Investigating the Relationship between Personality and Leadership - Term Paper Example

Introduction As research done by experts in the field of organizational behaviour has shown us, an individual’s personality is certainly linked to his/her leadership abilities (Fontana, 2000). While there are several theories and ideas concerning both the constructs of personality as well as leadership, an evaluation of their relationship is necessary to understand what types of personalities and what traits in individuals could cause them to be better leaders than others. The theoretical evidence in this regard must be connected with practical examples which come from the business world. One such example is application of the trait theory of personality to the leadership skills displayed by Jack Welch when he was the CEO of GE. The Trait Theory of Personality The definition of personality as a group of traits owes a lot to Raymond Cattell who fully supported the idea of a personality being formed as a mixture of various elements (Statt, 2004). He presented sixteen different factors which affect human personality and considered them to be the source traits from which other traits were to be found in humans. The collection of these traits and the way a person responds to various situations creates a surface persona which we think of as the personality of an individual (Plucker, 2007). Cattell’s research shows us that personality plays a great role in how people react to situations and leaders are one group of people who often have to respond to changing situations on a rapid basis (Plucker, 2007). They may also have to guide and lead people towards a given goal, share their vision with the followers and motivate the followers when their intrinsic motivation is lacking. Such constructs of personality are certainly supported by research as well as business analysts of which Welch (2005) reports that leadership connects deeply with the personality of an individual. Leadership itself is a rather difficult term to define because many different philosophers, thinkers and even business professionals have give different meanings for it. However, the general directions given by analysts like Welch (2005), Byrne (1998) and Gardner (1995) have several common points with the definition given by House (2004) who states that the quality of leadership is, “The ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members (House, 2004, Pg. 15)”. Application of the Trait Theory With this definition, the importance of leadership in business can be fully understood if it is applied to the leadership qualities exhibited and promoted by Jack Welch during his tenure at GE. His leadership has been credited as one of the primary reasons which took GE from a company which was in financial trouble and losing investor confidence to the position of the most admired and respected company in the world (Colvin, 2005). Welch (2005) outlined his own theory of leadership which agrees to a large extent with the trait theory and he comes across quite clearly in terms of his leadership ideal when he gives the eight rules of leadership in his book titled Winning. These rules cover a lot of areas in terms of how leadership should be maintained by an individual but the basic tenants of leadership come with a connection towards doing what is right and having a courageous personality to make changes when a change seems impossible. These rules can be studied in the light of leadership theories and a final analysis can be made as to which are the exact ideals of leadership which one can believe in and apply in real life. The eight primary rules as suggested by Welch (2005) are: 1. Leaders should always upgrade their followers by using opportunities to coach, mentor, judge and improve their abilities. 2. Leaders pass on the vision of the company to all employees and show the employees that the leader embodies the vision. 3. Leaders radiate positivism and are always optimistic. 4. Leaders create trust with integrity and remain transparent with the employees. 5. They have the courage to make the employees unhappy with decisions which may be considered unpopular. 6. Leaders inquisitively search for answers and want to see action from the employees. 7. They inspire individuals to take risks and set examples for learning from their own mistakes. 8. They celebrate when they win. Traits and Situations With these rules in mind, the trait theory can be applied to the style used by Welch. The idea of leadership traits can come with several stereotypes or an idea that some people are born leaders, but leadership skills can also be taught to people although the right personality always helps (Welch, 2005). For example, when we consider the third rule given by Welch which states that leaders must give out and infect others with positive energy and optimistic views about situations. That is a key pointer towards the fact that Jack Welch considers the majority of leadership skills to come from the trait theory than any other applicable theory. Undoubtedly, optimism is a personality trait as discussed by Cattell and being able to create optimism or any other emphatic feeling in others requires a leader to have charisma (Plucker, 2007). Charisma is accepted by DePree (1998) to be a rare trait which is attributed to those leaders who create devoted followers. Devoted followers and employees who become personal friends of the leader as well as have complete faith in the leader’s own vision are simply essential. These employees can certainly be created with an informal style of management as applied in GE. As explained by Byrne (1998): “Making the company ''informal'' means violating the chain of command, communicating across layers, paying people as if they worked not for a big company but for a demanding entrepreneur where nearly everyone knows the boss. It has as much to do with Welch's charisma as it has to do with the less visible rhythms of the company--its meetings and review sessions--and how he uses them to great advantage.” (Byrne, Pg. 1, 1998) The creation of trust and making the employees believe in the leadership of the leader is also a trait since it requires the leader to possess the ability to convince them without coercion that his/her viewpoint is the correct one. The idea of being transparent means being honest with the employees about everything; going from their quarterly evaluations to the company’s annual financial reports, the leader has to create trust (Welch, 2005). It also requires the leader to be good with oral and written communications, be diplomatic and tactful as well as present his/her case to a group of peers or close subordinates