Defining a leader can be challenging, as each individual has their own conceptions of what a leader is like or how they should act. When researching leadership, Rost (1993) came across over a hundred different definitions of leadership and over 25 years later, hundreds more have been created. A recent definition has been described as a ‘formal or informal contextually rooted and goal influencing process that occurs between a leader and a follower, groups of followers or institutions’ (Antonakis, 2017). This highlights how views on leadership have changed, with a modern focus on the followers and the context of the situation (Silva, 2016). Having an effective leader is extremely important. In the NHS, Fowler (2011) describes how leadership is most successful in a team where everyone can participate, enabling productivity which is ultimately judged by the patients and the attention they are given. In the work place, it can help oversee employees and improve their involvement and motivation, endorsing a happy working environment (Riaz et al, 2017; Feltner, Mitchell, Norris & Wolfe, 2008) whereas ineffective leadership can have detrimental effects, such as counterproductive behaviour in the workplace (Schyns & Schilling, 2013). When questioning whether traits and attributes determine a leaders effectiveness, one must consider how a trait can be defined, the contributing factors that help increase effectiveness or even the possibility that it is entirely down to their leadership style and the individual’s traits or attributes play no part in how successful they are.
The Oxford English Dictionary (2017) defines a trait as “A distinguishing quality or characteristic, typically one belonging to a person” which would suggest that this includes personality and physical characteristics. Often a leader is favourable and presumed to be more effective if they have certain physical characteristics. An example of this is height, Blaker et al (2013) found that height gives taller people an advantage in appearing like a better leader, with connotations of strength and dominance. However, when actually judged for their leadership skills with no regard to their looks, less attractive individuals may be seen as more effective leaders. For example, in the 1960 US presidential election, people who only heard the speech on the radio favoured Nixon over Kennedy, but this was not the case when appearance influenced opinions on the television (Webley, 2010). This provides evidence that there might be other important aspects that can help determine an effective leader. The trait theory of leadership’s main focus is on the characteristics of leaders and is based on the principle that these characteristics determine the success of the leader. The great man approach follows on from this, with the premise that traits are innate characteristics which cause individuals to behave in a certain way (Organ, 1996). However, these approaches are limited and have fundamental flaws, with ambiguity and little theoretical reasoning (Hogan, 2005).
David Hunter (2017) questions the Great Man approach in relation to modern politics, with leaders who appear strong and charismatic and get elected often fail in the long term. Jeremy Corbyn can be seen as an authentic leader with honesty, conviction and strong values but was defeated by societies desire for a ‘strong and stable’ leader who has since been unsuccessful. However, it must not be forgotten that leadership within the government is extremely important and intricate, with multidimensional problems down to many people and their decisions rather than just one individual. For Kiel (2015) the effectiveness and success of a leader is not just due to their individual traits but instead down to the strength of their character which involves them showing care and compassion towards their followers. When this is not shown in the workplace, employees performance can be effected which can have a serious impact on the business. George (2015) similarly found that leadership was not effective due to certain traits or attributes but rather the life story of the individual leaders and how the things they had been through and experienced were the most important influencing factors on their leadership.
In the 1980’s, trait theory became associated with the Big Five personality traits- openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (Goldberg, 1990). The 73 study meta-analysis of Judge, Bono, Ilies & Gerhardt (2002) measuring the big five presented evidence towards the trait approach and found that the effectiveness of a leader could be judged through the group as a whole, which differs from the great man approach that assumes only certain special individuals are capable of successful leadership. However, this research did not consider the effects of other individual characteristics such as gender or intelligence (Forsyth, Banks & McDaniel, 2012) and instead there should be a focus on how different individuals have a variety of characteristics that impact the way they lead and in order to be an effective leader, it requires the general ability to lead and successfully complete vital tasks (Northouse, 2015). Forsyth et al (2012) conducted a review to see whether having dark triad traits had an impact in the workplace, finding that job performance decreased with traits of psychopathy and Machiavellianism and in roles with authority, narcissistic traits resulted in less effective work. This would suggest that traits can determine effectiveness, as negative traits can have negative effects. However, they also noted that there were contextual influences such as culture and authority which may have impacted the findings and cause them to lose validity. Psychopathy is common in the workplace, with many in senior positions having high psychopathy scores and scoring highly in narcissism yet still were effective leaders (Babiak, Neumann & Hare,2010; Board & Fritzon, 2005). However, these studies regarding psychopathy in the workplace are often low in reliability and validity due to being difficult to sample as businesses do not want their employees to be viewed as psychopathic.
There are many other factors which could be considered to determine a leaders effectiveness, or act as a combining factor. Murphy (1941) argued that leadership is based on the situation and context requiring action rather than the person. This implies that characteristics or traits that one might associate with leadership such as charisma can improve or change depending on the situation and are not pre-determined characteristics. Another contributing factor to determine a leaders effectiveness alongside the individuals traits is luck, which can also be linked to the situation (Kahneman, 2013). Singh (2014) found that although some personality traits enabled more women to become successful leaders, there were other factors such as financial situations and interactions including familial support which were extremely important in ensuring an effective leader. So, the combinations of traits, situations and interactions are important factors when considering what makes a leader successful.
The leadership style taken could be seen as the thing most responsible for an effective leader. The most recognised style is transformational leadership which aims to inspire, persuade and encourage followers (Conchie, 2013). Braun, Peus, Weisweiller & Frey (2013) found that transformational leadership had a positive impact on job satisfaction and trust between the leaders and the team, which links to effectiveness of the leader. Leaders should have an awareness of diversities and desires in their teams and modify their behaviour and leadership style accordingly. With this knowledge and the awareness that the demand for creative leadership was increasing, Ariyayagan & Phihie (2017) researched the effectiveness of this new style on schools in Malaysia. They found a positive correlation, with the success of the schools being incre
ased due to creative leadership, providing incentive for other schools to apply this form of leadership. To suit the modern world, the skills and methods used to enhance effective leadership should be altered and creative leadership fits within this (Petrie, 2014). Situational leadership highlights how the situation they are in must influence the style in which the individual leads. The situation involves the ability of the team, their enthusiasm and drive (McCleskey, 2014). This is a flexible and open approach which gives a unique take on leadership in comparison to other styles which are more rigid. Situational leadership is effective for project leaders in business, as they can combine their key management skills with their knowledge to adapt to a variety of tasks which can lead to the team working effectively and increasing success within the business (DuBois, Hanlon, Koch, Nyatuga & Kerr, 2015).
In conclusion, the information presented provides a wide scope of research evidence that suggests that traits and attributes do not fully determine the effectiveness of a leader. The variety of other influencing factors to produce a successful leader as well as traits such as situation, intelligence and luck is much more viable and realistic. Having highlighted the extensive variety of different leadership styles and how they can individually play a role in defining the success of a leader rather than there being one style that overrules the others, demonstrates the flexibility of leadership. One must understand that it is the wide combination of individual traits, situational and contextual factors, and style of leadership as a whole that contribute to the effectiveness of a leader.