Management Series: What Traits And Skills Do You Have As A Leader?

 Leader Traits and Skills

Learning outcomes:

After studying this topic, you should be able to:

• Explain how leader traits and skills are related to effective leadership.
• Discuss what traits and skills are most relevant for effective leadership.
• Examine how the relevance of a trait or skill depends on the situation.
• Identify the limitations of the trait approach.

 

One of the earliest approaches to studying leadership was the trait approach, which involved a search for traits and skills that predict whether a person will attain positions of leadership and be effective in these positions. This topic reviews research on the individual attributes of successful leaders. The emphasis is on traits and skills that contribute to managerial effectiveness and advancement, rather than on traits that predict who will emerge as a leader in an informal group.

 

Introduction to the Trait Approach

The constructs used most often in the trait approach include traits, skills, and values ofindividual leaders.

The term trait refers to a variety of individual attributes, including aspects of personality,temperament, needs, motives, and values. Personality traits are relatively stable dispositions to behave in a particular way. Examples include self- confidence, extroversion, emotional maturity, and energy level. Needs (or motives) are another type of trait that involves a desire for particular types of stimuli or experiences. Psychologists usually differentiate between physiological needs (e.g., hunger, thirst) and social motives such as achievement, esteem, affiliation, power, and independence. Needs and motives are important because they influence attention to information and events, and they guide, energize, and sustain behavior.

Values are internalized attitudes about what is right and wrong, ethical and unethical, moral and immoral. Examples include fairness and justice, honesty, freedom, equality, altruism, loyalty, civility (courtesy and politeness), pragmatism, and performance orientation (excellence). Values are important because they influence a person’s preferences, perception of problems, and choice of behavior.

Self-concepts, self-identities, and social identities involve values and beliefs about a person’s occupation, relationships to others, and worthwhile roles and activities. It is usually assumed that people are intrinsically motivated to defend their self-esteem and to maintain consistency among their core values, social identities, and behavior.

The term skill refers to the ability to do something in an effective manner. Like traits, skills are determined jointly by learning and heredity. Skills may be defined at different levels of abstraction, ranging from general, broadlydefined abilities (e.g., intelligence, interpersonal skill) to narrower, more specific abilities (verbal reasoning, persuasive ability).

The term competency may involve traits or skills, and competencies often include a combination of related skills and traits. Competencies are often used to describe qualities considered
relevant for managers in a particular organization or profession, in which case they are more useful for consultants than for researchers.

 

Different Types of Leader Attributes

A variety of individual attributes have been examined in the leadership research, including aspects of personality, temperament, needs, motives, and values. 

• Personality traits are relatively stable dispositions to behave in a particular way, and some examples are self-confidence, extroversion, emotional maturity, and energy level. 
• Social needs and motives are also important traits, because they influence a person's attention to information and events, and they guide, energize, and sustain behavior.

Values are internalized attitudes about what is right and wrong, ethical and unethical, moral and immoral.

Self-concepts, self-identities, and social identities involve values and beliefs about a person’s occupation, relationships to others, and worthwhile roles and activities.

 

Types of Research on Leader Traits and Skills

1. Several types of research have been used to learn how leader traits and skills are related to measures of leadership effectiveness, such as subordinate satisfaction and performance, unit performance, or ratings of leader effectiveness by bosses.
2. Many studies examine how the traits and skills for leaders in similar managerial or administrative positions are related to measures of their leadership effectiveness.
3. Some longitudinal studies compare managers who advanced successfully to top management position to managers who initially advanced but then “derailed” in their careers because they were dismissed, took early retirement, or simply reached a “plateau” without any chance of further advancement.
4. Some other studies have attempted to determine the extent to which leader traits and skills are the result of heredity or learning.

 

Overview of Findings in the Research

1. Some traits and skills increase the likelihood that a person will be selected or elected to fill a leadership position. 
2. Some traits and skills increase the effectiveness of a leader, but they do not guarantee it. 
3. A leader with certain traits can be effective in one situation but ineffective in a different situation. 
4. The pattern of traits and skills that best predicts leader effectiveness also varies somewhat for different outcomes, such as leader selection, advancement, performance by the leader's work unit, and subordinate satisfaction.  

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Personality Traits and Effective Leadership

Over a period of several decades, the four methods described earlier were used to examinea variety of different personality traits related to managerial effectiveness and advancement. Thechoice of traits and the labels used for them have varied from study to study, but the resultshave been fairly consistent across different research methods. 

