A variety of individual attributes have been examined in leadership research. These include aspects of personality, temperament, needs, social motives and values. Often expressed in self-confidence, extroversion, emotional maturity and energy level.
Most traits are jointly determined by learning and the capacity to gain satisfaction.
Values are the determinants of whats right or wrong, ethical, unethical, moral and immoral. For example fairness, justice, equality, loyalty and freedom. They influence our choices and behaviour.
Skills are the ability to do something in an effective manner is often expressed in the interpersonal skills, intelligence, conceptual skills or technical skills or even problem-solving skills.
Scientific research suggests, that genetic factors account only for approx. 30% of the variance in the attainment on leadership roles as well as possession of personality traits associated with leadership such as self-confidence and need for achievement. Therefore we can summarise that leadership success involves both inherited and learned attributes.
Some traits and skills have been proven to increase leadership success, but they cannot guarantee it. Let's evaluations some of those.
The traits
Some traits have been highly consistent among the studies:
High energy level and stress tolerance that help managers to cope with hectic pace, long hours and high demands of managerial job. Physical vitality and emotional resilience makes it easier to cope with stressful situations. Effective problem solving requires ability to remain calm and focused rather then panicking, denying that it exists or shift the responsibility on someone else. When we are calm we can provide confident decisions in the time of crisis. Managers must often make important decisions without adequate information and need to resolve conflicts among different parties.
Internal locus of control. People with strong internal locus of control allow events in their life to be determined more by their actions then by chance or uncontrollable forces. They believe that they can influence their own destiny. They have more future oriented perspective and they are more likely to proactively plan to accomplish objectives. They take more initiatives in resolving different problems. They are confident in their ability to influence others. They are more likely to persuade then manipulate. They are more flexible, adaptive and innovative in their response to a problem. When set backs appear they are more likely to learn from them, then just dismissing them as bad luck. Research results suggest that a strong locus of control is positively associated with managerial success.
Emotional stability and maturity. This can encompass different traits and values. A person who is emotionally stable do not suffer from sever psychological disorders. They have more self-awareness in their strengths and weaknesses and they are oriented towards self-improvement as opposed to denying their weaknesses. They are less self-centred, have more self-control and have more stable emotions. Research suggests, that effective leaders have a good understanding of their strengths and weaknesses and they are oriented towards self-improvement rather then being defensive.
High-core self-evaluations. Such self-evaluation reflects on core stability. It involves of the evaluation of self-worthiness, effectiveness and capability as a person. Studies find that leaders with high level of self-evaluation are more likely to show confidence in followers and aspire them to achieve better results.
High self-confidence. Self confidence is essential for charismatic leadership. Leaders with high-confidence are more likely to attempt difficult tasks and set challenging objectives for themselves. Confident leaders take initiative to solve problems. Their commitment to accomplish tasks will influence their subordinates. They are likely to be more decisive in crisis as subordinates perceive that the leaders have the skills and knowledge to achieve objectives. Self-confidence is also associated with action taking when dealing with problems. Leaders with high-self confidence are less likely to put off dealing with difficult situations or shift responsibility on someone else. There are some clear advantages of having self-confidence, but when excessive, some dysfunctional behaviours may occur. It may make the leader overly optimistic and may result in rush decisions or even some flawed plans. A manager with extremely high confidence is likely to be arrogant, autocratic, intolerant of different views, especially if they are not emotionally mature. The manager may not be responsive to to concerns of others. The arrogance and know-it-all attitude have another negative side. They will have difficulty in developing cooperate relationships. Acting arrogant towards people who have more knowledge and expertise may create enemies and sabotage their own career.
Power motivation. Those with need of power enjoy influencing others. They use power to influence and have the assertiveness necessary to organise and direct group activities to promote desirable changes. However, personal power orientation can be dangerous. Social power orientation is much more effective. People with personal power orientation use the power to satisfy their strong need for esteem and they exercise it impulsively. They tend to be more abusive towards other people, drink too much or exploit others sexually. They love prestige, such as fancy cars. They want to keep others weak and dependent, they centralise authority and use rewards and punishment to manipulate others. Sometimes the leader plays people against each other to keep them weak. Managers with social power orientation are more emotionally mature. They exercise power to the benefits of others. They are not manipulative or egoistic. They use power to build up successful organisations. This type of leader is more participative and help others feel strong and responsible.
Personal integrity. The person is honest, ethical and trustworthy. They have the interpersonal trust. Without it is is difficult to gain loyalty of others. These leaders are fair and keep their promises. Integrity also means taking responsibility for their own actions and decisions. Integrity is en important aspect of ethical, authentic and spiritual leadership.
Achievement orientation. These leaders have the willingness to assume responsibility, performance orientation and concern for task objectives. They are more likely to solve task oriented problems. They will be setting challenging but achievable goals, developing actions plans and take initiative. It will however, depend on their motive pattern. If personal and short term achievements are south, they may be focusing only on their own career. This excessive competitiveness may make too many enemies. Sometimes they may want to win at any cost and fail to delegate and create sense of responsibility.
Need for affiliation. People with this need receive strong satisfaction from being liked and accepted by others. Sometimes, however, these managers are primarily concerned about personal relationships rather then the task. It is clearly undesirable for a manager to have strong need for affiliation but very low need may also have undesirable effects. This type of person may lack motivation to engage in social situations and fail to develop effective interpersonal skills and lack confidence to influence others.
The skills
One of most successful research for leadership skills divides them into technical, interpersonal and conceptual skills.
