Trait Theory of Leadership 1

TRAIT THEORY OF LEADERSHIP

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Introduction

Leadership theories try to explain why and how certain people become leaders. Some

theories focus on the traits of leaders, while others focus on certain behaviors people can

embrace to make them better leaders. The main aim of this paper is to critically evaluate the

trait theory of leadership in an organization and comment on how the theory fits with practice

in relation to Steve Jobs leadership style at Apple. The paper is structured as follows:

Part one discusses Apple’s former leader, Steve Jobs and links his traits to his

leadership style at the company. Part two introduces the trait theory of leadership and

discusses its history from its creation. Part three introduces the four trait theorists, which

include Gordon Allport’s 400 traits theory, Raymond Cartell’s sixteen Personality factor

questionnaire, Hans Eysenck’s three personality dimensions, the big five-factor theory of

personality. It discusses each trait theorist and evaluates its shortcomings. The final part

draws out the conclusion with respect to the trait theory.

Steve Job’s leadership style

The trait theory proposes that people are born with certain traits that make them either

leaders or followers. The most common traits are intelligence, creativity, confidence, and the

ability to influence and motivate others. The trait theory can be used to describe Steve Jobs’

style of leadership. Many theorists have argued that Jobs’ traits and personalities have made

him more successful. Jobs has converted all his traits, including the negative ones like

perfectionism and obsessiveness, into his career success.

Independent thinking is an example of such traits. An independent think will question

any assumptions and interpret data according to his beliefs, rather than existing rules that

have been defined by others. For instance, Jobs acted upon his own ideas, rather than the
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existing rules, to establish his own values and rules. He kept his employees anxious since the

employees thought that they could be fired any day.

The following traits perfectly describe Steve Jobs and his leadership style

Courage

Courage is the ability to step up and act even in the face of fear. When Jobs took over

Apple company, he knew about the potential of the bank getting insolvent. Since he had had a

successful career at his previous company known as Pixar, Steve was not hesitant to take over

Apple to greater heights. He had ignored all the negativity and embraced the vision to begin

restructuring the company.

Motivation

Steve Jobs was an influential motivator. Motivation is the internal or external force

that brings about the passion to achieve a goal. Steve’s engagements with his employees

motivated them. He motivated them through intrinsic rewards such as internal satisfaction

that results from the satisfaction someone feels after performing a certain task well. For

instance, an engineer who worked under Jobs’ tenure at Apple said that working at the

company was exciting due to the incredible momentum the company had. Another engineer

also said that most people loved working at the company because they had great passion and

loved the company’s products. This idea was as a result of Job’s influence.

Furthermore, Jobs motivated his employees by awarding them extrinsic rewards.

Extrinsic rewards are awarded in the form of promotions or pay rise. Jobs’ could let his

employees obtain Apple’s products at discounted prices. This was highly beneficial since, at

the time, Apple had a significant rise in its stock. Such extrinsic motivations have increased

employee productivity at Apple. Jobs was also proactive in developing employee potential.

He often had weekly meetings with his employees to discuss the progress of his products.
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During these meetings, Jobs was passionately involved in the development of the company’s

products. He proposed a lot of changes that seemed odd at the time but finally, they worked

out.

Trait theory of leadership

Trait theory is among the oldest notions of leadership and was widely used between

1930 to 1950. This theory identifies certain traits that are essential for a good leader. It

identifies the personality traits and behavior that distinguish leaders from non-leaders. The

trait theory assumes that leaders are born but not made through life experiences and learning.

It dwells on behaviors that are linked to good leaders across various situations, supporting the

idea that good leadership is based on innate characteristics.

The trait theory also focusses on the opposites between followers and leaders. It

assumes that leaders display better characteristics compared to their followers. However,

there are only a few traits that differentiate between leaders and their followers. These traits

include extroversion, confidence, and ego. It assumes that leaders are people with high self-

confidence, highly extroverted and of a huge ego, while their followers are timid, introverted

and lack self-confidence hence lack the ability to lead others.

Trait theory is closely related to the Great Man theory of leadership that was initially

put forward by Carlyle. Carlyle argued that leadership qualities were inherited at birth but not

developed. His arguments encouraged researchers to study more about inheritable

characteristics and leadership. However, good leadership is not entirely based on these

inheritable traits. It depends on whether the leader is honest, forward thinking, competent and

has the ability to inspire others. Leaders with above-aforementioned qualities can motivate

their followers and are very passionate to lead others to achieve their goals. Their followers
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have strong faith because of their great efforts, ambition, and initiative. Good leaders are also

known to be creative, intelligent, self-confident, flexible and social.

