Advantages and disadvantages of trait theory of leadership

Trait Theory
Trait Theory, one of the first systemic approaches to study leadership, attempts to discover what innate qualities make a superior leader. These characteristics come from researchers studying extraordinary people. While Trait Theory builds off of the “Great Man” Theory, it still maintains that leaders are born not made. Some of these traits are personality based, even listing charisma as one of the more important qualities. Stogdill’s work in 1948 and 1974 contributed greatly towards the knowledge of Trait Theory. Both of his survey results can be found in the chart below. Chart 1 provides a comparison of other traits researchers have found to be important to leadership. Note the similarities amongst traits listed including the following traits that appear in more than one list: intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, and sociability (Northouse, 2013, pp. 19-23).

Table of Contents Show

1. Ralph Stogdill
2. McCall and Lombardo
3. Kouzes and Posner
4. Kirkpatrick & Locke
5. Zaccaro, Kemp, and Bader
Advantages and Disadvantages
Disadvantages
Trait Theory of Leadership Summary

Table 1: Trait Theory Studies

Sources: Northouse, 2013, pp. 23, Adapted from “The Bases of Social Power,” by J.R.P French Jr., and B. Raven, 1962, in D. Cartwright (Ed.), Group Dynamics: Research and Theory (pp. 259-269). New York: Harper and Row; Zaccoro, Kemp, & Bader (2004).

Strengths

According to Northouse (2013), Trait Theory adds to leadership knowledge in three valuable ways.

It builds on the premise that leaders are distinctive.
Unlike all other leadership theories, Trait Theory boasts a century of research to confirm the approach.
Trait Theory provides benchmarks for identifying leaders (pp. 29-31).

Together, the strengths of trait theory demonstrate the value the theory has provided to the study of leadership

Weaknesses

There are also four flaws of Trait Theory. While being one of the earliest leadership theories, there are still fundamental issues with the theory explained below:

1) It’s leader-centric, and only focuses on the leader not the follower or the situation.

2) Some findings are ambiguous and subjective leading to uncertainty in the validity of the approach.

3) Much of the Trait Theory research fails to look at how specific traits influence leadership outcomes such as performance, productivity, and employee satisfaction

4) Since traits are innate, it becomes unusual for training and development purposes (Northouse, 2013, pp. 30-32).

Trait Theorists

Some of the most current trait theorists, Zaccaro, Kemp, and Bader (2004) found the following traits to be important to prototypical leaders: cogitative abilities, extroversion, conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness, agreeableness, motivation, social intelligence, self-monitoring, emotional intelligence, and problem solving (pp. 101-124). Other trait theorists from the last century are referenced in Table 1. While examining this list, it appears that many of these traits are personality based.
To address the connection between personality and leadership traits, Judge, Bono, Ilies, and Gerhardt (2002) conducted a comparison using the Big Five Personality Factors. The Big Five Personality Factors include neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. The researchers found a strong correlation between the personality factors and the leadership traits, explicitly with reference to extraversion being associated to leadership. Agreeableness was found to have the weakest correlation to leadership (pp. 765-780). Considering agreeableness is the tendency to be nurturing and accepting it is an interesting finding that comforting traits are not as necessary to being an effective leader.

Both the Trait Theory and the Great man theory attempt to identify leaders and what makes leaders. Although both theories seem to be valid and can be proven with examples, many instances arise where these theories are proven wrong and don’t hold true. I will compare pros and cons for both theories to show this error. The trait-based theory basically says that certain traits and characteristics yield successful leaders while Great Man theory states that leaders are pretty much born leaders and that those that are born with high intelligence and high charisma tend to be leaders. While both of these traits suffer from being to limited in todays evolving society, it was applicable and present in the past.

Trait Theory
Pros	Cons
Traits can be developed More people can become leaders	Not all that have leadership traits become leader Doesn’t account for situational circumstances

Great Man Theory
Pros	Cons
Leaders are acknowledge from early Leaders are consistent and follow similar paths	Only certain people can be leaders No one can become a leaders unless originally thought to be on

These pictures represent Trait Theory vs Great Man Theory. The picture on the left shows a leader and each of the colors at the bottom represent a certain trait. The picture on the right shoes King Tut. The relevancy to Great Man Theory is that a leader is born and that in Ancient Egypt, kings were royal and nobody else could be a king.

All in all, many of the theories could be proven right and wrong with different examples; however, it is not our job to tell someone if they are a leader or not. We must give everyone the opportunity to lead and by doing this, we will be able to receive the strongest leader and one that is truly capable of leading and execute great task.

Till next time, check back here for all your leadership needs and wants.

The Trait Theory of Leadership is a model that sets out to help identify future leaders.

Trait theory is based on the idea that great leaders are born with inherent traits that enable them to become great leaders. From this idea, the aim of trait theory is twofold:

First, it aims to find the traits these great leaders have in common.
Second, it aims to find future great leaders based on these traits.

The Trait Theory of Leadership is one of the oldest leadership theories in existence. It can trace its origins back to Thomas Carlyle’s 1849 quote that “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” This belief is often called the Great Man Theory.

