Personality Traits and Leadership Styles of Great Leaders

Personality Traits and Leadership Styles of Great Leaders

The Personality of the Leader

The significant challenge for companies is to hire effective managers to define and implement their strategies. Effective leaders, like all people, have a variety of skills and temperaments. These characteristics define how the results are achieved. The common thread among them is the ability to do the right things (Tunner and Muller, 2005).

One controversial point about leadership is whether or not a feature cream in men. Studies show that leadership is a discipline that can and should be studied. Some people are born with this talent others need to improve it through research and mainly practicing. Believe you can become a good leader by studying, practicing, learning from mistakes and observing the behavior of leaders you admire (White et al., 1981).

The psychology has seen various theories within the context of personal as well as educational approaches. Alfred Adler was also a brilliant representative of the psychoanalytic process who introduced concepts such as cultural interest, a sense of belonging, freedom of choice, goal-directed behavior, inferiority complex, and the manner of life Theory of Personality Traits

Theories based on particular characteristics of the leader are the oldest on leadership theories and were dominant until the 40s. A theory was described by Carlyle in 1910 and became known as Theory of "the great man". According to this author the great strides and progress of mankind were due to particular men with very specific traits of personality. Such theories grouped into four characteristics that a leader should possess (Conger and Kanungo, 1987):1. Physical traits: strength, appearance and weight;2. Intellectual traits: adaptability, aggressiveness, enthusiasm and self-confidence;3. Traces Social: cooperation, interpersonal skills and management;4. Traits related work: experience to perform, persistence and initiative.

Leadership theories based solely on the personality traits of the leader to identify the universal characteristics of leaders neglecting other variables such as the characteristics of subordinates and the context in which leadership is exercised (type of work, type of objectives to be achieved, a situation of stability or instability), proved to be too simplistic and reducing the complexity involved in this important variable of organizational performance that is leadership. The determinism of theories of personality traits whose premise is "Leadership is innate or subordination" was challenged by conducting empirical research, carried out by a group of social researchers that supported the Theories of Leadership Styles.

Personality Traits

In any business, there are people with different personality types. Although I'm not big apologist for sticking labels on people, typologies improve the understanding of attitudes and behaviors with common characteristics (Andersen, 2006).

Analogies are often used to classify the members of the team or teams as having a behavioral class A or B, and sometimes a single observation is generalized to the personality of the person or business performance dramatically. In an organization or team, a good leader recognizes the needs of each team member and expectations in order to encourage the growth of staff. A leader with a negative character ...