particular behaviours make for better leaders; and (3) contingency theories, which pro-
pose the situation has an effect on leaders. When you think about these theories, remem-
ber that although they have been considered “theories of leadership,” they rely on an
older understanding of what “leadership” means, and they do not convey Kanungo’s dis-
tinction between leadership and supervision.
Trait Theory: Are Leaders Different from Others?
Have you ever wondered whether there is some fundamental personality difference
that makes some people “born leaders”? Trait theories of leadershipemerged in the
hope that if it were possible to identify the traits of leaders, it would be easier to select
people to fill leadership roles.
The media have long been believers in trait theories. They identify people such as
Nelson Mandela, Richard Branson of the Virgin Group, and Steve Jobs of Apple as lead-
ers, and then describe them in terms such as charismatic, enthusiastic, decisive, and coura-
geous.The media are not alone. Exhibit 8-2 on page 260 shows the findings of a recent
survey of 200 CEOs, and what they cited as the most important leadership traits.
The search for personality, social, physical, or intellectual traits that would describe lead-
ers and differentiate them from nonleaders goes back to research done by psychologists
in the 1930s. However, until recently, research efforts at isolating leadership traits have
reached few conclusions.^4 A breakthrough, of sorts, came when researchers began organ-
izing traits around the Big Five personality framework (see Chapter 2, page 44).^5 They
found that most of the dozens of traits that emerged in various
leadership reviews fall under one of the Big Five personality traits
(extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stabil-
ity, and openness to experience). This approach resulted in con-
sistent and strong support for traits as predictors of leadership.
Comprehensive reviews of the leadership literature, when organ-
ized around the Big Five, have found that extraversion is the most
important trait of effective leaders.^6 But results show that extra-
version is more strongly related to leader emergence than to leader
effectiveness. This is not totally surprising since sociable and dom-
inant people are more likely to assert themselves in group situa-
tions. Conscientiousness and openness to experience also showed
strong and consistent relationships to leadership, but not as strong
as extraversion. The traits of agreeableness and emotional stabil-
ity do not appear to offer much help in predicting leadership.
Recent studies indicate that emotional intelligence (EI) is an
additional factor to consider in the emergence of a leader.^7 The
work on EI suggests that leaders need more than the basic traits of
intelligence and job-relevant knowledge.^8 It is the possession of
the five components of EI—self-awareness, self-management, self-
motivation, empathy, and social skills—that allows an individual to
become a star performer. Without EI, a person can have outstand-
ing training, a highly analytical mind, a long-term vision, and an
endless supply of terrific ideas, but still not make a great leader.
Based on the latest findings, we offer two conclusions. First,
traits can predict leadership. Second, traits do a better job at pre-
dicting the emergence of leaders and the appearance of leadership
than in actually distinguishing between effectiveand ineffectivelead-
ers.^9 The fact that an individual exhibits the traits and others con-
sider that person to be a leader does not necessarily mean that the
leader is successful at getting his or her group to achieve its goals.
Chapter 8Leadership 259trait theories of leadership
Theories that propose traits—per-
sonality, social, physical, or intellec-
tual—differentiate leaders from
nonleaders.Meg Whitman, president and CEO of eBay, is a leader with
high emotional intelligence. Since eBay founder Pierre
Omidyar chose Whitman to transform his start-up into a
global enterprise, she has emerged as a star performer in a
job that demands a high degree of social interaction with
employees and customers throughout the world. Whitman is
described as self-confident, trustworthy, culturally sensitive, a
high achiever, and expert at building teams and leading
change. Shown here, Whitman interacts with customers dur-
ing an eBay Live convention.