Leadership Traits, Styles, and Development

Posted on Feb 2, 2025 in Psychology and Sociology

Personal Characteristics of Leaders

Personal Characteristics: Stable attributes that make each person unique, including their physical, social, and psychological traits.

  • Emotional Intelligence: A set of abilities that enable individuals to recognize and understand their own and others’ feelings and emotions.
  • Self-Awareness: Ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions, and drives, and their impact on others.
  • Self-Control: Ability to regulate and redirect one’s own impulses, moods, and desires.
  • Social Awareness: Ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people and treat people according to their emotional reactions.
  • Social Skill: Ability to build interpersonal networks, manage relationships, and build rapport.

Leadership

An influence relationship between leaders and followers who strive for real change and outcomes.

Types of Influence

  • Influence Tactic: Coercion (conviction about doing things out of obligation), formal position, reward, expertise (someone who has specific knowledge or talent), charisma (inspiration you generate in others to follow you, and you are born with this).
  • Response of the Followers:
    • Resistance (they appear to respond but do not really; they may try to sabotage the leader’s plan).
    • Compliance (they do what they are told but without any enthusiasm).
    • Commitment (they are enthusiastic and accept the leader’s goals as their own).

Leadership Theories

Theory X

Beliefs and attitudes based on a negative view of human nature.

Assumptions: Employees hate their work and try not to do it; they need me to provide direction; I am responsible for them to work; they are lazy.

Theory Y

Beliefs and attitudes based on a positive view of human nature.

Assumptions: Employees enjoy working and achieving goals; they are self-directed, take on responsibility, and are not passive or resistant.

Management Styles

  • Country Club Management: Thoughtful attention to the needs of people, and a comfortable, friendly organizational atmosphere and work tempo.
  • Team Management: Work accomplished from committed people; interdependence through a common stake in the organization’s purpose leads to a relationship of trust.
  • Middle-of-the-Road Management: Adequate performance is possible through balancing the necessity to get out work and maintaining the morale of people at a satisfactory level.
  • Authority-Compliance Management: Efficiency in results from arranging conditions of work in a way that human elements interfere to a minimum degree.
  • Impoverished Management: Minimum effort to get work done.

Readiness

Followers’ ability to set high but attainable task-related goals and willingness to accept responsibility. Depends on the task.

Motivation Model

  1. Need: Creates desire to fulfill needs.
  2. Behavior: Results in actions to fulfill needs.
  3. Reward: Satisfies needs; intrinsic or extrinsic.
  4. Feedback: Reward informs the person if they should keep it up or change behavior.

Hierarchy of Needs

  1. Self-Actualization: Learning new things (serotonin).
  2. Esteem: Self-confidence.
  3. Affiliation: To belong to a team (oxytocin).
  4. Security: Endorphin.
  5. Physiological: Body and mind (dopamine).

Transformational Leaders

They inspire with their vision and promote it over opposition, demonstrating confidence in themselves and their view.

Common Interrelated Characteristics and Behaviors

  • Visionary
  • Trustworthy
  • Considerate
  • Confident
  • Thoughtful
  • Charismatic
  • Ethical

Leadership Development

Increasing leadership capacity through:

  1. On-the-job training (experience).
  2. Formal assessment and training.
  3. Special assignments (like on-the-job but short-term).
  4. Coaching and mentoring.