Leadership, Traits, Skills, Styles and
Intelligences
Chapter 2
Learning Objectives
• Introduce and critically discuss traditional
approaches to leadership that look at the traits,
characteristics and personality of leaders
• Introduce and critically discuss the notion of
leadership style
• Introduce and critically discuss the notion of
intelligence or intelligences and the link to leadership
• Explore the difference between traits, skills, styles
and intelligences of leadership
Trait, Personality, Skill, Style or
Intelligence?
• Trait – a distinguishing feature in character, appearance, habit
or portrayal
• Personality – a distinctive character or qualities of a person,
personal existence or identity, being a person
• Skill – expertness, a practised ability, facility in an action
• Style – a kind or sort, a manner of writing, speaking or doing,
a distinctive manner of a person
• Intelligence – understanding, a quickness of understanding
The Early Development of Leadership
Theory
Period
Approach
Core theme
Up to late 1940s
Trait approach
Leadership ability is innate
Late 1940s to late 1960s
Style approach
Leadership effectiveness is to do
with how the leader behaves
Late 1960s to early 1980s
Contingency approach
It all depends; effective
leadership is affected by the
situation
Since early 1980s
New Leadership approach
Leaders transform the way
people feel about themselves
Source: Bryman, A. 1992. Charisma and leadership in organisations. London: Sage. P.1.
Traits
• Thomas Carlyle (1866) and ‘The Great Man Theory’
– Leaders as heroes in society within positions of
responsibility
– Roots of leadership as a heroicised, masculinised concept
(Spector, 2016)
• Stogdill (1948 and 1974): theory and research into
traits
– Leaders are born – aim to find the ‘ultimate list of traits’
– Research could not prove that traits are the main
explanatory factor for leadership and effective leadership
– Lack of evidence has led to inclusion of behavioural and
situational factors
Key Trait Research Studies and Findings
Stogdill
Mann (1959)
Stogdill (1974)
(1948)
Lord, deVader and
Kirkpatrick and
Alliger (1986)
Locke (1991)
Intelligence
Intelligence
Achievement
Intelligence
Drive
Alertness
Masculinity
Persistence
Masculinity
Motivation
Insight
Adjustment
Insight
Dominance
Integrity
Responsibility
Dominance
Self-confidence
Confidence
Initiative
Extroversion
Responsibility
Cognitive ability
Persistence
Conservatism
Cooperativeness
Task knowledge
Self-confidence
Tolerance
Sociability
Influence
Sociability
Source: Northouse, P.G. 2007. Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. P. 18.
Traits
•
‘Leaders are born, not made’ and effective leaders
have certain qualities in common, such as:
− Intelligence, dependability, sense of responsibility,
energy, sociability (e.g. Stogdill - Ohio State studies)
•
Xu et al. (2014) show that research into traits is still
going strong and point towards new insights that
suggest dynamic differences – linked to changes over
time – between intrinsic and extrinsic traits
•
BUT: Findings are not consistent and the leadership
situation is formally not considered
Personality
• Judge et al. (2002) demonstrated a link between the
‘big 5 personality factors’ and leadership:
– Neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and
conscientiousness
• Hogan and Judge (2012) suggest in their review of
the field two factors mediating the impact of
personality on effective leadership:
– The leader’s socio-political intelligence
– The extent to which the leader is seen to have integrity
Leadership Styles
• Considers behavioural patterns as the determinant of
effective leadership
• Principal dichotomy between:
– Task behaviours
– Concern for task - the extent to which the leader emphasises the
task objectives
– Directive leadership - the extent to which the leader makes all the
decisions regarding group activity
– Relationship behaviours
– Concern for people - the extent to which the leader emphasises
the needs, interests etc. of the group
– Participative leadership - the extent to which the leader shares
decision-making concerning group activity
Leadership Styles
• The key research studies informing the Styles
approach to Leadership were:
– Boys Club Experiment (Lewin et al., 1939)
– The Ohio State Study (e.g. Stogdill and Coons, 1957; Halpin
and Winter, 1957)
– The Michigan State Study (e.g. Katz and Kahn, 1951; Likert,
1961)
• This led to the development of Blake and Mouton’s
Managerial Grid (1964, 1978, 1985) and John Adair’s
Action Centred Leadership Model (1973)
Leadership Styles
• Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid (1964)
9
1,9:
Country
Club Mgmt
Concern
for
People
1
9,9: Team
Mgmt
5,5: Middleof-the-Road
Mgmt
1,1:
Impoverished
Mgmt
9,1:
AuthorityCompliance
Mgmt
9
Concern for Results
Leadership Styles
• Adair’s (1973) Action Centred Leadership
Task Needs
Team
Maintenance
Needs
Individual
Needs
Leadership Styles
• Key Strengths: Provide a language with which
to describe leadership in a generic way and
stresses the ability to learn to be a leader.
Offers a best way of leading.
• Key Limitations: Research findings are
ambiguous and inconsistent. Lack of
consideration of contextual variables.
Skills Approaches
• Three-Skill Approach (Katz, 1955):
– Technical Skills: functional and problem-solving skills
– Human: ability to work effectively as a group member
and to build co-operative effort within a team
– Conceptual Skill: ability to see the enterprise as a
whole
• Different skills needed at different managerial
levels
– Technical Skills decrease in importance at higher levels
– Human Skills are important at all levels
– Conceptual Skills increase in importance at higher
levels
Leadership of Organisations vs.
