The idea that leaders are born, not made persists even though we have little evidence for this theory, because it is perpetuated by misperceptions, the media, and antiquated ideologies. It is also supported, in part, by 100 years of trait research that has resulted in a myriad of management training books and seminars. It is such a pervasive notion that it is taught at home by parents who might encourage their extroverted children to be leaders, while not encouraging their competent but otherwise introverted children.
Today we recognize that leadership traits are acquired rather than inherited. Northouse (pp. 23-26) identifies five general categories of such traits: (1) intelligence; (2) self-confidence; (3) determination; (4) integrity; and (5) sociability. Reading the couple chapters of our textbook has been an eye-opening experience for me. I came into this course believing that people were instinctively born a leader, but after chapter one I was able to view leadership as a skill that can be learned, an ability that can be developed, a behavior that can be demonstrated, a relationship that can be interactive, or a process where you drive everyone to a common goal (Northhouse, 2012, p.3-6). Leadership is a lot of things, all of which can all be enhanced by the “natural “ trait of charisma, but not reliant upon the one influential trait (Northhouse, 2012, p. 30).
I had no leadership experience before I naively thrust myself into entrepreneurship. I was relationship oriented by nature, task oriented as an employee, and as it turned out, I was a command and control, top down kind of leader. I didn’t adjust my style to my workforce, I just resented them for their inability to present the skill required to appreciate my leadership. Very few have come back to thank me, but my highest producer and best recruiter did thank me, that is, as she was turning down a new opportunity to work with me on a project a couple of years later. I was operating as an authoritarian who had little faith in my 50+ representatives’ desire to succeed.
My sobering collision with leadership left me unhappy with my leadership techniques, so I decided my charismatic husband would just be the “good cop” and I would be the “bad cop”. I have worked hard to change the leader I was in 2008. Still, for everything I did wrong, I did quite a few things right. I always maintained an open and honest communication with everyone we partnered with. From the top-down, I could be counted on to have integrity and clarity in my interactions, often putting my promises in writing so that I could be held accountable and so my people could be protected. I became more knowledgable in my product and was able to demonstrate the important traits of confidence and intelligence in my corporate and office communications (Northhouse, 2012, chapter 2). I was our designated trainer, website designer, policy write, script preparer, contract preparer, and operations manager. I often worked through the night without sleeping more than a couple of hours, and as a result, I became an incredibly hard-worker. I also adopted some of the sociability traits that I had observed in my husband. I threw pizza parties and celebrated our reps’ birthdays, I let them talk to me about their personal issues, and cared about their growth outside of my office. All of these changes made a difference in my experience as a leader, and my representative’s experience in my company.
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
ezd5139 says
Thank you for your positive feedback. It has been very encouraging to read your thoughtful words. I agree with not needing a “bad cop”. I think that over time I have grown to trust my husbands decision more, and felt less need to compensate for what I interpreted as his overly generous and overly-permissive attitudes. It is also important to trust that the people are motivated to work and do well.
I agree that I needed to work on my human skills more than I was just never a leader. I do tend to assume leadership in many situations. Now, how, I am much more democratic. I think my sociability traits have improved. I tend to be rather talkative, but felt being friendly wasn’t appropriate for leadership. I had just left an aerospace company where I worked in the Military Programs department. It was male dominated and pretty serious. I thought that is what I needed to be. I think I have struck a much better balance through the years.
I do tend to be a reflective person, in general. I am always looking to improve and mold a better me. It has been a helpful characteristic, because I find lots of things to work on, and gradually improve over time. I am a work in progress, and I hope I can make people feel better for having worked with me, that is, feel better about themselves.
Thank you so much for your comments!
Ericka
reg22 says
I have had a much similar path to my leadership in regards to being authoritarian. When I first started leading people, I took the same approach. I think that I used that method because I was young and thought that was the way to gain respect. I hadn’t quite learned exactly how to lead and what motivates people to perform better. It is good that you have been able to change up your style a little and add the sociability to your arsenal of resources to use.
Do you think that people are born with traits? I noticed that you mentioned that you believe that leadership traits are acquired rather than inherited, but I wonder if you think that people such as Barack Obama, Martin Luther King Jr., or Mahatma Gandhi were born with traits that helped them become great leaders. I believe that both the trait approach and the skills approach come into play when it comes to leadership. I think that some people are born with traits such as intelligence, self-confidence and extraversion which starts them on the path to develop into good leaders, and as they add skills to the repertoire, they become great leaders. There are others that aren’t born with many traits, but learn the value of technical skills, people skills and conceptual skills which help them lead by example and by doing.
As you have probably read in the text, there are strengths and weaknesses to both models, so that is why I think that there is no single approach that works for all leaders. It is a combination of both innate traits as well as learned skills that makes leaders successful. Look at yourself. You seemed to have the traits of integrity and task knowledge all along, and to help you become an even better leader, you developed the human skills by honing in on your ability to work better with your people.
As I mentioned earlier, I had a similar path, and had to learn to be more patient with my employees and develop the human skills. As Northouse mentions, “Human Skills allow a leader to assist group members in working cooperatively as a group to achieve common goals” (Northouse, 2016, pg.45). These human skills took me time to develop as I learned to trust that those under me could do their jobs well. I had to become aware of others perspectives as well as mine. This skill of building relationships with employees and caring about them as humans helps build a stronger team and makes for a stronger leader at the same time. Great post. I am happy to see that you took the time to change your style and learned a better way to adapt to your staff. In turn, demonstrating your strength as a leader.
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
dch44 says
I really appreciate the way you took a step back while taking time to take inventory of your strengths and your weaknesses as a leader. You clearly demonstrate that leadership traits can be learned. You identified, learned, and adapted.
Change can be challenging and it sounds as if your leadership transformation has been a process and a successful one at that. It is nice reading that you were deliberate in deciding to shift directions and understand the transformation took time and dedicated effort.
How has your experience been with improving sociability traits? It is great that you were able to model your husband’s ‘good cop’ behavior, but has it become habit now or sincere interest?
Thanks so much for sharing this journey with us.
Anna Powlus says
Test comment
jtt5045 says
Ezd5139,
It’s good to see that you could realize that your leadership techniques where not working and needed to be adjusted. I feel that there are ways to lead without needing a “good cop/bad cop” support team. I have had managers that are tough, controlling and demanding, but they are also supportive and always had my back. I found that with managers like this the biggest thing is accountability. If you did something wrong, own up to it. Harsh managers have a way of scaring their employees so that they feel that they are always walking on thin ice. But as long as you owned up to your decisions and your work I found that these managers can be very supportive at the same time.
Also, you had some very good traits at the bottom of your comments but the one that stood out to me was “cared about the growth outside of my office” you would not believe how big “work/life” balance is to employees. It’s so big that PSU even has a separate course just in the study of work/life. It’s good to see that you have a sense and a need to grow that within your employees.
Good Post – JTT5045