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Cecilia Rice

Arizona State University

Professor Campbell

Organizational Leadership 300, Module 2

October 28, 2020

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Leadership traits and skills have been studied since the 20th century to determine what made

people great leaders. In this essay I will write about all that I have learned within chapter 2 and 3 of

Leadership Northouse. These chapters have been extremely important to me as I have learned lots about

what sort of leader I will be and what leadership traits I have.

Leadership traits consist of intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, and social

ability! Not all future leaders need these traits in order to be a leader, as they can learn leadership skills,

but these are important traits that leaders possess. Leaders must have intelligence in order to have their

followers listen and respect them. It is hard to listen to someone who is completely clueless about what

they are talking about! It is important to have self-confidence as a leader because followers have a hard

time learning from someone who is insecure about their decisions. Social ability is probably the most

important trait a leader can have as the must be able to connect with their followers and customers. I

believe that president Barack Obama was an amazing leader as he carried all of these leadership traits.

Being the first black president he had to have carried such a great amount of self confidence. He believed

in himself and was honest with our country as he made decisions best for our country. People listened to

Obama when he spoke and he had many great relationships with other leaders of different countries. His

social ability with other leaders of countries is what made the United States such a peaceful country. My

current manager at Starbucks it a really great leader, yet he struggles with the social ability to connect

with his employees. I do not like having meetings with him or having to ask him for days off because it is

always so awkward! I would not be working at the Starbucks store I am at if it wasn’t for my fellow co

workers who I am able to connect with. “Social intelligence is characterized as the ability to understand

one’s own and others’ feelings, behaviors, and thoughts and act appropriately” (Marlowe,1986). When a

leader lacks this trait of social intelligence they struggle with receiving and giving proper feedback to

their followers. It is an important trait and skill to learn!

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Skills leadership theory describes three very important components of leadership performance.

“Problem solving skills, social judgement skills, and knowledge” ((Northouse, 2016, p.56). These

components help describe leadership[ from a skills perspective. They provide a structure for

understanding how to be an effective leader and the skills based off of individual attributes,

competencies, and leadership outcome. Personally I have experiences leadership skills as a barista at

Starbucks and mother. Once you become a mother, you are instantly a leader. You lead your children

as teach raise them and teach them to do the right thing. I have had to use problem solviging to figure

out how to approach certain situations with my son and use knowledge as I go through the leadership

of motherhood. At Starbucks I am a barista, which is not a leadership positions, but during the times we

have new hires I have had to train them and lead them! I have had to motivate new baristas as they

have struggled with getting the hang of their new career experience. I try to teach them based off of my

experiences of working as a barista and I have succeeded in using these skills as a leader!

Case 2.2 in chapter 2 tells a story about a woman named Carol Baines who took over her

husbands office supply store after he passed. She brought the company so much success within the time

that she ran the business. Carol’s leadership traits definitely consisted of emotional intelligence. She

had the ability to be aware of and manager her own emotions as well as her staffs emotions. Carol

played a huge role in expanding the company, when she took over there were only 8 employees and by

the time she had retired they had hired 20 more people. The income of the store went from $200,000 to

3.1 million in sales within the 10 years Carol took control of the business. Carol would be a leader in

almost any business context because she had all the qualities of any amazing leader; strength,

goodness, and quality (Northouse, 2016, p. 35).

In chapter 3 of Northouse there is case study 3.3 about a man named Andy who owns an italian

restaurant. Andy had a very successful restaurant, as it has been opened for 25 years and delivers great

food to their customers. He has had many different managers over the years, but currently has 3. Kelly,

Danielle, and Patrick all help manager Andy’s italian restaurant. Kelly is great with numbers and her
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work ethic, yet struggles being nice to ALL people! She does not get along with the delivery people,

sales people, and the waitstaff. She definitely needs to work on her human skills! Danielle is amazing

with customers, but has lousy numbers when working. She needs to work on her conceptual skills in

order to bring in a good number of customers. Patrick is bad with customers, yet great with numbers,

he needs to work on his human skills. “Technical skills deal with things and human skills deal with

people, conceptual skills involve the ability to work with ideas” ((Northouse, 2016, p. 45). In this case

study Andy’s competencies are not that great. I believe he lacks human skills because he has had many

different managers over the last 25 years. Danielle has worked with Andy the longest for only 6 years,

which shows he does not seem to have managers stick around working for him. Andy is a hard worker

but spends little time analyzing the numbers making him also lack technical skills. His company does

very well for the lack of skills that he and his fellow managers lack.

The Leadership skills Questionnaire in Chapter 2 measures personal characteristics of a leader.

I took this quiz, had 3 family members, and had 2 coworkers take this quiz assessing myself. My scores

that I scored myself were similar to the 5 others that people assessed me on. I scored high on self

assured, self confident, persistent, determined, trustworth, dependable, friendly, outgoing, diligent,

sensitive, and empathetic. I was surprised that my coworkers did not thinking I was articulation! I

didn’t realize why I was scored low in this until they explained it to me! At work I tend to just do my

work and make drinks without articulating to others that I am making these drinks. I get so focused and

caught up in the flow of work that I forget to articulate what I am doing. This is something I need to

start working on that I didn't realize I struggled in. Almost all 14 questions I received between a 4-5

which I really appreciated! I believe this shows that I do possess many of the leadership skills and

would make a great leader one day!

In chapter 2 and 3 of Leadership Northouse I have not only learned lots about leadership, but

more about myself and the leader I am. The leadership traits, leadership skills, different case studies,

and the skills trait questionnaire has taught me a lot within these chapters. As we continue learning
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more throughout this textbook I look forward to all that I will take away and be able to bring into my

future leadership career.

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Citations

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice, 8th ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publishing

Company.