Technical skills include knowledge about methods, processes, equipment as well as factual knowledge about the organisation (rules, structure, management system, employees). It is acquired through formal education, training and job experience. Managers who supervise others need in-depth knowledge of the work. They need to be able to direct others and evaluate their performance. This knowledge is also important to the entrepreneurial leaders. New visions for products are generally born based on an extensive knowledge and experience. Their knowledge seeds inspiration for innovation to others. They also have to have an extensive knowledge provided by competitors. Otherwise strategic planning is likely to be ineffective.
Conceptual skills - these involve good judgement, intuition, creativity and ability to find meaning in complex situations. It includes the ability to develop concepts and categories to describe things, identify patterns. Otherwise people see things in black and white terms and have difficulty in seeing how many different complex elements make a meaningful whole. The person with high conceptual skills is able to see many shades of grey, define them and see patters to apply in new challenging situations. These skills are essential for effective planning, organising and problem solving. The manager must understand how changes in one part of the system affect others. Strategic planning requires analysis of information and trends, anticipate changes and see opportunities and threats. Managers with weak conceptual skills develop weak models of the business processes.
Interpersonal skills - these include the knowledge about human behaviour, ability to understand feelings, attitudes, motivations of others, as well as ability to communicate clearly. Skills like empathy, charm, tact and diplomacy are essential to develop cooperative relationships. Someone who is charming, tactful and diplomatic will be more effective. These are important for influencing people. Understanding what people want and how they perceive things helps to decide on the influence strategy. Strong interpersonal skills allow manager to listen in an attentive, sympathetic and non-judgemental way. They understand others needs and feelings and able to provide support. It is also an effective way for resolving conflicts. Working with others must become natural and continuous activity.
Political skills - organisational politics often allow individuals accomplish goals. It is the ability to understand others at work and use the knowledge to achieve business objectives. There need to be, however, the apparent sincerity and some networking skills. We need to understand the social interactions and interpret them in different situations. These leaders appear open, honest and trustworthy.
The competencies
Competencies are generally used as the desired attributes and examples include emotional intelligence, social intelligence and learning ability.
Emotional intelligence - these include several skills, for example empathy. It allows to see the feelings and emotions is us and others. We do not respond impulsively. Emotional intelligence also requires self-awareness and communication skills to express our own emotions. It can be learned, but requires coaching, strong desire and feedback. Leaders with emotional intelligence are likely to resolve complex problems easier and facilitate alternative solutions. The control in stressful situations allows maintain enthusiasm and optimism about any project or mission they face. We listen attentively and express appreciation and positive regard. We are able to influence others through their emotions.
Social intelligence - it means the ability to determine requirements for leadership and apply them in appropriate situation. Its the ability to understand functional problems and opportunities. It is required for strategic thinking and formulate appropriate response. It also involves interpersonal skills (empathy, social sensitivity) but also the knowledge of the organisation (structure, power relationships) which jointly allow to initiate an effective change. There needs to be a level of behavioural adaptiveness and flexibility. It involves self-monitoring as those who self-monitor are more aware of their own behaviours as well as the behaviours of others. It overlaps with political skills as leaders will understand how decisions are made and how to influence others.
Learning ability - leaders must be flexible enough to learn from mistakes, change their assumptions and refine their mental model. We need to be able to learn from experience and adapt to change. We need to be able to recognise our own cognitive process and find ways to improve it. We need to understand our own strengths and limitations.
Situational relevance
Managers need many types of skills to fulfil their roles. There are certain situations, for example managerial level, type of organisation, leader stress and the nature of the external environment that will affect the skills needed.
Level of management - different levels of management are related to different roles requirements. They will affect the importance of the different skills ( interpersonal, conceptual and technical) and their relative importance. For example, in higher level of management the relationship management is greater. The problems are more complex, unique and ill-defined. Top management generally coordinates many different activities across the entire organisation, therefore there are increased requirements for conceptual skills. They need to analyse ambiguous situations in order to make decisions, anticipate future events and plan for them. The role of middle-level-managers requires a mix of technical, interpersonal and conceptual skills. For low-level managers technical skills are more important. However, the skills requirements will depend on the type of the organisation, its size, structure and authorities.
Type of organisation - skills can be transferable from one organisation to another. Top managers with ample human relations and conceptual skills can be shifted from one industry to another with great ease. Some argue, however, that it also depends on the culture, ownership and business traditions. An individual who moves to a different industry must develop new network and new contacts.
Stress on the leader - stress for the leaders moderates the relations between the leaders intelligence and subordinates performance. Stress may be due to a very demanding boss, frequent crises and conflicts. Under low stress the leader is more likely to make more quality decisions. The leader cannot be distracted and needs to focus on their task.
External environment - the skill to build an organisation are not identical for managers in established organisations. The skills needed in environment with stable and predictive environment will be different then those needed in turbulent situations. Leaders need to have skills to respond to them effectively.
Summary
Particular traits and skills are important for managerial effectiveness. Therefore it is important to learn about our strengths and weaknesses, maintain high level of self-awareness, develop new skills, remember that strengths can become weaknesses and compensate for our weaknesses.
It is essential that we know what is required for success. If we understand our strengths we can develop them further and understanding of weaknesses makes it easier to correct them. Its advisable to take advantage of opportunities and seek continuous feedback from different centres.
We need to have a good understanding of our own needs, emotions, abilities and behaviour. It helps us to be more optimistic and enthusiastic. We need to know how we influence others with our behaviour and seek feedback in this direction.
It is also important to focus on continuous learning and self-development for the positions we want in the future. Some training may be acquired through coaching, courses and different assessments.
Some successful traits also in one situation can become weaknesses in another. Confidence can become arrogance, decisiveness can become rashness, integrity can become fantasy, global vision can become lack of focus. Any trait taken to an extreme can end badly.
Our weaknesses can be complimented for selecting subordinates who have the knowledge and skills we do not have.
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