Leadership Traits and Qualities for Success
Are great leaders born or can they be made? This question has been—and continues to be—a subject of great debate. Competing theories seek to explain whether effective leaders innately possess leadership traits or whether people can be taught the leadership skills necessary to successfully lead others.
As you might expect, these competing leadership theories have strengths and weaknesses. The debate is further complicated by the fact that everyone’s definition of effective leadership is not necessarily the same.
What is a good leader to you? Your answer might determine the theory you find most compelling. Your idea of top leadership traits might not make another person’s ideal leadership traits list.
If you believe that the ideal leader is capable of leading a team no matter what situation they are placed in, you might be drawn to the Trait Theory of Leadership. If you believe that a person is only a good leader if they learn certain skills, you might be more likely to believe the Behavioral Theory of Leadership.
These theories have fundamental differences, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from both. Knowing more about both these models can help you refine your understanding of what it takes to be a great leader. Let’s take a closer look at the two dominant theories of leadership.
Trait Theory of Leadership
The Trait Theory of Leadership says that certain people possess traits of an effective leader, while others do not. These traits are fixed. It’s important to note that just because you have these traits does not mean you are destined to be a great leader. In this theory, these traits are simply a foundation for an effective leader.
Here are a few trait theory examples of qualities that great leaders must possess:
- Drive – Qualities like motivation, energy, and initiative.
- Motivation to lead – An inclination to lead others that isn’t solely motivated by a drive for power.
- Integrity – An honest and ideal-driven approach to leading others.
- Self-confidence – A belief in one’s own decision-making abilities.
- Cognitive ability – The capacity to receive and process complex information.
The above list is full of personality and character traits that are determined at an early age or, some would argue, at birth. Some scholars rely heavily on evaluating the “Big Five” personality traits to determine a leader’s emergence potential. Emergence potential doesn’t necessarily mean that these traits will make a leader effective. It simply means that a person will be more likely to arrive at a leadership position. One analysis suggests the following order of importance of these traits in the emergence of leaders:
- Extraversion: This is highly linked to leadership emergence, though introversion does not exclude a person from leadership effectiveness.
- Conscientiousness: The reflection of which a person is dependable, responsible, perseverant, and achievement-driven.
- Openness to experience: Leaders seek out new experiences and are imaginative, broad-minded, and curious.
- Neuroticism: Individuals who are more likely than average to be moody. This trait has very little correlation to leadership roles.
- Agreeableness: This trait means people are generally warm, friendly, and get along with others. While there is no relevance to leadership emergence, there is a correlation to leadership effectiveness.
If you believe the Trait Theory of Leadership and run a business, you will likely look for candidates who possess these qualities when hiring for leadership positions. However, before you completely buy into this theory, it’s worth examining the potential limits and dangers of taking this approach.
One criticism of the trait theory is that many studies have relied heavily on self-reported evaluations. Leaders are asked to provide insights about themselves. This has obvious limitations. A more appropriate and scientific approach is a third-party evaluation by a professionally trained individual to identify personality traits in others.
Focusing too much on traits when choosing people for leadership positions could also introduce bias into the equation. For example, many qualities people instinctively (and often wrongly) assume are linked to strong leaders are more likely to be exhibited by men. If you pick leaders based solely on certain leadership traits, you could unknowingly introduce cultural biases into the process. In some cases, being aware of these biases can help you refine the list of traits you look for in leaders.