Leadership in Organisations
• Leadership of Organisations: human actors in
interaction with the organisation in its entirety
– Resembles Conceptual skills in Katz’ skills
approach
• Leadership in Organisation: involves team
leadership and face-to-face interaction at all
levels
– Focus of 90% of the current leadership literature
The Systems Model of Leadership
• Katz and Kahn (1966, 1978):
– At lower hierarchical levels little ‘leadership’ is required –
focus is on administration of effective operations
– At middle levels administrative procedures are developed
and implemented, and human relations skills are
important
– At the top levels of an organization, administrative
procedures are initiated to reflect new policy
• The extent to which ‘leadership’ is needed at any of
these levels has been subject to wider debate
The Systems Model of Leadership
Level
Leadership Function
Cognitive Skills
Affective Skills
Top
Change, creation and
System perspective
To create charisma
Supplementing, piecing and
Subsystem
Human relations skills
improvising for the
perspective
elimination of organizational
structure
Middle
structural inadequacies
Lower
Utilisation of existing
Technical
Concern for equity in the use of
structure
knowledge
rewards and sanctions (i.e. being
fair)
Adapted from: Sinha, J.B.P. (1995) The Cultural Context of Leadership and Power. New Delhi: Sage, pp39-40 (Originally published
in Katz, D., and Kahn, R.L. (1966) The Social Psychology of Organizations. New York: John Wiley).
Organizational Leadership: Towards a
General Model
Five ‘Intelligences’ Underlying Leadership
•
•
•
•
•
Cognitive intelligence
Spiritual intelligence
Emotional intelligence
Moral intelligence
Behavioural skills
(Gill, 2006)
Cognitive Intelligence
The ability to perceive and understand
information, reason with it, imagine
possibilities, use intuition and imagination,
make judgements, solve problems and make
decisions.
Spiritual Intelligence - 1
The ability to understand that human beings
have an animating need for meaning, value
and a sense of worth in what they seek and
do and to respond to that need.
(Gill, 2006)
Spiritual Intelligence - 2
“…the intelligence with which we address
and solve problems of meaning and
value.”
(Zohar and Marshall, 2001)
Emotional Intelligence - 1
The ability to understand oneself and the
feelings and needs of other people, exercise
self-control, and respond to other people in
appropriate ways in order to influence,
motivate and inspire them.
(Gill, 2006)
Emotional Intelligence - 2
“Emotional Intelligence includes selfawareness and impulse control, persistence,
zeal and self-motivation, empathy and social
deftness.”
(Goleman, 1996)
Emotional Intelligence - 3
•
•
•
•
•
Knowing one’s emotions
Managing emotions
Motivating oneself
Recognising emotions in others
Handling relationships
(Salovey and Mayer, 1990)
Moral Intelligence
The ability to differentiate right from
wrong according to universal moral
principles.
(Gill, 2006)
Behavioural Skills
Using and responding to emotion (e.g. body
language), communicating in other ways
(writing, speaking and active listening), using
personal power, and using different
leadership styles according to the situation.
Critical Views of the Relationship between
Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Leadership
• Emotional Intelligence research is not applicable to
all cultures and contexts (Lindebaum and Cartwright,
2010; Lindebaum and Cassell, 2012)
• Antonakis, Ashkanasy and Dasborough (2009)
– ‘…does leadership as a science need ‘emotional
intelligence (EI)?’ – John Antonakis
– ‘…researchers need to continue to develop and to study
emotions and in particular their role in leadership.’ - Neal
Ashkanasy and Marie Dasborough
References
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Adair, J. (1973) Action Centred Leadership. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Antonakis, J., Ashkanasy, N.M. and Dasborough, M.T. (2009) Does leadership need emotional
intelligence? Leadership Quarterly, 20: 247-261.
Blake, R.R., and Mouton, J.S. (1964) The Managerial Grid. Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing
Company.
Bryman, A. (1992) Charisma and Leadership in Organizations. London: Sage.
Carlyle, T. (1866) On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History. New York: John Wiley.
Gill, R. (2006) Theory and Practice of Leadership. London: Sage Publications.
Goleman, D. (1995) Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.
Hogan, R. and Judge, T., (2012). Personality and leadership. In M.G. Rumsey. (Ed.) The Oxford
handbook of Leadership, p.37-46
Judge, T.A., Bono, J.E., Ilies, R. and Gerhardt, M.W. (2002) Personality and leadership: A
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Katz, D. and Kahn, R.L. (1966) The Social Psychology of Organizations. New York: John Wiley.
Katz, R.L. (1974) Skills of an effective administrator. Harvard Business Review, 52(5): 90-102.
(Originally published in Harvard Business Review in 1955).
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Lewin, K., Lippitt, R. and White, R.K. (1939) Patterns of aggressive behaviour in
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References
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Lindebaum, D., and Cartwright, S. (2010) A Critical Examination of the Relationship between
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Lindebaum, D., and Cassell, C. (2012) A contradiction in terms? Making sense of emotional
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Lord, R.G., DeVader, C.L. and Alliger, G.M. (1986) A meta-analysis of the relation between
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Mann, R.D. (1959) A review of the relationship between personality and performance in small
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Northouse, P.G. (2007) Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Salovey, P. and Mayer, J. (1990) Emotional Intelligence. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 9:
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Spector, B.A. (2016) Carlyle, Freud, and the Great Man Theory more fully considered. Leadership,
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Stogdill, R.M. (1974) Handbook of leadership: A survey of the theory and research. New York: Free
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Zohar, D. and Marshall, I. (2001) Spiritual Intelligence. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Xu, L., Fu, P., Xi, Y., Zhang, L., Zhoa, X., Cao, C., Liao, Y., Li, G., Wue, X., and Ge, J. (2014) Adding
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