LEADERSHIP

Leaders: Born Or Made



Abstract

Through an empirical study of the heads of the UK's top independent companies, comparing them with sample norms and a management control group, the paper re-examines the question of whether there is an entrepreneurial leadership personality profile. Several distinctive features are reported and discussed. Contrary to common stereotypes, the leaders are not openminded risk-takers so much as singleminded, thickskinned, dominating individuals. Results are discussed within the frame of the new discipline of evolutionary psychology.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Introduction5

Overview5

Purpose of the Study5

Research Question6

Chapter Two: Literature Review7

Definition7

Influence of a Leader7

Historical Development8

Trait Approach9

Leader Behavior Approach10

Contingency (Situational) Approach14

Recent Developments18

Leader-Member Exchange Theory18

Transformational Leadership Theories20

Substitutes For Leadership Theory21

Servant Leadership22

Leaders are Sort of Born25

Leaders are always made27

A Leader's Growth is Never Done29

Examples of Contingency Theory30

Contingency theory of leadership30

Fiedler's contingency theory31

Hersey & Blanchard's situational theory31

Contingency theory of decision making31

Vroom and Yetton's decision participation contingency theory or the Normative decision theory32

Contingency rules theory32

Conceptual Model33

Leadership Personality33

Entrepreneurial Leadership: an Evolutionary Approach39

Hypotheses44

Chapter Three: Methodology46

Research Methods46

Qualitative Research51

Literature Selection Criteria52

Search Technique52

Theoretical Framework52

Quantitative Research52

Sampling and Procedure54

Measures and Sample Characteristics57

Chapter Four: Discussion59

Results59

Leaders Vs Neo Norms59

(a) Leaders Vs Managers61

(b) Predicted Absent Scores63

Discussion65

Chapter Five: Conclusion69

References71

Chapter One: Introduction

Overview

Leaders born or are they made? This is a question that is often debated but is still, in many people's eyes, unresolved. However, it remains an important issue to address because the notion that leadership is largely innate still underpins the way that many people think about leaders, their beliefs about their own capacity for leadership, and their views about the self-leadership potential of their followers. Common-sense assumptions about employees' innate leadership qualities are also used frequently by organizations when making hiring, firing and promotion decisions.

Purpose of the Study

Leadership is probably the most frequently studied topic in the organizational sciences. Thousands of leadership studies have been published and thousands of pages on leadership have been written in academic books and journals, business-oriented publications, and general-interest publications. Despite this, the precise nature of leadership and its relationship to key criterion variables such as subordinate satisfaction, commitment, and performance is still uncertain, to the point where Fred Luthans, in his book Organizational Behavior (2005), said that "it [leadership] does remain pretty much of a 'black box' or unexplainable concept." In this paper we will be studying leadership traits with respect to difference theories and we will be trying to analyse whether leaders born or they are made.

Research Question

Are leaders born or are they made? Discuss

Chapter Two: Literature Review

Definition

Leadership can be defined as a process by which one individual influences others toward the attainment of group or organizational goals. Three points about the definition of leadership should be emphasized. First, leadership is a social influence process. Leadership cannot exist without a leader and one or more followers. Second, leadership elicits voluntary action on the part of followers. The voluntary nature of compliance separates leadership from other types of influence based on formal authority. Finally, leadership results in followers' behavior that is purposeful and goal-directed in some sort of organized setting. Many, although not all, studies of leadership focus on the nature ...