Trait Theory Of Leadership Essay

Question

Task: Write an essay on Trait Theory of Leadership explaining the essential characteristics of leadership

Answer

Burns (1978) proposed in his study that "leadership is among the most encountered and poorly recognized occurrences in the world" (Burns, 1978). The trait theory of leadership essay will systematically evaluate the emerging leadership styles of existing management research on transactional and transformational leadership to expand our knowledge of management. 

What is Leadership?
Throughout a previous couple of decades, leadership is becoming a 'popular issue' with flourishing yet fragmented literature that reflects in both the arts and the fields of science. For the research and practise of leadership, there is no accepted framework to date. Over the last generation, the leadership approach has caught the interest and concern of many scientists in the fields of marketing, philosophy, psychology, evolutionary biology, and many others. The interest is attributable to the significant positions that leadership play in improving organizational productivity and success via their actions or styles that they demonstrate and their skills. Admittedly, one indicator of organizational effectiveness is the engagement of participants in this sense (Meyer et al. 2000). The present trait theory of leadership essay is performed to evaluate how management style influences workplace engagement among workers.

In relevance and usefulness on leadership qualities, authority, skill sets, personality vs group identity and behavioural vs emotional configurations, the notion of leadership has been perceived differently by researchers. In the sense of competition and confrontation in the accomplishment of success, Burns (1978) describes leadership as a process of mobilization by people with certain interests, beliefs and control over resources. More significantly, Nigel Nicholson defines leadership either as a function or a mechanism (Bradshaw, 2002). In case of a function, he states that giving people the opportunity means understanding oneself, understanding other individuals, and understanding how to persuade others. It is vital to examine the management styles and the diversity of theoretical frameworks established, as follows, in an attempt to comprehend how leadership is conceptualized.

Trait Theory of Leadership
According to the Trait theory of leadership essay, adoption of theories began in the 20th century and social scientists, social psychology researchers and counsellors, presented systematic theories on management. The studies from the 1920s to the 1960s concentrated on the characteristics of the leader and sought to find those qualities as the basis for good leadership (Adair, 1984). Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) first established the leadership theory for governance in large institutions. Through using experimental parameters, his basic concept was to maximize production. As per Bass (1990), effective performance is characterized by variables grouped into six categories, namely accomplishment, transparency, power, involvement and circumstance. He also argued that leaders were born but not formed.

The key assumptions as identified in this trait theory of leadership essay are: (a) the behavioural patterns that distinguish are regarded the requirements for determining leadership adequacy and effectiveness; (b) an appropriate leader acquires and develops his/her characteristics; and (c) leaders are bred and not developed.

 In order to evaluate the trait theory of leadership essay, Gordon (1987) conducted out research to describe the relationship between individuality and the leader’s behaviour. He discovered a powerful link between the capacities to take leadership roles. He also discovered that knowledge, power and wisdom, and governance have a mild but positive association. Beer et al. (1990) noticed that leaders were described as being extreme, self-dependent, sure in their skill sets, decisive, and rational in voicing opinions in a separate study to demonstrate the distinctions between leaders and non-leaders in respect of their behaviours and attributes.

We also found that managers are distinguished by being responsible and accountable, are inspired by themselves, are more convincing, are more effective in persuading others, and are more enthusiastic and more strategic. In order to identify the core features of a chief, Stogdill (1974) did a review of factorial research throughout 1945 and 1970. He concluded that six key types of leadership characteristics are defined: corporal characteristics, social context, intellect, capacity, personal characteristics, task-relevant, and social characteristics. The findings also indicate that a successful leader has qualities including certain individual and social abilities, technological skills, management skills, analytical skills, ability to establish trust, promote teamwork, and be reactive towards employment.

Relation and Task-Oriented Leaderships
For many years, the concept of management has had a significant place in the development of industrial and organizational psychology. There's no other position in the company that commands more attention than the leader (Schwandt & Marquardt, 2000). These habits are divided into relationship-oriented and task-oriented management by the initial study as per the trait theory of leadership essay.

Relationship-oriented leadership is based on the state of the relationship with supporters, while task-oriented is deemed important on the position that supporters play. To define relationship-oriented and task-oriented managerial functions, studies have used various terminologies. Bass gives a summary of the terminology used by many authors. Participatory decision-making, cooperative, compassion for people, emphasizing needs of the employees, people-centred were included in definitions of relationship-oriented leadership behaviours (Zaleznik, 1977).

Differentiate between Transactional and Transformational Leadership
As defined in this trait theory of leadership essay, the type of leadership style is characterized as a method of focus, assessed by the occurrence and severity of specific leadership behaviours or attitudes that a participant imposes on the various leadership roles (Casimir, 2001).

