COMM 351 Leadership

Class 5/6: Traits Leadership Theories

September 20 and 22
Wenjue Knutsen, PhD
 Overview of this week
• Personality characteristics and effective leadership
– Needs theory: “McClelland’s Theory of Needs”
• Need for power
– Narcissism
• Need for affiliation
• Need for achievement (Achievement Orientation)
– Other personality characteristics:
• Energy level and stress tolerance
• Self-confidence
• Locus of control
• Core self-evaluation
• Personal integrity
– Big-Five personality traits: application with in-class exercise
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 Cont.
• Skill and effective leadership
– Technical skills, conceptual skills, interpersonal skills
• Managerial competencies
– Emotional intelligence
– Social intelligence
– Learning ability
• Further understanding:
– Negative aspects of very low or very high trait scores
– Guideline for leaders

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 1. Personality Characteristics and
Effective Leadership

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 (1) Three needs: achievement,
affiliation, and power

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 Review: McClelland’s Theory of Needs
1. Needs for power
2. Needs for affiliation
3. Needs for achievement

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 (1) Needs for power and effective leadership
• An individual with a higher need for power  associated with
advancement and higher levels of management
• Two power orientations:
– Personalized power orientation: self-serving
– Socialized power orientation: others-serving
– Question for you: Which one is more likely to be associated
with effective leadership?

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 (2) Needs for affiliation
• See PollEverywhere
• Explain
• Recall: Behavior leadership theories
– Task-orientation
– Relationship-orientation
• A higher needs for affiliation  overemphasizing relationship-
orientated behaviour
• A lower needs for affiliation  loner

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 (3) Needs for Achievement
• In general, mixed findings
– Strong needs for achievement  over-emphasizing task-
orientation
– Weak needs for achievement  not motivated to pursue
success
• “Achievement motivation enhances leadership effectiveness
only if it is subordinated to a stronger need for socialized power,
so that the manager’s efforts are directed toward building a
successful team.”
• What happens if an individual with a higher level of
achievement orientation and a stronger need for individualized
power?

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 Narcissism and leadership
• What is your prediction on the effectiveness of leadership of
narcissists?

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 Other personality characteristics
• Energy level and stress tolerance
• Self-confidence
• Locus of control
– Internals vs. externals
• Core self-evaluation
– “A basic, fundamental appraisal of one’s self-worthiness,
effectiveness, and capability as a person.”
• Personal integrity

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 Big-Five Personality Traits and
Leadership

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 Big Five Personality Taxonomy

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 In-Class Exercise
• Utilize learned materials in combination with the Big-Five
Personality test you have conducted before class, discuss what
personality characteristics that you have may contribute
positively or negatively to your future effective leadership and
what recommendations do you have to yourself to improve the
weaker areas?
• Compile all group members’ answers into one document. In
your document, only address weaknesses and
recommendations for improvement for the future.
• Submit your group doc on D2L.

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 (Extroversion/Introversion)

(Dependability) See text p. 183-

+
184 for this table

+
(neuroticism)

Openness to experience
+
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 See our text p. 196
for this table

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 Reading assignment for Thursday class
• Sept. 22: (a) Skill and Managerial competencies and effective leadership: p. 185-198;
(b) “Case National Product:” p. 199-200
• Collins, J. 2001. Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve. HBR
– See our course website for this reading.
– https://hbr.org/2001/01/level-5-leadership-the-triumph-of-
humility-and-fierce-resolve-2

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 (2) Skill and Effective Leadership

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 a) Idea Level of Learning

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 Three-Factor Taxonomy of Broadly Defines Skills,
p. 185

Political Skills: The ability to effectively understand others at work, and to use such
knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance one’s personal and/or
organizational objectives.

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 b) Connection and Extension levels: The
complexity of traits leadership theories in
practice

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 Video: Why do so many incompetent men
become leaders?
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeAEFEXvcBg

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 Notes: Three reasons
• Our inability to distinguish between confidence and
competence.
– Confidence: How people think they are at something
– Competence: How good they actually are at something
• Our love for charismatic individuals
– Best leader: Humble than charismatic
• Our inability to resist the allure of narcissistic individuals
– Tap into our own narcissism
– Best leader: Manage to keep their narcissism in check. They
care a lot about other people including what they think of
them.

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 Advocate for effective leaders
• Confident, narcissistic and charismatic

vs.

• Competence, humility and integrity

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 Level 5 Leadership

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 The greatness of humility

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 Group work question:
• Examine all the guidelines/principles we learned so far, identify
a few that imply similar ideas to the humility component in
“Level 5 Leadership.”

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 In-Class Exercise (optional if no time)
• “National Products”: p. 199
– Provide an analysis on all three candidates by listing “pros”
and “cons” for them applying learned materials.

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