Critical analysis of trait theorists

Gordon Allport’s research

Allport was the first author to state and explain the characteristics that form a

personality. He did so by researching the dictionary where he found over 200 words that

referred to personality traits. He argued that every person’s collection of traits uniquely

identified them. A major concern about Allport’s research is whether obtaining words from

the dictionary is adequate enough to describe personality. The author noted that even if a

person possessed a characteristic that could not be described, it could not mean that the trait

was missing but there lacked words that could describe it.

The author’s research is based on reason rather than empirical research. For instance,

to derive the traits of a Muslim, the major source of reference would be the Quran or Hadith.

These books are based on revelations and are not considered empirical by researchers from

the West.

Even though the author wrote more on the uniqueness of people’s traits, he never

mentioned the need to develop those unique traits. For instance, if a person has a negative

unique trait such as misanthropy, he should not accept that since the trait makes him unique,

there is no need of changing it. Individuals should strive to be the best version of themselves,

including eliminating negative traits that can make them do bad things. When researching on

what should be considered as personality traits, one should not rely heavily on linguistics

alone. The finding that we gather should always be supported by empirical and reliable

evidence.
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Raymond Cattell’s 16 Personality Factors

Cattell tried to simplify and compact Allport’s large number of personality traits by

eliminating words that were redundant, unusual or doubled. He came up with two types of

traits, namely; source traits and surface traits. Surface traits are a type of characteristics that

are easily seen by other people while source traits are the basic traits from the heart that

underly surface traits. He used a statistical technique known as factor analysis to identify 16

source traits. He used these 16 source traits to create a personality factor questionnaire which

he named 16PF. Each factor represented a dimension which he argued that a person could be

high, in the middle or low in relation to a particular trait.

The 16-personality factor is basically a test that requires a user to complete the

questionnaire. For instance, he lists boldness on one end and shyness on the other end. The

personality of a person is identified by means of filling in the questionnaire. The personality

traits exist on a certain level, where some are more applicable than others. For example, some

people are very realistic and practical while others have a rich imagination. The author

published these 16 personality traits in 1949. These personality traits are briefly described

below:

Emotional engagement – it is the desire to create relationships with others. He breaks

them into two traits i.e. reserved versus outgoing.

Liveliness – it is the freedom of a person to express himself, characterized as either

restrained or spontaneous.

Emotional stability – the calmness a person possesses while responding to life events,

classified as calm or stressed.

Social security – It is the level at which a person feels at ease in social situations,

characterized as shy or uninhibited.

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Vigilance – the degree to which a person is cautious in regards to the intentions and

motivations of other people, classified as either trusting or suspicious.

Openness to change – the level at which someone enjoys new situations and

experiences, classified as either flexible or fixed.

Perfectionism – The need that a person feels to trust structure rather than abandoning

things to chance, classified either as undisciplined or controlled.

Ability to reason – the degree to which someone is able to provide solutions to both

verbal and numerical problems, classified as concrete or abstract.

Dominance – the ability to influence and control others, classified as submissive or

powerful.
Rule aware – it is the degree to which someone values rules, classified as conforming

or non-conforming.

Sensitivity – the degree to which feelings and emotions of other people affect

someone, characterized as tender or rough.

Abstractness – the level of attention that a person pays to abstract observations in

contrast to concrete observations, and can either be imaginative or practical.

Uncertainty – the tendency of someone to self-criticism, either self-assured or self-

critical.

Independence – the level and which someone trusts his judgments and decides to

work alone, and can be dependent or self-reliant.

Tension – the degree to which someone is frustrated with a situation. It can be relaxed

or impatient.
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The author further simplifies these traits to five major characteristics namely; anxiety,

toughness, extraversion, self-control, and independence. Due to the scientific background of

this theory, it has been widely adopted by many organizations to provide information during

the process of career counseling, provide help in career development, hiring, and promotion,

and providing assistance in identifying emotional, social and academical problems in students

and grown-ups.

Critique of the 16PF

There are no validated reports in the technical manual regarding Cattell's tests.

Furthermore, no data regarding the tests has ever been published. The interpretation of the

tests is also difficult and requires additional training. A new user may find it hard to

comprehend the 16-factor personality structure due to its complexity. The test also uses

random scale implying that responses are not related to specific content. Some questions in

the questionnaire require the ability to see hence not suitable for the blind audience.

