2.1.3.5 No Style?
According to recent data, the majority of German managers (64%) utilize a
cooperative style of leadership. Only 9% lead with an authoritarian style, i.e., without
integrating employees in the decision-making process. However, the surveys also
revealed that only 38% of employees have a role that includes interaction with
managers, very clearly showing the limits of cooperation in practice (see Frankfurt
Allgemeine Zeitung, August 18, 2003).
To briefly review this section, let us return to Peter F. Drucker, who emphasized
the meaning of relationships within the leadership role and the necessity of promot-
ing relationships as a priority. The expertise of having leadership skills alone is not
sufficient if the manager lacks the ability to take the human nature of himself/
herself and the employees into account. “Nevertheless, if a leader lacks character
and integrity, experience and success will not save them. Lack of character spoils
people, the most precious production factor in any enterprise. It spoils the spirit of
the company, along with its performance” (Drucker 1956, p. 198).
Malik in turn believes the influence of the leader should not be taken lightly.
Quality leadership is not simply a matter of skill. There is a growing camp of theo-
reticians and practitioners who have come to recognize that the leader’s personality,
their character traits, way of thinking and feeling, and decisions are crucial to
effective leadership.
2.2 The Leader
Good leadership depends largely on the personality of the leader.The majority of theories and approaches defining good leadership are – some of
them more, some less – based on the personality of the leader. According to these
concepts, their character traits and properties, charisma, thinking and behavior,
goals and decisions are crucial to the nature and success of leadership. These facets
constitute one subset of personal-based leadership approaches – the other sub-group
focuses on the personality of the employee and its influence on the leadership
process, which we will come back to later.
2.2.1 Character Traits
Either you are a leader or not – this is the position of the trait-oriented approaches in
a nutshell. Leadership cannot be acquired or learned, except for some techniques or
some basic business management knowledge. Here, the proponents of the charac-
ter-based approaches contradict very clearly those who see leadership as some-
thing that can be taught to anybody, believing instead that anyone who has certain
2.2 The Leader 57