LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

WEEK 2: LEADERSHIP TRAITS, BEHAVIOURS AND RELATIONSHIPS

LEADERSHIP TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS:

- Traits: the distinguishing personal characteristics of a leader, ie. intelligence, honesty, self-confidence and
appearance
- Great Man Theory: a leadership theory that sought to identify the inherited traits of leaders
- A leader influences others to create real change to achieve a common vision

RANGE OF PERSONAL TRAITS OF LEADERS:

- Personal Characteristics:
- Energy, physical stamina - Social Characteristics
- Passionate - Likes people
- Open mind - Powerful listener
- Intelligence and Ability - Tact, diplomacy
- Intelligence, cognitive ability - Work-Related Characteristics
- Knowledge - Initiative, proactive
- Judgment, decisiveness - Nonconformist and courageous
- Personality - Persistence
- Self-confidence - Social Background
- Honesty and integrity - Educated, skilled
- Desire to lead - Flexible
- Emotional intelligence

STRENGTHS MULTIPLIER:
- Building your talents into real strengths requires practice and hard work
- Your strength = Your talent (a natural way of thinking, feeling or behaving) × Investment (time spent
developing your skills and your knowledge base)

MANAGING WEAKNESSES:
- Be aware of them, ie. managing detail
- Manage them by:
- Avoiding them if you can - Partner with someone who is strong in it
- Find another way to accomplish them - If critical, spend some time to be competent

AUTOCRATIC VS. DEMOCRATIC BEHAVIOUR:

- Autocratic Leadership: A leader who tends to centralize authority and derive power from position, control of
rewards, and coercion
- Democratic Leadership: A leader who delegates authority to others, encourages participation, relies on
subordinates’ knowledge for completion of tasks, and builds motivation by creating a vision
PEOPLE VS. TASK BEHAVIOUR:
- Employee-centered: A leadership behaviour that displays a focus on the human needs or subordinates
- Job-centered: Leadership behaviour in which leaders’ direct activities toward efficiency, cost cutting, and
scheduling, with an emphasis on goals and work facilitation
- Leadership Grid:
- Impoverished Management/Strategic Leadership: Little effort to build relationships or to get the work done
- Authority-Compliance Management/Leadership: Efficiency in operations dominates
- Country Club Management/Leadership: Primary focus on relationships and friendly organization
- Middle-of-the-Road Management/Leadership: Balance between keeping morale and getting work done
- Team Leadership: Work is accomplished by committed people
- Best leaders have behaviours high on the grid
- People work together on a supportive basis and are highly focuses on accomplishing a task
- Leaders can learn the needed behaviour (some universality vs. situational)