Leadership. Big Five personality traits Essay

After studying this chapter, you should be able to1. Define leading and blood line leadership and management. 2. Summarize the conclusions of quality theories of leadership. 3. Identify the central tenets and main limitations of behavioral theories. 4. Assess contingency theories of leadership by their level of support. 5. Comp are and contrast charismatic and transformational leadership. 6. Define au pasttic leadership and show why effective leaders exemplify ethics and trust. 7. Demonstrate the role mentoring plays in our understanding of leadership. 8. traverse challenges to the effectiveness of leadership.9. Assess whether charismatic and transformational leadership generalize across cultures. I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep. TalleyrandPrivate Equitys Poster BoyIf its true that Nice guys conclude last, there is no better proof than Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of the Blackst cardinal Group, who says his mission in life is to inflict pain and kill off his rivals. I require war, he told the Wall Street Journal, not a series of skirmishes. And win in business he has. In 20 years, he has made Blackst unmatched one of the roughly pro retardableand some feared enthronization groups on Wall Street, with assets approaching $200 billion.Though these are not easy times for any investment bank, Blackstone has largely avoided the pitfalls of subprime mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Some of this strategy might be considered good fortuneBlackstone invests much more heavily in commercial than in residential veridical estate. However, some credit is due to Schwarzmans foresight. As he notes, We were cautious in the so-called golden age. We were the least aggressive of all the big firms in the first half of 2007. We were very concerned about(predicate) the high prices of deals and the vast amount of liquidity fuelling the boom. . . .Things always come to an end, and when they do they end badly. Not moreover is Schwarzman smart and driven he likesthe attention his success has drawn. When he turned 60, his birthday party might have made Caligula blush. The affair was emceed by comic Martin Short. Rod Stewart performed. Marvin Hamlisch put on a number from A Chorus Line. Singer Patti LaBelle led the Abyssinian Baptist Church choir in a song about Schwarzman. Who staged this event?Schwarzman himself When Blackstone executives prepared a video tribute to him to be contend at the event, Schwarzman intervened to squelch any roasting or other jokes played at his expense. Schwarzman owns residences in Manhattan (a 35-room Park Avenue triplex, for which he paid $37 million), in the Hamptons (a Federal-style house, for which he paid $34 million), in Palm Beach (a 13,000-square-foot mansion, which, at $20.5 million, is the slum of the bunch), in Saint-Tropez, and in Jamaica.I love houses, Schwarzman says. The New Yorker called him the designated villain of an era . . . of heedless self-indulgence. As you might imagine, Schwarzman is not the easiest guy to work for. trance sunning himself at his Palm Beach estate, he complained that an employee wasnt wearing the proper black shoes with his uniform. On another occasion, he reportedly fired a Blackstone executive for the sound his nose made when he breathed. Given his success, his lifestyle, and his combative personality, you might imagine Schwarzman is immune to the ridicule, resentment, and criticism he receives. How does it feel? he asked, and then answered his own question Unattractive.No thinking person wants to be reduced to a caricature.1 As Blackstones Stephen Schwarzman shows, leaders often are not like other tribe. But what piddles them so? Intelligence? Drive? Luck? A certain leadership style? These are some of the questions well tackle in this chapter. To assess yourself on another set of qualities that well discuss shortly, take the following self-assessment. In this chapter, we look at what distinguishs an effective leader and what differentiates leaders from nonleaders.First, we vex trait theories, which dominated the study of leadership up to the late 1940s. Then we discuss behavioral theories, popular until the late 1960s. Next, we introduce contingency and interactive theories. Finally, we discuss the most contemporary approaches charismatic, transformational, and authentic leadership. But first, lets clarify what we mean by leadership. Self-Assessment Library Whats My Leadership Style?In the Self-Assessment Library (available on CD and online) take assessment II.B.1 (Whats My Leadership Style?) and answer the following questions. 1.How did you score on the two scales?2.Do you think a leader can be both task oriented and people oriented? Do you think there are situations in which a leader has to make a choice between the two styles?3.Do you think your leadership style exit change over time? Why or why not? What Is Leadership?1. Define leadership and cont rast leadership and management. Leadership and management are often confused. Whats the difference? John Kotter of the Harvard Business schooldays argues that management is about coping with complexity.2 Good management brings about order and consistency by drawing up starchy plans, designing rigid make-up structures, and monitoring results against the plans.Leadership, in contrast, is about coping with change. Leaders establish direction by developing a vision of the future then they align people by communicating this vision and inspiring them to overcome hurdles. Although Kotter provides separate definitions