In psychological terms, you are a combination of nature plus nurture. You inherit your genetic makeup and are also the sum of your lived experiences.

The Trait Theory of Leadership is based on the idea that great leaders are born and not bred. Trait theory does not take any account of how a person might develop over time – it is entirely focused on nature and not nurture.

The Trait Theory of Leadership has gone in and out of fashion in the 150+ years since Thomas Carlyle’s Great Man Theory.

Over the years, there have been hundreds of research studies done to identify the traits of great leaders, and no two studies have resulted in the same list of traits.

Let’s examine some of the more well-known investigations into trait theory.

1. Ralph Stogdill

In 1948, Ralph Stogdill analyzed data from more than 100 studies into leadership traits. From his analysis, he found that there weren’t many overlapping traits amongst the different studies.

Because leaders have many traits, Stogdill argued that you don’t become a leader just because you possess certain traits. To be a successful leader, you must possess those traits relevant to the situation you find yourself in; for example, a startup founder needs different traits to a Fortune 500 CEO, who needs different traits to a religious leader.

From the studies Stogdill analyzed, he noted that if you combined all the traits required to be a successful leader, then that list became too long to be of any practical use in finding future leaders.

Having said that, Stogdill did identify that the average leader is different from the average follower with regard to the following eight traits:

Intelligence.
Alertness.
Insight.
Responsibility.
Initiative.
Persistence.
Self-confidence.
Sociability.

Many years later, in 1974, Stogdill published another list of leadership traits. This list was compiled by analyzing the research on Trait Theory that took place in the intervening years.

From this study, Stogdill produced another list of traits:

Achievement.
Persistence.
Insight.
Initiative.
Self-confidence.
Responsibility.
Cooperativeness.
Tolerance.
Influence.
Sociability.

The critical difference between the first and second survey results by Stogdill is that he moved away from implying that situational factors were the most important to suggest that both situational and trait factors were important.

2. McCall and Lombardo

In 1983, McCall and Lombardo examined both leadership success and failure and identified four factors (traits) critical to leader success:

Emotional Stability.
Admitting Mistakes.
Good Interpersonal Skills.
Intellectual Breadth.

3. Kouzes and Posner

Between 1983 and 1987, James Kouses and Barry Posner surveyed over 600 managers about their positive leadership experiences.

From this list, they identified ten key traits possessed by great leaders:

Honest.
Forward-looking.
Inspirational.
Competent.
Fair-minded.
Supportive.
Broad-minded.
Intelligent.
Straightforward.
Dependable.

It’s important to note this list wasn’t derived from analyzing leaders’ traits; instead, it was derived by asking followers what qualities they saw as important in great leaders.

4. Kirkpatrick & Locke

In 1991, Shelley Kirkpatrick and Edwin Locke suggest that there are certain traits in leaders which equip them with the tools to develop into great leaders should they so choose. These are:

Drive.
Leadership Motivation.
Honesty and Integrity.
Self-confidence.
Cognitive Ability.
Knowledge of the Business.

Kirkpatrick and Locke are not saying that by possessing these traits you’ll automatically become a great leader, but rather that you have the basic tools to do so should you choose.

5. Zaccaro, Kemp, and Bader

More recently, in 2004, Zaccaro, Kemp, and Bader proposed that leadership emerges from the combined influence and interaction between multiple traits instead of traits existing independently of each other.

The key traits they identified are:

Extraversion.
Cognitive abilities.
Conscientiousness.
Emotional stability.
Openness.
Agreeableness.
Motivation.
Social intelligence.
Self-monitoring.
Emotional intelligence.
Problem-solving.

Advantages and Disadvantages

There are many advantages and disadvantages associated with the trait theory of leadership.

Advantages

The idea that having certain traits predisposes one to leadership is an easy to understand and intuitive idea.
Much research has been conducted to confirm the importance of traits, even if that research can’t agree on specific traits.
The theory provides you with pointers on what to investigate if you want to improve your leadership ability.

Disadvantages

It is not possible to know the relative importance of the traits.
Trait theory ignores cultural factors; for example, what makes a great leader in the western world can differ from what makes a great leader in China.
Traits are situation-dependent; for example, a religious leader needs different traits to a business leader.
The different trait studies do not agree on a core set of universal traits common to all great leaders, which makes trait theory almost impossible to use in practice.

Trait Theory of Leadership Summary

So, where does all of this leave us? Trait theory has gone in and out of fashion over the years.

It should be clear from this article that there are no universal traits common to all successful leaders. Furthermore, even if there were, those traits alone would not be enough to guarantee success.

A better way to think about the most common traits identified by trait theory is as a precondition to success. If you have the necessary traits, then that’s a great foundation, but you still need to take action to become successful.

This fact should encourage those that believe they do not have the necessary traits. Do not let the absence of certain traits handicap you from being successful – with hard work, you can develop the traits you need.

A high school basketball coach Tim Notke summed this up beautifully with this quote:

“Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.”