics is considered as an integral part of the leadership. In terms of leadership ethics about what the leaders do and who are the leaders. There are various ethical theories for the leadership. These theories can be categorizes on the basis of leader's conduct and character. The conduct theories are further sub categorized on the basis of duties and rules. These theories check the actions of the leader and his/her moral obligations to judge between the right and wrong. The main key words for the ethics of leadership are the: moral values, proper judgment, character, virtues, temperance, self-control, sociability, fairness, truthfulness, benevolence and humility. The leadership requires a heavy ethical burden because of their position to treat subordinates with dignity and respect. Leadership ethics also influence the ethical values of organization. Leadership emphasizes on the follower's needs and values. Ethic of caring is also another important issue. To remove the inequalities and social injustice is also key responsibility of leader. Presence of gender issue relating to leadership History has proved remarks that there has always been a concept that leadership is basically a masculine activity. This gender issue arises basically due to the company culture. Bit if the company values the diversity and the expertise then this gender issue will remain no longer. Now recent results showed that the leadership doesn't matters the gender issue. The executive job performance is gauged by the results. Some researchers check the management power of men and women and conclude that women are more successful at traditional management as compared to men. Women can cop with the dynamic challenges and changing situations then men because men are often appear as aggressive but women have politeness in nature more than men. Effective application of a personal leadership perspective "You can't teach what you don't know, and you can't lead where you won’t go"(Jesse Jackson). It is necessary that the leaders have experiences and skills to enhance the work of his followers. The leaders should have the fundamental understandings of leadership and can identify his personal leadership orientations. He can demonstrate the effective techniques, better understanding of strategies and plans, comprehension of knowledge for setting goal and articulating the vision. The main personal skills for the effective leadership are: understanding of ethical leadership and having personal leadership philosophy, articulating a vision, building a strong and expert team, leading with the goal, making right decision, realizing the change, cop with the globalization and empowering and influencing the others. References Bruce J. Avolio, John J. Sosik, Dong I. Jung, Yair Berson: Leadership models, methods and applications. John Wiley & Sons, Inc (2003). David Allen (2005), Getting things done: the art of stress free productivity, New York: penguin Putnam. Gary Yukl, Leadership in Organizations, National College for School Leadership, Prentice Hall, 2001. Ivancevich, Konopaske, matteson, Organizational Behavior and Management, 9th Ed, McGraw-Hill, Irwin. Limsila, Oguniana (2008), Performance and leadership outcome correlates of leadership styles and subordinate commitment, Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Mendonca, Kanungo (2007), Ethical Leadership, Open University Press, McGraw Hill Education, Berkshire, England, SL6 2QL, 2007. Martha J. M. Kelley, Gender Differences and Leadership: A Study, Col Frank M. Goldstein, Air War College, Air University, April 1997. Richard Daft, Leadership in Organizations: Management, 6th Ed. Robert N. Lussire, Management Fundamentals: Concepts, Applications, Skill Development, University of Warwick, Course Specifications; Glossary of Terms relating to Course Specifications, 2004. Read More