2.1 Traits Theories
‘The Question of whether leadership is an innate gift which cannot be taught has occupied generations of thinkers’, says Stuart Crainer. ‘they are pragmatic-yes’, he continues, ‘some leaders are created with their gifts already fully formed’ (Crianer, 1996).
Stogdill (1974) says that, if the leader is endowed with superior qualities that differentiate him from his followers, it should be possible to identify these qualities. This assumption then gave rise to the trait theory of leadership. Cacioppe (1997), one of the recent researchers defines six traits that differentiate leaders from non-leaders; honesty and integrity, high energy level, ambition and the desire to lead, intelligence, self-confidence and task relevant knowledge.
Trait theories argue that leaders have some naturally gifted skills so they can get remarkable results from these skills. As Crainer (1996) and Murphy (1996), while discussing leadership trait theory pointed out that leadership requires mastery of many of techniques but leaders bring a variety of natural attributes and inspirational ability, which makes the actual difference. Techniques can be learned, but the other elements can’t be learnt by the training programmes. Mullins (2005) also agrees with this idea and says that in traits approach focus is on the person in the job and not on the job itself.
One of the limitations of trait theory that to make list of people’s qualities is difficult as personality is mixture of different attributes, for example, aspects of a person's behaviour, skills, temperament and intellectual ability. On the other hand, if the trait list is not detailed it is possible that someone might have other ‘leadership qualities’. What of these? Mullin says, “The lists of possible traits tend to be very long and there is not always agreement on the most important” (Mullins 2005: 287). Some critics of trait theory argue as Rossner (1997) pointed out that these lists have got maleness in nature and the attributes associated with leadership in trait lists are often viewed as male.
More recently people have tried looking at what combinations of traits might be good for a particular situation. There is some mileage in this. It appears possible to link clusters of personality traits to success in different situations, as Stogdill (1974) has subsequently suggested (Wright 1996). However, it remains an inexact science!
2.2 Behavioural Theories
McKenna (1998) explains that the lack of success of the early personality trait approach to leadership, which restricted leadership to particular individuals, gave rise to a new approach. This was known the behavioural style approach to leadership and was based on the view that leadership doesn’t reside in the person, but could be cultivated as distinctive pattern of behaviour.
In trait theory researches looked at the leaders, what are their specific personality traits but in behavioural theory they made a shift from leaders to leadership, they turned to what leaders did- how they behaved. In this regard Sir Colin Marshall says, ‘I believe that leaders aren’t simply born with innate leadership skills which are waiting to be discovered, but that leaders can be developed’ (Crainer, 1996:54).
Golman (1998) says that the personality traits are human qualities that are accessible to us all and to build new behavioural habits are possible by creating the motivation to try out something new and then giving extended practice and feedback until the new behaviour is well and truly embedded (Golman(1998) cited by Piasecka, 2000).
Attention to leadership as a behavioural category has drawn attention to the importance of leadership styles. On the basis of the suggestions given by Lewin, LIippit and White (1939), Schaeffer (2002) and further by Mullins (2006) after their respective studies the major styles of leadership can be classified within a broad three-fold heading i.e. Autocratic, Democratic and Laissez-faire (genuine) style. Some researchers class Participative and reformative as different styles of leadership.
The limitations of behavioural theory are that a specific style might look really good to follow but the actual practice show different result. Wright (1996) says that many of the early writers that looked to participative and people-centred leadership argued that it brought about greater satisfaction amongst followers. However, as Sadler (1997) reports, when researchers really got to work on this it didn’t seem to stand up. There were lots of differences and inconsistencies between studies. It was difficult to say which style of leadership was significant in enabling one group to work better than another.
One of other limitation of behavioural approach is that leader cant just follow one style as McKenna (1996) says that by early 1960s there was recognition that leadership could not be explained satisfactory in terms of behavioural approach. As in different situations one style will not be useful. The context in which the style was used is very important.
3.0 Conclusion
On these pages it was tried to set out some of the elements of the two major classical theories of leadership. We have seen how early researches have searched for special traits and behaviours and looked at the different styles which leaders adopted in different situations. The discussion of leadership theories do not stop here and later on in early 1960s as McKenna(1996) says researchers were looking at different other options. And later on the most recent approaches of leadership like situational, contingency, transactional and transformational theories presented. Running through all these well-defined theories few important points can be described, these are agreed upon by almost all researchers of leadership, that real leaders:
- Give direction and have clear vision of what they want to achieve.
- Become the focus for answers and solutions. We look to them when we don’t know what to do, or when we can’t be bothered to work things out for ourselves.
- Have special qualities setting them apart. These help to create the gap between leaders and followers.
- Are people who are able to think and act creatively in non-routine situations – and who set out to influence the actions, beliefs and feelings of others?
- Leading involves influencing others, where there are leaders there are followers
References
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