Not one person is alike, which is why there is not one way to lead. Due to all individuals being different, the trait approach was made much more difficult to narrow down what traits are seen to be most important when it comes to being a leader. Personality itself is one of the blocks which makes up the trait approach and is referred to as the big five (Northouse, 2016). As cited in the text the big five was arranged in an order from most important to least in relation to leadership. Extroversion was ranked at the top and found to be the most important, followed by conscientiousness, openness to experiences, low in neuroticism, and last but not least, agreeableness (Northouse, 2016) (PSU, n.d.).
Let us break the list down even more, starting from the most predictive to the least. Extroversion is seen to be the best predictor of succeeding as a leader (Northouse, 2016). Though many reading this are probably aware of what extroversion is; extroversion benefits leadership through the ability to interact with their followers in a more self-confident manner (PSU, n.d). Extroversion also makes an individual out to be a more people person, therefore making that individual more approachable and less awkward. If someone were to ask me a few years ago how I would describe myself, extroversion most definitely would not have come to mind. Before instructing dance I never thought I had the ability to interact with multiple individuals in a successful manner, let alone teaching. Though, with experience I now would describe myself as an extrovert, especially when it comes to teaching. Experience truly did help me become more self-confident in my ability to communicate with others. It does not surprise me that extroversion is ranked the highest, because without self-confidence an individual may not know what they are capable of due to the worry of trying something new.
Following extroversion is conscientiousness. Those high in conscientiousness tend to be hard workers but also tend to follow the rules (PSU, n.d). Modeling behavior to an individual’s followers is essential in allowing the company to grow or the end goal to be met. I personally work in a restaurant and have been working in this specific restaurant for three years. I have four managers, one of those being my general manager. My general manager has been the same since I began working for this company, and is a master at following the rules. Due to the respect we as followers have gained, we as a team are more motivated to complete task the right way and motivates us to challenge one another to reach a certain goal. My general manager will provide us with small competitions that take place during our work day. These competitions allow us to shoot for an end goal, and the end goal is the same for all of us. The end goal is used to improve our performance but also forces us to follow the rules in doing so. I find myself more motivated when working with this specific manager in comparison to my other three which in fact do take shortcuts from time to time. Setting rules through working harder than those who slide by can truly motivate the followers to reach a certain goal. Conscientiousness is important, but is even more important within management, though being a manager one is also forced to become a leader.
This leads to the third personality trait, openness to experience (Northouse, 2016). Openness to experience or intelligence is important in furthering a business or reaching an end goal (PSU, n.d). Within my experience of working for my dance company, I am allowed to be creative and to constantly try out new ideas. Creativity has always been my strong suite and allowed me to flourish in many ways. This leads my experience with the children I am teaching to grow, and leads to better outcomes.
The ability to be low in neuroticism is also found of importance when it comes to leadership. If an individual struggles with neuroticism they may struggle with the ability to be emotionally stable or adjust in a correct manner (PSU, n.d). Being a leader an individual should be facing issues in a calm and appropriate manner. Within my restaurant experience I have one manager who loses his cool constantly. When this specific manager is on edge he blames all of the employees and becomes very hostile toward us, leading us to become more frazzled and harming our performance. The inability to be calm when handling an issue can lead to chaos in all spheres of the job. This is why neuroticism shall be avoided instead of pushed to the side.
This leads to the last personality trait which is agreeableness. Agreeableness is helpful in the fact that it allows individuals to work better with others (PSU, n.d) (Northouse, 2016). I personally was surprised to see agreeableness ranked last, though after reading more into the text I came to understand. Agreeableness is not always a good predictor of leadership, due to the fact that many times leaders and followers will not always agree. Leaders many times do have to put their foot down on what is and is not correct, though this should be handled in a professional mannerism. Agreeableness is more present within my job of teaching children dance. Those above me are constantly asking me for my input on different aspects, and we are working together to reach a common goal. I have much more freedom within the context of teaching dance than I do within my restaurant. After reading this text, I find agreeableness to be important by some means but to vary considerably across various contexts. The context needs to be taken into consideration when looking at agreeableness as a personality trait.
If I were to look more into businesses who are of utmost success and who end with failure, I would predict these factors to play a role in the leadership follower relationship. Though, it is also important to note that having these traits is not just something an individual is born with, these traits can also be acquired through experience (Northouse, 2016). The traits mentioned are important to becoming a successful leader, but traits are not everything, there are other factors to the equation to becoming a successful leader.
References
Northouse, Peter, G. (2016) Leadership, Theory, and Practive, 7th ed., SagePublications.
Penn State World Campus (n.d) Lesson 2: Trait Approach. Retreieved May 20, 2017
From https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1848443/modules/items/22421578