Specific Traits Related to Leadership Effectiveness

• High energy level and stress tolerance
  • The trait research finds that energy level, physical stamina, and stress tolerance are associated with managerial effectiveness (Bass, 1990; Howard & Bray, 1988).
  • Effective problem solving requires an ability to remain calm and stay focused on a problem rather than panicking, denying the problem exists, or attempting to shift responsibility to someone else.
• Internal locus of control orientation
  • measured with a personality scale developed by Rotter (1966)
  • Peoplewith a strong internal locus of control orientation (called “internals”) believe that events in theirlives are determined more by their own actions than by chance or uncontrollable forces.
• Emotional stability and maturity
  • Emotionally mature people have a more self-awareness of strengths and weaknesses, and they are oriented toward self-improvement instead of denyingweaknesses and fantasizing success.
• Socialized Power motivation
  • A strong need for power is relevant to managerial role requirements involving the use of power and influence. Managers in large organizations must exercise power to influence subordinates, peers,and superiors
• High core self-evaluations
• Personal integrity
  • Integrity is a primary determinant of interpersonal trust. Unless one is perceived to be trustworthy, it is difficult to retain the loyalty of followers or to obtain cooperation and support from peers and superiors.
    
• Moderately high achievement orientation
  • Some studies find a positive relationship between achievement motivation and effectiveness (e.g., Stahl,1983; Wainer & Rubin, 1969), but other studies find a negative relationship (House, Spangler, &
    Woycke, 1991) or no evidence of a strong, significant relationship (Miller & Toulouse, 1986).
• Moderately high self-confidence
• Moderately low need for affiliation

 

The Big Five Traits with Specific Traits

Describing leaders in terms of their individual profiles would be easier if there was anintegrative conceptual framework with a small number of meta-categories that encompass allof the relevant traits. The proliferation of personality traits identified over the past centuryhas resulted in efforts to find a smaller number of broadly defined categories that would simplify the development of trait theories. One such effort that appears promising is referred to as the five-factor model of personality or the “Big Five” model (e.g., Digman, 1990; Hough, 1992). The five broadly defined personality traits in the taxonomy have somewhat different labels from one version to another. The traits include surgency (or extroversion), dependability (or conscientiousness), adjustment (or neuroticism), intellectance (or openness to experience), and agreeableness. 

The table below shows how the five broad trait categories correspond to many of the specific traits found relevant for leadership emergence, advancement, or effectiveness in the trait studies

Big Five Personality Traits	Specific Traits
Surgency	Extroversion (outgoing) Energy/Activity Level Need for Power (assertive)
Conscientiousness	Dependability Personal Integrity Need for Achievement
Agreeableness	Cheerful and Optimistic Nurturance (sympathetic, helpful) Need for Affiliation
Adjustment	Emotional Stability Self-Esteem Self-Control
Intellectance	Curious and Inquisitive Open Minded Learning Oriented

 

Self-Check What are your traits? Use the link below to take the personality assessment test. The test consists of fifty items that you must rate on how true they are about you on a five point scale where 1=Disagree, 3=Neutral and 5=Agree. It takes most people 10 minutes to complete. START NOW >>> https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/IPIP-BFFM/ (Save a copy of the results for discussion) >> POST A SCREENSHOT OF YOUR RESULTS HERE <<

 

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Three-Factor Taxonomy of Broadly Defined Skills

There are many different taxonomies have been proposed for classifying managerial skills, but the most useful and parsimonious taxonomy uses the three broadly defined skill categories called technical skills, interpersonal skills, and conceptual skills.

 

Technical Skills: Knowledge about methods, processes, procedures,  and techniques for conducting a specialized activity, and the ability to use tools and equipment relevant to that activity

Interpersonal Skills: Knowledge about human behavior and interpersonal processes, ability to understand the feelings, attitudes, and motives of others from what they say and do (empathy, social sensitivity), ability to communicate clearly and effectively (speech fluency, persuasiveness), and ability to establish effective and cooperative relationships (tact, diplomacy, listening skill, knowledge about acceptable social behavior)

Conceptual Skills: General analytical ability, logical thinking, proficiency in concept formation and conceptualization of complex and ambiguous relationships, creativity in idea generation and problem solving, ability to analyze events and perceive trends, anticipate changes, and recognize opportunities and potential problems (inductive and deductive reasoning)

 

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Managerial Competencies

Although competencies are commonly regarded as skills, they usually involve a combination of specific skills and complementary traits. Competencies are frequently used to describe desirable attributes for managers in a particular company or profession, but some scholars have proposed generally relevant competencies for managers.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotions are strong feelings that demand attention and are likely to affect cognitive processes and behavior. Some examples of emotions include anger, fear, sadness, joy, shame, and surprise. Even after the intensity of an emotion fades, it is likely to linger as a positive or negative mood, which can also affect leadership behavior (George, 1995).

