TRAIT THEORY OF LEADERSHIP

Trait Theory of Leadership

Submitted to fulfill the requirements of the Organizational Psychology Course

Lecturer:

Bagus Riyono, M.A., Psi., Ph.D.

Written by:

Kautsar Muhammad Wiroto

18/423147/PS/07528

INTERNATIONAL UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM

FACULTY OF PSYCHOLOGY

UNIVERSITAS GADJAH MADA

YOGYAKARTA

2020
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A. LEADERSHIP

A leader is defined as a person with the responsibility to influence one or more followers and
directing them to achieve a set objective (Sethuraman & Suresh, 2014). In doing so, the leader
must know about the strength of every one of his followers and distinguish the territories to be
improved. Literature has expressed that the critical components for a fruitful association are
leadership style and competency. The five significant elements of leadership are ordered as
follows. (Joel DiGirolamo, 2010).

● Create a vision and focus on it.

● Set up a high-performance team.

● Keep the team motivated.

● Maintain a good rapport with people around to make sure they are aware of the
information needed.

● Satisfy employees to minimize attrition

For a long time traits have not been perceived as a significant aspect for effective
leadership, in spite of this, the investigation on leadership has demonstrated that the aspect of
the personality is additionally significant for compelling leadership, for example, dominance,
extraversion, sociability, self-confidence, high levels of energy, and resilience. Realizing one's
personality type may assist leaders with the knowledge and understand oneself better.
Understanding the personality kind of oneself would assist the leaders with perceiving how their
traits, abilities, and behaviors are formed (Philip E. Burian, et al., 2014).

B. Trait Theory

Great man theory expresses that the leaders are born and not made. Innate qualities will
arise depending on their need. This theory worked out in a good way for history specialists and
was named as "Great man theory" as in the prior days the leadership job was taken simply by
males. This idea was repetitive after a great deal of exploration and studies were done on
leadership (Maj Earl Russel, 2011).
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The trait theory approach was additionally one of the early theories of leadership, which
overwhelmed half of the twentieth century. This methodology centers around the fundamental
traits, for example, physical and individual attributes alongside the capabilities a leader ought to
have. It depends on the presumption that fundamental traits are the purpose behind the conduct
of the leaders which are predictable in various circumstances. Like the Great Man theory, this
methodology expresses that leaders have qualities that they are brought into the world with and
it stays reliable for quite a while (Fleenor, John W., 2011). However, the aftereffects of these
investigations were frequently conflicting. To a limited extent, the conflicting outcomes that
prompted this suspicion were because of the various traits that had been considered in this
exploration. In an examination of reviews of the writing, Bass (1990) noted 43 separate qualities
that were inspected in these investigations. With this enormous number of leadership traits, the
absence of a getting sorted out personality framework made it hard to think about outcomes
across studies. However, as of late, an agreement on the structure of personality has arisen
around the five-factor model of personality (McCrae and Costa, 1992). Factor investigation of
both trait modifiers and personality inventories has uncovered that personality traits can be
sorted into five fundamental factors: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience,
agreeableness, and conscientiousness. The Big Five personality traits are predictors of
assorted rules of interest in the field of mechanical and authoritative brain science, including
position performance (Colbert et al., 2012).

C. Personality Types of a Leader

Big Five Personality Theory

People high in neuroticism will in general be on edge, shaky, and reluctant. Neuroticism
is additionally connected with Irritability, aggression, and outrage. People high in neuroticism
might be less inclined to arise as leaders or be as powerful as leaders for a few reasons. To
start with, when people high in neuroticism express outrage and aggression, others in the
gathering may respond adversely to them. Successive articulations of outrage and aggression
may make it hard for such people to create connections and have an impact on others in the
gathering. Moreover, people high in neuroticism might be conflicting with their behavior thus
inconsistent and emotional responses due to tendencies toward insecurity and depression. In
the event that others in the group experience issues in predicting the behavior and responses of
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people high in neuroticism, they may not confide in them, bringing about a low impression of
leadership (Colbert et al., 2012).

People high in extraversion are depicted as agreeable, gregarious, and warm. They
appreciate social collaboration and increase energy from it. Extraverts are additionally more
confident than introverts, displaying strength in gatherings (McCrae and Costa, 1985). Both
friendliness and strength may impact others' view of leadership. Examination on implicit
hypotheses of leadership shows that people partner leadership with being solid, strong, and
powerful, and consequently it appears to be likely that people with an affinity toward strength
would be viewed as more leaderlike. Given these hypothetical connections among extraversion
and leadership, it is maybe to be expected that studies have proven that the expansive quality
of extraversion is identified with being seen as more leader-like (Colbert et al., 2012).

