Personality traits and their effects on management leadership effectiveness

Leadership and Management Training Guide:

Leadership and management are terms that have been used interchangeably as many people assume that they are similar despite of their fundamental differences. The main reason attributed to this trend is the fact that these concepts must go hand in hand because they are complementary and linked together. Actually, attempts to separate leadership and management always contribute to several problems more than it solves. However, much has been written regarding the importance and difference between leadership and management. The effectiveness of managers and leadership abilities in a management team basically depends on their understanding of the differences between the two.

Differences in Leadership and Management:

Effective leaders and managers have become necessary for the successful operation of teams, organizations, and groups. This is because of the similarities and differences that exist between leadership and management for effective functioning of each. Leadership is basically described as the process with which a person influences a group of people to accomplish a common vision. On the contrary, management is defined as the exercise of supervisory, administrative, and executive direction of an organization or group of people (Ricketts, 2009). The two processes involve working with people, influencing them, and dealing with efficient goal management.

Notably, an individual can become a great leader and great manager at the same time provided that he/she has mastery of the different skills and competencies for each of them. Through these skills, leadership creates change and movement while management results in the development of order and consistency. Generally, management involves the establishment of agendas, planning and budgeting, allocation of resources, and setting deadlines. On the other hand, leadership incorporates developing a vision, establishing direction, explaining the big picture, and developing necessary strategies for the achievement of the vision. Management also involves organizing and staffing, setting rules and procedures, providing structure, and taking corrective action. Leadership incorporates communicating goals, developing teams and coalitions, motivating and inspiring, seeking commitment, empowering subordinates, and fulfilling unmet needs.

Factors Affecting Leadership:

There are several factors that contribute to the development of a leader and essential leadership skills. These factors include personalities, charisma, cognitive differences, attitudes, emotions, and values. The concept of the personality and attributes of a leader has existed for a long period of time to an extent that it has become a topic of numerous studies. Leadership personality and attributes are the relatively stable and rational combinations of individual characteristics that promote a constant pattern of leadership performance across various situations. The leadership traits are basically a reflection of skills, expertise, motives, temperament, cognitive abilities, and personality (Zaccaro, Kemp & Bader, 2003).

These characteristics play a critical role in leadership since they are attributes and qualities that are not primarily possessed by non-leaders. The effect of these qualities on leadership is that they determine the behavior of leaders, which in turn affects their efficiency across various group or organizational situations. With the increasing complexity and variations in leadership situations, these individual qualities and factors have a significant role in predicting the person's success as a leader.

The importance of emotions, charisma, attitudes, and cognitive differences on leadership is evident on the roles these attributes play in motivating and inspiring a group of people to achieve the established goal. Without such characteristics, leaders would experience difficulties in motivating positive responses from people to accomplish the goal.

Impact of Courage and Morals on Leadership and its Decisions:

While the term leadership is commonly used in several sectors of the society, there is a short supply of leaders in every field despite of the high demand for true leaders. As previously stated, a person becomes an effective leader when he/she understand the meaning of the term and the traits to exhibit. Courage and morals are vital in leadership and leadership decisions because of the link between leadership and character. Actually, true and successful leaders who are effective in their responsibilities have good character since it's the key to successful leadership.

Together with the other necessary qualities and attributes, morals have an impact on the ability of a leader to inspire and control people efficiently (DiMaio, 2011). Morals act as the basis with which people admire, desire, and follow leaders to achieve a specific goal and vision. Therefore, morals enable leaders to inspire and effectively manage their subordinates and become successful. As a result, leaders must consider the effect of their conduct on people while making decisions that will affect these people.

On the other hand, courage is the ability to recognize fear but meet opposition and danger with stiffness and calm. This quality is developed in leadership through seeking and willingly accepting responsibilities, standing for the right thing despite its popularity, placing responsibility and commitment to the group's goals, and never blaming others for personal mistakes. A leader shows moral courage by standing for what is right even when it's not instantly beneficial or may not be popular. Consequently, courage determines the ability of a person to be an effective leader, especially during tough decisions and guides his/her decisions based on efficiency.

Sources of Power A Leader May Possess:

Leadership requires the exercise of power in order to motivate the group towards achieving the established goals. As a result, many leaders wield power in different ways since it's a force of authority or influence. The power exercised or possessed by these leaders is derived from several sources including those received from followers. There are five sources of power a leader may possess i.e. knowledge, expressiveness, attraction, reputation, and willpower. Knowledge power is derived from the individual's skills, talents, abilities, wisdom, and accomplishments like academic achievements. The knowledge source of power basically encompasses what the leader knows and can do. Unlike lower-rated leaders, those who rated high in knowledge power are three times more influential.