Leadership Approach

Leadership Approach Paper

LDR/531

September 10, 2012

Leadership Approach Paper

According to our text, Leadership in Organizations, there are about 5 approaches to studying leadership which are: Trait, Behavior, Power Influence, Situational and Integrative. For this assignment I will choose to elaborate on one of the above style, show the strengths and weaknesses of the chosen style: Trait.

Trait Approach Theory

Trait is one of the oldest approaches when it comes to the study of leadership. The trait approach accentuates the skill set of a leader with concentration on personality, values, morals and motives. The root of this approach believes that some individuals were born to be leaders, Natural leaders. According to the text, in the 1930s and 40s there were hundreds of studies conducted with the plan to discover the specific traits of a natural born leader. Some of the sought after traits of a natural leader are, “tireless energy, penetrating intuition, uncanny foresight, and irresistible persuasive powers” according to the text (Yukl, 2010)

Strength of the Trait Theory

There are a couple strengths to the traits theory of leadership, for it does make sense on some levels. Blueprinting leadership traits definitely helps in the recruitment process for most businesses since they have an ideal of what traits they are looking for in a leader or management. It also helps knowing what type of traits one looks for in a leader to help groom and create leaders, it’s about enhance what is naturally there in a leader but then adding conditioning leadership traits to individuals in leadership trainee programs. Knowing the specifics about quality leadership traits are what helps individuals understand how to successful, understanding the mechanics behind successful leaders help teach others to duplicate the structure.

Weakness of the Traits Theory

There are also weaknesses in the traits theory to leadership as well. The main problem is this theory is all...