Emotional intelligence includes several interrelated component skills. Empathy is the ability to recognize moods and emotions in others, to differentiate between genuine and false expression of emotions, and to understand how someone is reacting to your emotions and behavior. Self-regulation is the ability to channel emotions into behavior that is appropriate for the situation, rather than responding with impulsive behavior (e.g., lashing out at someone who made you angry, or withdrawing into a state of depression after experiencing disappointment). Emotional self-awareness is an understanding of one’s own moods and emotions, how they evolve and change over time, and the implications for task performance and interpersonal relationships.

Social Intelligence

Social intelligence is defined as the ability to determine the requirements for leadership in a particular situation and select an appropriate response (Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1987; Ford, 1986;

Zaccaro, Gilbert, Thor, & Mumford, 1991). The two primary components of social intelligence

are social perceptiveness and behavioral flexibility.

• • Social perceptiveness is the ability to understand the functional needs, problems, and opportunities that are relevant for a group or organization, and the member characteristics, social relationships, and collective processes that will enhance or limit attempts to influence the group or organization.
  • Behavioral flexibility is the ability and willingness to vary one’s behavior to accommodate
    situational requirements.

Learning Ability

In a turbulent environment in which organizations must continually adapt, innovate, and reinvent themselves, leaders must be flexible enough to learn from mistakes, change their assumptions and beliefs, and refine their mental models. One of the most important competencies for successful leadership in changing situations is the ability to learn from experience and adapt to change

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Situational Relevance of Skills

Managers need many types of skills to fulfill their role requirements, but the relative importance of the various skills depends on the leadership situation. Relevant situational moderator variables include managerial level, type of organization, and the nature of the external environment.

1. Levels of Management
   • One aspect of the situation influencing skill importance is a manager’s position in theauthority hierarchy of the organization. In general, higher levels of management have a greater number and variety of activities to be coordinated; the complexity of relationships that need to be understood and managed is greater; and the problems that need to be solved are more unique and ill-defined
2. Type of Organization
   • top-level managers with ample human relations and conceptual skills can be shifted from one industry to another with great ease and no loss of effectiveness.
3. Stress on the Leader
4. External Environment
   • The skills needed by an entrepreneurial manager to build a new organization are not identical to the skills needed by the chief executive of a large, established organization.

 

Evaluation of the Trait Approach

Most trait studies are not guided by a theory that explains how traits are related to managerial effectiveness and advancement. It is difficult to interpret the relevance of abstract traits except by examining how they are expressed in the actual behavior of leaders and the types of influence processes related to leader decisions and actions.

The concept of balance has been described for individuals, but it applies to shared leadership as well. For example, balance may involve several different leaders in a management team who have complementary attributes that compensate for each other’s weaknesses and enhance each other’s strengths (Bradford & Cohen, 1984). A better understanding of leadership in an organization may be gained by examining the pattern of traits for the executive team rather than focusing on the traits of a single leader such as the chief executive officer

Self-confidence • Too little: indecisive, avoids risks, and does not seek to influence others • Too much: arrogant, acts too quickly, and takes too many risks

Need for Esteem • Too little: does not seek recognition or build a reputation for high expertise and reliability • Too much: preoccupied with reputation and status, exaggerates achievements, covers up mistakes and failures or blames others

Need for Affiliation • Too little: does not try to form strong relationships or build a social support network • Too much: overly concerned about being liked and accepted by others, overuses ingratiation, and will not risk popularity by asking for sacrifices or insisting on better performance

Need for Independence • Too little: dependent on others for direction, rule oriented, avoids taking initiative • Too much: resents authority, too quick to ignore rules and standard procedures

Altruism (value) • Too little: selfish, indifferent about the needs of others, may exploit them for personal gain • Too much: overly generous and forgiving, unable to ask for sacrifices or maintain discipline

Performance Orientation (value) • Too little: accepts weak performance and does not push for improvement • Too much: is a perfectionist and is overly demanding and never satisfied

 

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Guidelines for Managers

The finding that particular skills and traits are positively related to managerial effectiveness and advancement has some practical implications for people in planning their own managerial careers. The following guidelines are based on research, theory, and practitioner findings about traits and skills.

• Learn about your strengths and weaknesses.
• Maintain self-awareness.
• Identify and develop skills relevant for a future leadership position.
• Remember that a strength can become a weakness.
• Compensate for weaknesses.

Learn from Video: “Level 5” Leadership The Explainer: What It Takes to Be a Great Leader Source: Harvard Business Review