Trait vs. Skills Approach to Leadership

Trait Theory of Leadership

Hello and welcome to today's lesson where we're looking at the trait theory of leadership. Now, the trait theory of leadership sets out to help identify future leaders. And it's based on the idea that great leaders are born with inherent traits that enable them to become great. Now, from this idea, the aim of trait theory is twofold. So firstly, it aims to find the traits these great leaders have in common. And secondly, it aims to use these traits to identify future leaders. Now, it's one of the oldest leadership theories in existence. And in fact, it can trace its origins back to Thomas Carlyle's a 149 quote that the history of the world is but the biography of great men. Now, this belief or that quote is often called the great man theory. Now before we move on, in psychological terms, you are the combination of nature plus nurture. So you inherit your genetic makeup, but you're also the sum of your lived experiences. Now, the trait theory of leadership is based on the idea that great leaders are born and not bread. So trait theory does not take any account of how you might develop over time. It's entirely focused on nature and not nurture. Now, over the years, there have been hundreds of research studies done to identify the traits of great leaders. And no two studies have resulted in the same list of traits. You can see a sample of some of those studies in this image. And let's very briefly run through each of them. Now, the first happened in 1948. And a guy called rough Stockdale analyze data for more than a 100 previous studies into leadership traits. And from this analysis, what he found, It's not, there weren't many overlapping traits amongst the different studies. Now, because leaders have many traits, he argued that you don't become a leader or just because you possess certain traits. To be a successful leader. He said that you must possess those traits relevant to the situation in which you find yourself. So, for example, a startup founder needs very different traits to a Fortune 500 CEO, who in turn needs really different traits to a religious leader. Now, from the studies Stockdale analyzed, he noted that if you combined all the traits required to be a successful leader from all the different studies, then the lists became too long to be of any practical use in finding future leaders. But having said that, he did identify that the average leader is different from the average follower with regard to the eight crates you can see here. So intelligence, alertness, insight, taking responsibility, showing the initiative, persistence, self-confidence, obviously having high self confidence and being sociable or having sociability. Now, move along to the next column. Many years later in 970 for stroke to a, published another list of leadership traits. This time, the list was compiled by analyzing research on trait theory that took place in the intervening years since his last list of traits. And the critical difference between the first, second survey that he performed is that he moved away from implying that situational factors were the most important. To suggest. Both situational and trace factors are important. So next we have the study done in 1983 by Nicole and lumbar DO. And they examined both leadership, success and failure and identified four factors are for traits critical to leader success. And you can see those here. Emotional stability, admitting mistakes, interpersonal scales, and intellectual breath. Next we have cruises and Posner in 1987. Now between 8387, James cruises and Barry Posner surveyed over 600 managers about their positive leadership experiences and identified the list of traits you can see here. Now, it's important to know that this list wasn't derived by analyzing leaders traits. Instead, it was derived by asking followers what qualities they saw as important in great leaders. Next, we have the study in 990 one perform, performed by Shelley Kirkpatrick and Edwin Locke. And they suggested that there were certain traits in liters which equip them with the tools to then go on and develop into great leaders should they so choose. But the key thing to note here is that Kirkpatrick and Locke are not saying. By possessing all these traits, you will automatically become a great leader. But rather that by having those traits, you simply have the basic tools you need. Should you wish to then go on and work to become a great leader. And more recently in 2004, the Cairo camp and Bader proposed that leadership emerges from the combined influence and interaction between multiple traits rather than traits existing independently and being measured independently from each other. So hopefully that gives you a flavor of some of the work that's been done on trait theory to date. Now there are many advantages and disadvantages associated with the trait theory of leadership in terms of advantages than the idea that having certain traits predict so predisposes one to leadership is an easy to understand and fairly intuitive idea. Much research has been conducted to confirm the importance of traits, even if that search category on specific traits. And finally, the theory provides you with pointers on what to investigate if you want to improve your leadership ability. Now, in terms of disadvantages, then It's not possible to know the relative importance of the different traits. Also, trait theory ignores cultural factors. So what makes a great leader in the US can be very different to what makes a great leader in China, for example. Traits are also situation dependent. So a religious leader needs different traits to a business leader. And finally, the different traits studies do not agree on a core set of universal traits common to all great leaders. And really that makes trait theory almost impossible to use as a practical tool. So where does all this leave us? Well, trait theory has gone in and I've to fashion over the years. But it should be clear from this video that there are no universal traits common to all successful leaders. Also, even if there were, then those traits alone would not be enough to guarantee your success. A better way to think about the most common traits identified by trait theory is as a precondition to success. So if you have the necessary traits, then that's a great foundation. But you still need to take action to become successful. Now, this faction encouraged those. I believe they do not have the necessary traits. Do not let the absence of certain traits handicap you from being successful. With hard work, you can develop the traits you need. Now, a high school basketball coach named Tim knocked a summed this up beautifully with the quote, hard work beats talent, and talent fails to work hard. So that's it for this lesson. Really hope you enjoyed it, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.