The type of skill needed by top management leadership
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Submit replies of at least 250 words each to at least 2 other students. Each reply must be supported by citing at least 2 peer-reviewed journal articles. Your replies must be in current APA format and must include a reference list. Make sure that you are adding new and relevant information with each reply.
Reply to Callesha
Prior to discussing the approaches of leadership we must first understand the meaning of Leadership. Leadership is the tact to achieve the set goals of an organization by motivating people to work efficiently. It is the capability of getting excellent results from average employees. It is the perception far above the average. It is the quality of a person who will inspire others with his personality, traits, and skills to follow him. In short, it is the process of influencing others to follow your footsteps with their willingness (Shaver, 2012). Leadership is the intrinsic and innate capacity of a person (Khoshhal & Guraya, 2016). There are certain traits of a person which help them to be a successful leader (Northouse, 2019).
It is very imperative to understand the trait approaches to leadership. It is one of the oldest theories of leadership and it is related to the personality of leaders and their attributes and perspectives as to how one sees a problem and how one will respond to it. These traits are intrinsic and are a consistent part of their personality (Fleenor, 2006). The most important trait of a leader is integrity. It is the trait of a person that executes plans as promised. A leader with integrity is a “man of his words”. A leaders must be honest with their employees so that he can inspire them with his integrity. No employee will consider a person as a leader if he is dishonest with others or not forthright. Therefore, integrity is a crucial and significant trait of inspiring leaders. Leaders will reinforce workers in the promotion and application of change, retaining employees and improving their performances (Swain, Cao, & Gardner, 2018).
Another approach towards leadership is the skills approach which states that some skills can be learned with time. These skills are not inherent but are learned with experience and the gaining of knowledge. These skills are developed using evaluated training and assistance (Wright & Taylor, 1985). According to the three skills approach, effective leadership has three types of skills such as technical, conceptual and human skills. Technical skills are related to a certain type of knowledge regarding a task. These skills involve techniques, practices, actions, or methods. Information regarding the company’s guidelines, framework, and administration are also included in the technical skill. These are achieved by the passage of time and experience as mentioned before (Haq, 2011). These skills are also important when launching a new product for the company and are not quite significant in top management.
The type of skill needed by top management leadership is a conceptual skill. It is the capability of thinking critically, analyzing things logically and making the appropriate decision at the appropriate time. This also contains far-sightedness, worthy decision making, vision, creativeness, and the competence to take verdicts in complex circumstances. These are required by top-level management leaders because he has to make plans and decisions to make the company achieve greater results (Haq, 2011). Leadership is the capability of a person to drive normal employees in achieving great outcomes by inspiring them with his traits and skills. The traits are inherent in a leader such as integrity and skills which are learned with the time. While traits and skills approach are quite important in developing success, leaders will be the reason for the success of a company. According to the bible, a leader must possess some qualities that should be honest and should not tolerate any wrongdoing, same as the integrity trait of leadership which requires a leader to possess honesty as a part of its personality. A leader must be knowledgeable and have in-depth knowledge regarding the company’s matters according to the Bible which relates to technical and conceptual skills required by a leader (Bimson, 1994).
References
Fleenor, J. W. (2006). The trait approach to leadership. Psychology, 37(1), 651-665.
Haq, S. (2011). Ethics and leadership skills in the public service. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 15, 2792-2796.
Khoshhal, K. I., & Guraya, S. Y. (2016). Leaders produce leaders and managers produce followers: a systematic review of the desired competencies and standard settings for physicians’ leadership. Saudi medical journal, 37(10), 1061.
Shaver, E. (2012). The many definitions of leadership. The Human Factor Advocate.
Swain, A. K., Cao, Q. R., & Gardner, W. L. (2018). Six Sigma success: Looking through authentic leadership and behavioral integrity theoretical lenses. Operations Research Perspectives, 5, 120-132.
Wright, P. L., & Taylor, D. S. (1985). The implications of a skills approach to leadership. Journal of Management Development.
Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: theory and practice (8th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Bimson, John J. “1 and 2 Kings.” In New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition. 4th ed. Edited by D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, and G. J. Wenham. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity, 1994.
Trait and Skill Approaches in Leadership (28.061 KB)
Reply to Thomas
Leadership is a complex action and responsibility that involves many different traits and skills. Some of these traits and skills are likely innate and some can be learned or trained. The link to leadership and certain traits may have positive and negative consequences. Trait leadership theory “rests on the premise that leaders are individuals with innate traits of leadership” (Pidgeon & Kristopher, 2017, p. 339) Understanding some of the traits and trait to leadership relationships of leaders can help contribute to the overall understanding of leadership theories. “The theory has an advantage, as it is easy to accept for many individuals and research has validated the foundation of the theory.” (Pidgeon & Kristopher, 2017, p. 339)
Traits of leaders can have an impact on their effectiveness. One of those traits that has an effect on a leader is agreeableness. “Agreeableness refers someone who is modest, altruistic, trusting, kind and cooperative.” (Özbağ, 2016, p. 218) According to a study by Prochazka, Vaculik, Smutny, and Jezek (2018) they had a participant list of 210 students in a leadership role and 3,766 students in a subordinate role. The study then put the participants through a four-month management simulation game. After the management simulation was over, the subordinate participants were given questionnaires regarding their leaders and leader participants were given a personality questionnaire and intelligence test. The results concluded that,” The strongest predictor of leader effectiveness in our research was agreeableness.” (p. 492) The trait of agreeableness can also be seen as ineffective in certain cases. For example, in the text by Merida (2016) where he references the ruler Rehoboam as having some agreeableness qualities. Rehoboam was very agreeable and cooperative to his mother, where he “made the wrong choice.” (p. 86) because of it. “He did evil, because he did not prepare his heart to seek the LORD.” (2 Chr 12:14 NKVJ)
Other traits of leaders may also exhibit mostly negative effects. One of those traits is Neuroticism. “Neuroticism stands for anxiety, worry, anger, trouble, impulsive, acting uncontrolled, insecurity and stressed.” (Özbağ, 2016, p. 238) In a study by Özbağ (2016), they utilized participants who were students in the Marine Business Administration Department of Kocaeli University. They filled out a questionnaire regarding personality traits and ethical leadership. The results of the study concluded, “Finally the results indicate a negative relationship between neuroticism and ethical leadership,” (p. 241) and that it is “reasonable that leaders who score higher on neuroticism are likely to be rated lower on ethical leadership.” (p.241) In a study by Prochazka, Vaculik, Smutny, and Jezek (2018) they also found that “Neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, and intelligence did not predict transformational leadership.” (p. 489)
Even though “the trait theory rests on the premise that leaders are individuals with innate traits of leadership. Leaders are born and cannot be trained or developed. These traits include drive, honesty, integrity, charisma, and self-confidence,” (Pidgeon & Kristopher, 2017, p. 339) it is clear that the theory of trait leadership isn’t strictly something one is born into or that trait leadership is an all-encompassing theory of leadership. It is difficult to say that these traits, including agreeableness and neuroticism are something that is innate only and should be considered for future research.
References:
Merida, T., Akin, D. D. L., Platt, D. (2015). Exalting Jesus in 1 & 2 Kings. United States: B&H Publishing Group.
Özbağ, G. K. (2016). The role of personality in leadership: Five factor personality traits and ethical leadership. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 235, 235-242. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.11.
Pidgeon, K. (2017). The Keys for Success. Journal of Trauma Nursing, 24(6) 338-341.
doi: 10.1097/JTN.0000000000000322
Prochazka, J., Vaculik, M., Smutny, P., & Jezek, S. (2018). Leader traits, transformational leadership and leader effectiveness: A mediation study from the Czech republic *. Journal of East European Management Studies, 23(3), 474-501. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.5771/0949-6181-2018-3-474
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