Scholars have studied diverse management functions, including authoritarian leaders, transactional leadership, inspirational leaders, and several others. Several researchers have extensively investigated a few, and their implications have also been reported on organizations. Transformational leadership is among the types of leadership that have been examined, and its connections have been formed with different leadership components. Transformational leadership is a management approach in which a leader may inspire a representative to achieve beyond what he or she originally expected to be true. A research conducted by Parry (2003) in government institutions revealed that the approach of transformational leadership has a good impact on these organizations' creativity and productivity.

As per this trait theory of leadership essay, Transactional leadership corresponds to an effective mechanism for sharing appreciated performance incentives. Transactional leadership thus supports an exchange-based partnership. By giving external motivation to the partners, the leader encourages standardization. Transactional management involves fairly conventional forms of management in which managers or representatives achieve compliance and results by either providing incentives or restricting discrepancies from expectations. The leadership trend is common in most organizations and organizational contexts as it involves a simple "exchange relationship" process that becomes necessary since there is no unresolved sense of challenge or discomfort hindering it.

As specific motivational factors which inspire followers to go further than their perceived capacities in fulfilment of a mutual, common purpose, Bass (1985) conceptualized transformational leaders. Transformational leaders are concerned about the effectiveness and accomplishment of the objectives of the business. They do it with an emphasis on personal and behavioural support from employees. The quality targets of Bass characterized transformational leadership as the process to gain encouragement and engagement through personal attributes from supporters.

What is the Full Range Leadership Model?
It is identified in this trait theory of leadership essay that perhaps the most recognized leadership approach being used globally is the full-range leadership model. The uniqueness of the concept of full-range leadership (FRL) comes from the idea of a "spectrum" of leadership behaviours that are exhibited by all leaders. For healthy leadership behaviour, this design needed a transition, shifting away from the more transactional leadership to the model of transformational leadership.

Bass (1999) was among the researchers to advocate for a revolutionary style of transactional forms of management. As an indicator of a number of results in organizations including such employee engagement, customer satisfaction, morale, organizational efficiency and success, authors have examined the full range leadership model (FRL).

The Full Range Model defines three major forms of transformational behavioural leadership actions that vary from fully dormant (laissez-faire) to transactional behaviours to transformational behaviours. Therefore, transactional and transformational leadership can be seen to be continuous instead of inherently dependent.

The transformational leader and participant association are seen as reciprocal stimuli in the Full Range Leadership (FRL) model (Barbuto, 1997). On the institutional level of moral growth calculated by Kohlberg's conceptual framework, the role of transformative leadership was differentiated (Popper et, al., 2002). Transformational leaders are often rated as being more psychologically innovative than transactional leaders in many more research findings.

The 4 four components of idealized influence, charismatic leadership, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration have been displayed by transformational leaders, according to the trait theory of leadership essay. Transformational leaders have encouraged others to maximize efficiency, to be fulfilled and to produce results exceeding projections. In comparison to restricted overall job satisfaction and weaker levels of organizational engagement with transactional leadership, McGuire and Kennerly (2006) experienced improved commitment, employee support, employee performance, and productivity with transformational leaders.

Several researchers studied the different categories of transformative and transactional personality traits, as well as particular behaviours within those groups, which has shown that these behaviours influence both personal and collective performance. Organizational engagement is a process that examines success and outcomes in comparable fields.

Importance of Organizational Commitment in Leadership
In research leadership, organizational participation plays an essential part. It is partially related to the amount of research that has identified connections between organizational commitment and employee behavioural patterns (Porter et al., 1974; Angle and Perry, 1981). Organizational engagement has been related to relationship-oriented and task-oriented leadership behaviours. DeCotiis & Summers(1987) observed that employees display a greater degree of dedication when workers are handled with respect. Jermier & Berkes (1979) reported that there were increased numbers of loyalty to the company for workers participating in strategic planning.

In this trait theory of leadership essay, a wide indicator of the efficacy of leadership style is provided by organizational engagement. The partnership provides a way of discussing the issue of leading even farther. Bycio, Hackett, & Allen (1995) identified positive associations between enthusiasm, inspirational motivation, individualized attention, and contingency theory and impactful, perpetuation and traditional engagement leadership behaviours. Studies show that dedicated staff respond more positively to the organization (Meyer and Allen,1997).

Conclusion
The trait theory of leadership essay highlighted a systemic approach for a consistent conceptualization of leadership. It emphasizes that a leadership approach is time-based throughout a phase of transition; therefore, every cycle has space for a broad range of leadership characteristics. A style organizes a leader's tactical behaviour, demonstrates how his acts are organized as well as how issues and individuals that arise are decided and altered. In this trait theory of leadership essay, it's been suggested that the "perceptions, beliefs and norms of organizations are of crucial significance to the overall management style they implement." The model of governance is the method of actions being used by the leader to overcome organizational problems.