Question

Throughout​ history, strong leaders have been described by their traits. Trait theories of leadership focus on personal qualities and characteristics. The search for​ personality, social,​ physical, or intellectual attributes that differentiate leaders from​ non-leaders goes back to the earliest stages of leadership research. Which of the following accurately describes the difference between a leader and a​ non-leader?

A. Studies have shown that the best leaders are introverted and cannot only achieve the​ organization's goals, but they can entice employees to perform at a high level.​ Non-leaders are extraverted.B. Leaders are born with the inherent skills to manage​ effectively, and​ non-leaders will never be able to be effective leaders.C. Agreeableness and emotional stability show strong relationships to leadership.D. Leaders who like being around people and are able to assert themselves​ (extraverted), who are disciplined and able to keep commitments they make​ (conscientious), and who are creative and flexible​ (open), do have an apparent advantage when it comes to​ leadership, suggesting good leaders do have key traits in common.E. Organizations need strong leadership and strong management for optimal effectiveness. We need leaders to challenge the status​ quo, create visions of the​ future, and inspire organizational members to achieve the visions. We also need nonleaders to formulate detailed​ plans, create efficient organizational​ structures, and oversee​ day-to-day operations.

Answer 1

Agreeableness and emotional stability show strong relationships to leadership

Organizations need strong leadership and strong management for optimal effectiveness. We need leaders to challenge the status​ quo, create visions of the​ future, and inspire organizational members to achieve the visions. We also need nonleaders to formulate detailed​ plans, create efficient organizational​ structures, and oversee​ day-to-day operations.

Step-by-step explanation:

Throughout history, strong leadersâ€â€Buddha, Napoleon, Mao, Churchill, Roosevelt, Reaganâ€â€have been described in terms of their traits. Trait theories of leadership thus focus on personal qualities and characteristics. We recognize leaders like South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and American Express chairman Ken Chenault as charismatic, enthusiastic, and courageous. The search for personality, social, physical, or intellectual attributes that differentiate leaders from nonleaders goes back to the earliest stages of leadership research. Early research efforts at isolating leadership traits resulted in a number of dead ends. A review in the late 1960s of 20 different studies identified nearly 80 leadership traits, but only 5 were common to 4 or more of the investigations.3 By the 1990s, after numerous studies and analyses, about the best we could say was that most leaders â€Å"are not like other people,†but the particular traits that characterized them varied a great deal from review to review.4 It was a pretty confusing state of affairs. A breakthrough, of sorts, came when researchers began organizing traits around the Big Five personality framework (see Chapter 5).5 Most of the dozens of traits in various leadership reviews fit under one of the Big Five (ambition and energy are part of extraversion, for instance), giving strong support to traits as predictors of leadership. The personal qualities and characteristics of Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Group, make him a great leader. Branson is described as fun-loving, sensitive to the needs of others, hard working, innovative, charismatic, enthusiastic, energetic, decisive, and risk taking. These traits helped the British entrepreneur build one of the most recognized and respected brands in the world for products and services in the business areas of travel, entertainment, and lifestyle. Jason Kempin/FilmMagic/Getty Images, Inc. A comprehensive review of the leadership literature, when organized around the Big Five, has found extraversion to be the most important trait of effective leaders6 but more strongly related to leader emergence than to leader effectiveness. Sociable and dominant people are more likely to assert themselves in group situations, but leaders need to make sure they’re not too assertiveâ€â€one study found leaders who scored very high on assertiveness were less effective than those who were moderately high.7 Unlike agreeableness and emotional stability, conscientiousness and openness to experience also showed strong relationships to leadership, though not quite as strong as extraversion. Overall, the trait approach does have something to offer. Leaders who like being around people and are able to assert themselves (extraverted), disciplined and able to keep commitments they make (conscientious), and creative and flexible (open) do have an apparent advantage when it comes to leadership, suggesting good leaders do have key traits in common. One reason is that conscientiousness and extraversion are positively related to leaders’ self-efficacy, which explained most of the variance in subordinates’ ratings of leader performance.8 People are more likely to follow someone who is confident she’s going in the right direction. Another trait that may indicate effective leadership is emotional intelligence (EI), discussed in Chapter 4. Advocates of EI argue that without it, a person can have outstanding training, a highly analytical mind, a compelling vision, and an endless supply of terrific ideas but still not make a great leader. This may be especially true as individuals move up in an organization