when they do not agree with the decision or are hesitant at making tough calls (Gardner, 1995). Both Gardner (1995) and DePree (1989) agree with Welch when he writes as rule number nine that the leader should set an example for the employees to follow. It is not as simple as monkey see monkey do but rather a very complex yet close relationship between a leader and the follower where the followers try to create the same traits within themselves as the leader has within him/her. If the leader can take risks, accept that he may be wrong before taking the risk and then if the risk turns out to be a mistake, accepts the mistake, it means that s/he is a very good leader indeed (Welch, 2005). This shows both vision and character which is the exact material a real leader is made out of. This actually calls for two traits to be found within a leader, firstly, the leader has to be willing to take risks and not play it safe when a risky opportunity presents itself. Of course many people are risk aversive and Welch is certainly not advocating jumping through flaming hoops, what he does recommend is that the leader should take risks to show the employees that it is perfectly acceptable to do so. It can be said without a shred of doubt that no business was successful without taking risks and no business ran for too long by taking unnecessary risks, but a company where the people are afraid to take any risks will miss many chances at making profits. Secondly, the leader has to accept responsibility when things do not turn out the way s/he expected they would. The case of Nelson Mandela comes to mind when he accepted the flaws in his thinking and changed his ideas according to the requirements of the time (Shriberg, et. al., 2005). It is this acceptance which Welch (2005) wants other leaders to have. It does take a big person to accept that they had been wrong about something and it is an essential trait for a leader to come to terms with their mistakes and move on. Some of the greatest political leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. had this ability to share their vision with thousands of people and make them see things differently (Gardner, 1995). The leader becomes not only responsible for the finances of the company but also for its vision, mission and ethics (DePree, 1989). Jack Welch applied the same rules at GE when he had meetings with nearly all the middle and senior level managers of the company in an informal setting to share his vision and get feedback from them about the running and conditions of the company (Byrne, 1998). This certainly was not an easy task since Welch had a lot of opposition working against him when he first came to the position of being the CEO of GE. He had to work against an established culture which did not focus on innovation but instead considered continuing on the traditional path to be the best practice for average performance results. He had to remove people from the company and make sure that only the ones who had the merit to be leaders could come to the top of every department (Welch, 2005). This process supports the idea of mentoring, coaching and supporting those who are followers but it also shows a negative aspect of not trying very hard to convince others of changing their performance or to develop their skills as Welch would have liked them to. Welch explained his process of differentiation which removes the bottom ten percent of the company every year by saying that: “When all is said and done, differentiation is just resource allocation, which is what good leaders do and, in fact, is one of the chief jobs they are paid to do. A company has only so much money and managerial time. Winning leaders invest where the payback is the highest. They cut their losses everywhere else (Welch, 2005, Pg. 38).” Clearly, going against the established culture with effective leadership skills was certainly possible in this case. Primarily because there was a leader in charge who others in the company could trust completely and who could get away with things like using foul language in board meetings as well as firing people on the spot. Playing on the edge of ethics and legality may be seen as something most leaders would like to avoid, but Welch seems to relish this location as his personality and his actions fit perfectly with the requirements of the company at the time it needed drastic changes. Welch, during his tenure at GE, put into place what he calls a seven point program for management. This program is used for making managers into leaders by developing their business vision, changing the culture for achieving the vision, removal of hierarchies and boundaries, eliminating bureaucracy, empowering individuals and raising quality standards (Welch, 2005). Essentailly, the company is seeking to change a managerial personality into a leadership personality. This is perhaps the most important point which can be made about leadership since it is easy to create managers out of people by providing them training and education, but leadership skills come only with a certain type of personality with extensive experience and added training. Conclusion Clearly, as outlined by Cattell and as exemplified by Jack Welch, the trait theory is quite important when it comes to leadership and personalities which are inherently geared towards leadership positions. However, it would not be just to say that individuals who are low in the traits which are required for good leadership will never be able to become good leaders since training and education can be used to change the personality of an individual if the person in question desires to do so. Works Cited Byrne, J. 1998, ‘How Jack Welch Runs GE: A Close-up Look at How America's #1 Manager Runs GE’, BusinessWeek.com, [Online] Available at: http://www.businessweek.com/1998/23/b3581001.htm Colvin, G. 2006, ‘What Makes GE Great?’, Fortune, vol.153, no. 4, pp. 90-96. DePree, M. 1989, Leadership Is an Art. Doubleday. Fontana, D. 2000, Personality in the Workplace, Macmillan Press. Gardner, H. 1995, Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership. Basic. House, R. 2004, Culture, Leadership, and Organizations. Sage. Plucker, J. 2007, ‘Human Intelligence: Raymond B. Cattell’, Indiana University, [Online] Available at: http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/rcattell.shtml Schmitt, J. 2001, ‘Welch has a lesson, even for small shops’, Contractor Magazine, vol. 48, no. 10, pp. 16-17. Shriberg, A., Shriberg, D., & Kumari, R. (2005). Practicing Leadership: Principles and Applications, Wiley. Statt, D. 2004, Psychology and the World of Work, Palgrave. Welch, J. (2005). Winning. HarperCollins. Read More