Question

How does the 5-Factor Personality Model impact our understanding of leadership, from a psychology perspective?

What is the trait approach to leadership, and when is it applicable?

What is the skills approach to leadership, and how does it work within an organization?

Answer 1

The big five

traits are represented by acronym OCEAN i.e. openness to experience, conscientiusness, Extraversion, agreeableness, Neuroticism.

Various researches have linked these 5 five factors to the leadership qualities in person , anyone's chances of becoming a good leader etc.

A research in psychology have concluded about relative likelihood of turning i to a good leader based on these 5 factor.

Among these, Extroversion is the strongest predictor of leadership , especially the sociability.

Then follows openness to experience which is followed by conscientiouness that means organised and planned personality. Even neuroticism comes 4th in predicting leadership qualities and agreeableness is the weakest predictor.

However, these are only likelihood and there are many examples where people high on agreeableness and high on Introversion became a good leader.

Trait theory tries to identify certain personify traits and characteristics that are linked to leadership.

This theory was proposed by Thomas Carlyle in the 19th century.

Carley was of view that leadership traits are inheritable and cannot be developed. Certain traits produce certain patterns of behavior. These patterns are consistent across different situations. People are born with these leadership traits.

Managers can make use of trait theory to evaluate their position in the organization, get better understanding of their identity making them aware of their strengths and weaknesses . Thus , trait theory can be used to develop leadership qualities and assessing the existing ones.

The skills theory to leadership developed on the backdrop of criticism of trait approach which concluded that traits are relatively fixed.

As per this theory , leadership required three skills ,namely technical, human, and conceptual skills.

Human Skills implies interpersonal Communication skill and attention to relationships with others in an organization.

It is required at all the levels of management in an organisation so as to understand and bring out best from the team members.

Technical Skills refers to proficiency in a specific activity or type of work in the organisation. It is required at all levels but the skill required changes rapidly when one moves from o e level to the other

Conceptual Skills Take in the broader picture of the organization and use abstract ideas to set strategic initiatives.

This is required ori.arily at highest level of management as they are the o es who make realise the idea into reality.