Trait theories of leadership

Traits

Differences among individuals in a typical tendency to behave, think or feel in some conceptually related ways, across a variety of relevant situations and across some fairly long period of time.

Traits associated with leadership

• Cognitive capacities (intelligence)

• Personality (big five, hexaco)

• Core beliefs/ self-evaluation (self efficacy)

• Social capacities (social intelligence, behavioral flexibility)

• Motives (power, dominance)

• Knowlegde and skills

HEXACO model

6 dimensions:

1. Honesty/ humility

2. Emotionality

3. eXtraversion

4. Agreeableness

5. Conscientiousness

6. Openness to experience

Subdimensions honesty

• Sincerity

• Fairness

• Greed avoidance

• Modesty scale

Subdimensions emotionality

• Fearfulness

• Anxiety

• Dependence

• Sentimentality

Subdimension extraversion

• Self-esteem

• Social boldness

• Sociability

• Liveliness

Subdimension agreeableness

• Forgiveness

• Gentleness

• Flexibility

• Patience

Subdimension conscientiousness

• Organization

• Diligence

• Perfectionism

• Prudence

Subdimension openess to experience

• Aesthetic appreciation

• Inquisitiveness

• Creativity

• Unconventionality

The big five

1. Neuroticism

2. Extraversion

3. Openess

4. Agreeableness

5. Conscientiousness

General intelligence (g)

The ability to learn, to abstract and to process information./ The ability to deal with complexity … and to process information.

Dark triad

3 socially aversive personality traits.

• narcissism

• machiavellianism

• psychopathy

Psychopathy

Impulsiveness, thrill-seeking and a lack of empathy

Narcissism

A grandiose view of the self and a feeling of entitlement

Machiavellianism

A manipulative personality

Wonderlic IQ test

Gives a certain IQ score which was found to be the right fit for a certain position

Bright trait

Socially desirable trait

• bright side: consientiousness => high ethical standards

• dark side: consientiousness => difficulty adapting to turbulent environment

Dark trait

Socially undesirable trait:

• bright side: narcissism => emerge from crisis context

• dark side: narcissism => take irrational risks

Integrated/process model

Certain context will activate certain traits, which will lead to certain behaviors. These behaviors will predict follower effects which are activated by follower traits. The outcomes, leadership effectiveness and leadership emergence are multilevel.

Situational strength

The degree to which norms, scripts or standards dictate appropriate behaviors

Strong situation

Conformity is expected from individuals. The script of the situation suggests what the desirable behavior is. In these contexts, our traits do not predict our behaviors.

Weak situations

We have no (or fewer) norms dictating our behaviors. Who we are, our traits and values , will mostly predict how we behave.

Whole trait theory

The distinguishment between personality states and traits

• State = short-term behavior

• Trait = frequency distributions of personality states