Furthermore, for the audience where English is the second language, assessing the questions

can prove difficult to them.

Hans Eysenck’s three dimensions of personality

Eysenck’s narrowed the sixteen traits to two major traits namely intoversion-

extroversion and neuroticism-emotional stability. In his research, he discovered that certain

people possessed traits which could not be linked to these traits. As a result, he came up with

a third trait, namely illness-psychosis. Eysenck noted that personality traits are available in

certain groups and aren’t recognizable as not active every time. These traits are briefly

explained below:

Introversion/extroversion
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Introversion is focusing attention on the inner experiences while extroversion is

focussing the attention on the outward on the environment and other people. A highly

introverted person is normally quiet and reserved, while a highly extroverted person is more

social and outgoing.

Neuroticism/emotional stability

This trait involves even-temperedness against moodiness. Moodiness is a person’s

tendency to become emotional while even-temperedness is the ability to remain stable in the

face of stress.

Illness/psychoticism

People who score high on this dimension find it difficult dealing with reality. They

are often anti-social, manipulative and hostile.

Critical evaluation of Hans Eysenck theory

This theory suffers from problems related to measurement. For instance, while

investigating the relationship between cortical arousal and individual response, the author

shows that different systems of cortical arousal are activated in different persons. Some

people respond with excess breathing while others respond with excess sweating. Hence, it is

impossible to know the arousal system that is activated in a certain individual at a specific

time.

Paul Costa and Robert McCrae’s The Big Five

In the 1970s, Paul Costa and Robert McCrae discovered that the most personality

traits can be described using five dimensions, namely; extroversion, openness, agreeableness,

conscientiousness, and neuroticism. These dimensions are described below:

Extroversion
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It measures cheerfulness, communicativeness, and initiative. The people who are

highly extroverted are assumed to be sociable and are able to accomplish their set goals.

Those who are less extroverted submit easily to the authority and are more reserved.

Openness

People who are highly open are assumed to be more creative, more conventional in

thinking and can clearly distinguish between right and wrong.

Agreeableness

Those who are highly agreeable are more friendly and warm while those who score

less in this dimension are shy, egocentric and full of suspicion.

Conscientiousness

It measures someone’s level of organization. Well organized people are more

disciplined, motivated and trustworthy while irresponsible ones are less disciplined and

poorly motivated.

Neuroticism

This dimension measures emotional stability. The people who score highly in this

measure are more anxious, moody and with low self-confidence. Those who score less are

confident, calm and satisfied.

During a test based on the big five, one can easily select answers which correspond to

whatever personality they want. For instance, in a job interview, a person can easily cheat by

selecting the most likely answers that will get them the job. They can easily do a little

research regarding the big five to know which question relates to which factor. Furthermore,

a theory is valid if and only if the outcome it predicts matches the empirical evidence.

However, the big five is not capable of producing a stable output that agrees with the model.
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A person’s personality traits can change by a great margin over time while the IQ level

remains the same with time.

The big five theory also fails to include traits such as virtue, ethics, and morals, yet

one can have a good personality as classified by the big five but with bad morals. The big

five traits may not be intrinsic to an individual but only based on the current circumstance.

For instance, there is no such thing as an open-minded person. However, a person can be

open-minded about something or someone they care about.

In a recent study published on December 2013 by the Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology, a group of researchers conducted a translated version of the big five

personalities to 632 members of the Tsimane, a small clan composed of hunters and gatherers

in Bolivia. The researchers informed them to rate using a scale of 1 to 5 how much words like

reserved, energetic and aloof described their traits. Upon analyzing the results, the

researchers noticed that the traits did not cluster into the normal big five groups. For example,

someone who rated himself as talkative also said he was reserved, implying that the

extraversion concept did not hold up in this clan. The research is conflicting since past

research led by McCrae discovered evidence that supports the big five-factor personality.

Conclusions

From the above discussion, it is clear that the trait theory is so simple. This theory

also gives a clear indication that a good leader should possess specific traits, thus helping the

managers to develop these traits through training. However, this theory lacks a clear-cut

result. It does not incorporate the complete part of the leadership environment.of which the

characteristics may only be one of the factors. Furthermore, various researches have shown

that the trait theory fails to generalize the characteristics of good leaders. No specific level

has been given for various traits yet people possess various characteristics and various levels.
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The discussion clearly shows that there’s a problem with measuring of personality

traits. Various tests are available to measure the traits but none of the tests draws to a

conclusion. There have been a lot of people who possess traits that are considered best suited

for a leader but they haven’t been good leaders.

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