People high in openness to experience will in general be creative, daring, and

unpredictable (Chernyshenko et al., 2011). Openness to experience is related to divergent
reasoning and creativity (McCrae, 1987). In a few studies, creativity has been recognized as
significant expertise of a viable leader. This proposes that openness to experience might be
related to initiative appraisals. People high in openness to experience are additionally tolerant of
vagueness and have an inclination for intricacy. These attributes are significant in empowering
leaders to manage followers toward the accomplishment of their objectives (Colbert et al.,
2012).

Conscientious people are regularly portrayed as detailed, dependable, coordinated,

dedicated, resilient, and accomplishment endeavoring (Chernyshenko et al., 2011).
Conscientiousness is the Big Five personality trait that has the most grounded relationship with
work performance. Conscientiousness is likewise expected to be identified with leader
emergence and effectiveness. Since conscientiousness has appeared to foresee task capability,
it is additionally expected to be identified with view of leadership. Furthermore, effective leaders
fill in as role models or good examples of desirable behaviors. As leaders endeavor to inspire
others to apply exertion toward accomplishing a shared objective, their own objective-striving
attitude can serve to urge others to display similar behaviors. Consistent with the estimation,
although the study could be obsolete considering the disparity of the time of the study, Judge,
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Bono et al. (2002) found that conscientiousness was the Big Five personality trait with the
second-most relevant relationship to leadership.

Agreeableness is the propensity to be trusting, helpful, mindful, and lenient

(Chernyshenko et al., 2011). The relationship of agreeableness with leadership is fairly
questionable. Agreeable people are helpful, now and then to the point of getting along
(fellowship) before excelling. In gathering circumstances, this may keep agreeable people from
arising as leaders (leader emergence). Be that as it may, agreeable people are additionally
seen as being warm and delicate to other people. These attributes are decidedly identified with
leadership.
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References

Bass, B. M., & Stogdill, R. M. (1990). ​Bass & Stogdill's handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and

managerial applications​. Simon and Schuster.Colbert, A. E., Judge, T. A., Choi, D., & Wang, G.

(2012). Assessing the trait theory of leadership using self and observer ratings of personality: The

mediating role of contributions to group success. ​The Leadership Quarterly​, ​23(​ 4), 670-685.

Chernyshenko, O. S., Stark, S., & Drasgow, F. (2011). Individual differences: Their measurement and

validity. In ​APA handbook of industrial and organizational psychology, Vol 2: Selecting and

developing members for the organization.​ (pp. 117-151). American Psychological Association.

Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). ​Revised NEO Personality Inventory and NEO Five-factor Inventory:

NEO PI-R; NEO-FFI​. Psychological Assessment Resources.

Derue, D. S., Nahrgang, J. D., Wellman, N. E. D., & Humphrey, S. E. (2011). Trait and behavioral theories

of leadership: An integration and meta-analytic test of their relative validity. ​Personnel

Psychology​, ​64​(1), 7-52.

Fleenor, J. W. (2011). Trait Approach to Leadership. Encyclopedia of Industrial and organisational

Psychology. SAGE Publication

Joel, D. (2010). The art, psychology, and science of management—an integrated approach. Leaders and

the Leadership Process, Turbocharged Leadership.

Judge, T. A., Bono, J. E., Ilies, R., & Gerhardt, M. W. (2002). Personality and leadership: a qualitative and

quantitative review. ​Journal of applied psychology,​ ​87(​ 4), 765.

Maj, E. R. (2011). Leadership Theories and Style: A Transitional Approach. Military Leadership Writing

Competition, CGSC Class 11-02.

McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. (1985). Updating Norman's" adequacy taxonomy": Intelligence and

personality dimensions in natural language and in questionnaires. ​Journal of personality and

social psychology,​ ​49(​ 3), 710.

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Philip, E. B. et al. (2014). Leadership Systems Model: An Integration Of People, Process, And Behaviors

In A Dynamic And Evolving Environment. The Clute Institute International Academic Conference.

Munich, German.

Sethuraman, K., & Suresh, J. (2014). Effective leadership styles. ​International Business Research,​ ​7​(9),

165.