Leadership and Change

Chapter 2: Trait Approach

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Overview
 Understand the concept of Change

 Role of a Leader in Change Management

 Great Person Theories

 Historical Shifts in Trait Perspective of Leadership

 What Traits Differentiate Leaders From Non-leaders?

 How Does the Trait Approach Work?

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Change and Change Management
o What is change & why we need it?

o Change management defined:

Change Management deals with all internal and external

forces that push an organization toward change, identify
and reduce resistance toward change, replace old
processes, methods, strategies, goals, organizational
culture etc with new ones and reduce any stress associated
with change for the success of organization.

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Leader as a Change Agent
 Meaning of Change Agent:
 A person who acts as a catalyst and assumes the responsibilities
of managing the change.

 What skills are required for Change Agents?

 Problem sensor
 Visionary
 Strategy formulation
 Conflict and stress management
 Communication skills
 Coaching and mentorship

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Phase I: Preparation for Change (Need
Assessment)
 General Assessment of organization:
 Assess the Scope of Change:
 How big the change is? Is it a micro change or macro change? What areas
and parts of the organization require change? How many people will be
affected? Who will be affected the most? Do we require gradual change of
rapid change?
 Assess the Impact on Organization:
 What will be the impact on organization? Will there be any resistance?
What could the severity of resistance? What could be the impact of changes
on organization’s vision, strategy, long term plans, culture, value, etc?
 Assess the Change Management Team (Team
Evaluation):
 Is team capable of handling the change?
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Phase II: Managing Change

 Develop a Detailed Change Plan

 Develop Implementation Plan:

What implementation model or theory to follow? How to implement the

detailed plan? What method to follow? What would be the practical actions?

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Phase III: Reinforcing the Change
 Gather the Data:

Assess the change whether it has provided the required result.

 Diagnose the Gaps and Manage Resistance:

Find the gaps, give a feedback with proper actions.

 Manage resistance & stress associated with change

process.

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Great Person Theories
Trait Approach:

One of the first systematic attempts to study leadership. The trait

theory of leadership is an early assumption that leaders are born
and due to this belief, those that possess the correct qualities
and traits are better suited to leadership.

 “Great Man” Theories (early 1900s)

 Focused on identifying innate qualities and characteristics

possessed by great social, political, & military leaders

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General Personality Traits
 1- Trustworthiness
2- Dominance
3- Extroversion
4- Self awareness/self objectivity
5- Emotional stability
6- Self confidence
7- Sense of humor
8- Assertiveness
9- High tolerance for frustration
10- Enthusiasm

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Task Related Personality Traits
 1- Courage
2- Resiliency
3- Initiative
4- Internal Locus of Control
5- Flexibility and Adaptability
6- Sensitivity to others and empathy

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 Historical Shifts in Trait Perspective
Early 1900s 1930-50s 1970’s - Early 90s Today

Traits Interacting Revival of Critical Role of 5 Major

Great Man
With Situational Traits in Leader Leadership
Theories
Demands on Leaders Effectiveness Traits

•Research focused • Landmark Stogdill (1948) • Stogdill (1974) • Intelligence

on individual study - analyzed and - Analyzed 163 new studies • Self-Confidence
characteristics synthesized 124 trait studies with 1948 study findings • Determination
that universally - Leadership - Validated original study • Integrity
differentiated reconceptualized - 10 characteristics • Sociability
leaders from as a relationship between positively identified with
nonleaders people in a social situation leadership

• Mann (1959) reviewed 1,400 • Lord, DeVader, &

Innate Qualities findings of personality and
leadership in small groups
- Less emphasis on situations
- Suggested personality traits
could be used to discriminate
leaders from nonleaders
Situations
Alliger (1986) meta-analysis
- Personality traits can be
used to differentiate
leaders/nonleaders
• Kirkpatrick & Locke (1991)
- 6 traits make up the
“Right Stuff” for leaders
Personality / Behaviors
 Leadership Traits
Studies of Leadership Traits and Characteristics

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 Stogdill identified the following
characteristics in his second survey
 1. Drive for responsibility and task completion;
 2. Strong and persistence in pursuit of goals;
 3. Risk taking and originality in problem solving;
 4. Drive to exercise initiative in social situations;
 5. Self-confidence and sense of personal identity;
 6. Willingness to accept consequences of decision and action;
 7. Readiness to absorb interpersonal stress;
 8. Willingness to tolerate frustration and delay;
 9. Ability to influence other people’s behavior; and
 10. Capacity to structure social interaction systems to the
purpose at hand.

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 Major Leadership Traits

Traits to possess or cultivate if one seeks to be

perceived by others as a leader:

 Intelligence – Intellectual ability including verbal,

perceptual, and reasoning capabilities
 Self-Confidence – Ability to be certain about one’s
competencies and skills
 Determination – The desire to get the job done (i.e.,
initiative, persistence, dominance, drive)

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 Major Leadership Traits

Traits to possess or cultivate if one seeks to be

perceived by others as a leader:

 Integrity – The quality of honesty and

trustworthiness

 Sociability – Leader’s inclination to seek out

pleasant social relationships

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5-Factor Personality Model & Leadership
Big Five Personality Factors

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 5-Factor Personality Model & Leadership
Big Five & Leadership
Study (Judge et al, 2002)
Results – a strong relationship between personality traits
and leadership
 Extraversion – factor most strongly associated with leadership
 Most important trait of effective leaders
 Conscientiousness – 2nd most related factor
 Neuroticism & Openness – next most related
 Neuroticism negatively associated to leadership
 Agreeableness – only weakly related to leadership

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Emotional Intelligence & Leadership
Definition
 Ability to perceive and:
 people who are more
– apply emotions to life’s
tasks
– reason/understand
emotions
– express emotions
– use emotions to facilitate
thinking
– manage emotions within
oneself & relationships
Underlying Premise
sensitive to their emotions
& their impact on others
will be more effective
leaders
 Shankman and Allen
(2008) suggest that leaders
must be conscious of three
fundamental aspects of
leadership: context, self,
and others.

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How Does the Trait Approach Work?
 Focus of Trait Approach

 Strengths

 Criticisms

 Application

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 Focus of Trait Approach
Personality
Leader
Assessments

 Focuses exclusively  Organizations use personality

on leader
 What traits leaders
exhibit
 Who has these traits
assessments to find “Right”
people
 Assumption - will increase
organizational effectiveness
 Specify characteristics/traits for
specific positions
 Personality assessment measures for
“fit”
 Instruments: LTQ, Myers Briggs

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 Strengths

 Intuitively appealing
 Highlights leadership
 Perception that leaders are
different in that they possess
component in the leadership
special traits process
 People “need” to view  Deeper level understanding of
leaders as gifted how leader/personality related
to leadership process
 Credibility due to a century
 Provides benchmarks for
of research support
what to look for in a leader

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 Fails to delimit
definitive list
leadership traits
 Endless lists have emerged
 Doesn’t take into account
situational effects
 Leaders in one situation may
not be leaders in another
situation
Criticisms
a  List of most important
of leadership traits is highly
subjective
 Much subjective experience &
observations serve as basis for
identified leadership traits
 Research fails to look at traits
in relationship to leadership
outcomes
 Not useful for training &
development
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 Application
 Provides direction as to which traits are good
to have if one aspires to a leadership position

Leadership Traits
 Through various tests and questionnaires, • Intelligence
individuals can determine whether they have • Self-Confidence
the selected leadership traits and can pinpoint • Determination
• Integrity
their strengths and weaknesses • Sociability

 Can be used by managers to assess where they

stand within their organization and what is
needed to strengthen their position

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