Essentials of Organizational Behavior, 14/e

Trait Theories of Leadership

We define leadership as the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals. Surely you’ve noticed, though, that not all leaders are managers, nor are all managers leaders. Nonsanctioned leadership—the ability to influence that arises outside the formal structure of the organization—is sometimes more important than formal influence. What makes a person a leader? Since strong leaders have been described by their traits throughout history, leadership research has sought to identify the personality, social, physical, or intellectual attributes that differentiate leaders from nonleaders. As we will see in the chapter, there are a number of different approaches toward analyzing leadership. ...