of the two harm, both look forers and practicing managers frequently make no such distinctions. So we need to present leadership in a way that can capture how it is used in theory and practice. We define leadership as the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals.The source of this influence may be formal, such as that provided by man agerial ramble in an organization. But not all leaders are managers, nor, for that matter, are all managers leaders. Just because an organization provides its managers with certain formal rights is no assurance they will lead effectively. Nonsanctioned leadershipthe ability to influence that arises outside the formal structure of the organizationis often as important or more important than formal influence.In other words, leaders can emerge from within a group as well as by formal appointment. Organizations need upstanding leadership and strong management for optimal effectiveness. We need leaders today to challenge the status quo, create visions of the future, andinspire organizational members to want to achieve the visions. We in addition need managers to formulate detailed plans, create efficient organizational structures, and oversee day-to-day operations. OB Poll Confidence in Business Leaders fallSource Based on Edelman trust Barometer 2008 (http//www.edelman.com/TRUST/200 8/TrustBarometer08_Final.pdf) Trait TheoriesSummarize the conclusions of trait theories of leadership.Throughout history, strong leadersBuddha, Napoleon, Mao, Churchill, Roosevelt, Reaganhave been described in terms of their traits. Trait theories of leadership thus focus on personal qualities and characteristics. We recognize leaders like South Africas Nelson Mandela, Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson, orchard apple tree co-founder Steve Jobs, and American Express chairman Ken Chenault as charismatic, enthusiastic, and courageous.The search for personality, social, physical, or intellectual attributes that differentiate leaders from nonleaders goes back to the earliest stages of leadership research. Early research efforts at isolating leadership traits resulted in a number of dead ends.A review in the late 1960s of 20 different studies set nearly 80 leadership traits, but only 5 were common to 4 or more of the investigations.3 By the 1990s, after numerous studies and analyses, abou t the scoop we could say was that most leaders are not like other people, but the particular traits that characterized them varied a great deal from review to review.4 It was a pretty confusing state of affairs.A breakthrough, of sorts, came when researchers began organizing traits around the Big Five personality framework (see Chapter 5).5 Most of the dozens of traits in various leadership reviews fit under one of the Big Five (ambition and energy are part of extraversion, for instance), giving strong support to traits as predictors of leadership.The personal qualities and characteristics of Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Group, make him a great leader. Branson is described as fun-loving, sensitive to the needs of others, hard working, innovative, charismatic, enthusiastic, energetic, decisive, and risk taking. These traits helped the British entrepreneur build one of the most recognized and respect brandsin the world for products and services in the business areas of travel , entertainment, and lifestyle. Jason Kempin/FilmMagic/Getty Images, Inc.A comprehensive review of the leadership literature, when organized around the Big Five, has found extraversion to be the most important trait of effective leaders6 but more strongly related to leader emergence than to leader effectiveness. Sociable and dominant people are more likely to assert themselves in group situations, but leaders need to make sure theyre not too assertiveone study found leaders who scored very high on assertiveness were less effective than those who were moderately high.7Unlike agreeableness and emotional stability, conscientiousness and openness to experience also showed strong relationships to leadership, though not quite as strong as extraversion. Overall, the trait approach does have something to offer. Leaders who like existence around people and are able to assert themselves (extraverted), disciplined and able to keep commitments they make (conscientious), and creative and flexi ble (open) do have an apparent profit when it comes to leadership, suggesting good leaders do have key traits in common.One reason is that conscientiousness and extraversion are positively related to leaders self-efficacy, which explained most of the variance in subordinates ratings of leader performance.8 People are more likely to follow someone who is confident shes going in the right direction. another(prenominal) trait that may indicate effective leadership is emotional intelligence (EI), discussed in Chapter 4. Advocates of EI argue that without it, a person can have outstanding training, a highly analytical mind, a compelling vision, and an endless supply of terrific ideas but still not make a great leader.This may be specially true as individuals move up in an organization.9 Why is EI so critical to effective leadership? A core component of EI is empathy. empathic leaders can sense others needs, listen to what followers say (and dont say), and read the reactions of others. As one leader noted, The caring part of empathy, especially for the people with whom you work, is what inspires people to stay with a leader when the going gets rough. The mere fact that someone cares is more often than not rewarded with loyalty.10