Sunday, July 14, 2013

Modern Leadership Theories and Trait Theories of Leadership: Jamie DiFiore

 
Modern Leadership Theories:


·         Began in the early 1900s –Alfred Binet tried to find average abilities and knowledge of children of various age groups.  Partnered with Lewis Terman and today we have the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test.

·         The Military started using the IQ test in World War 1.  Used to screen millions of new recruits to put them in positions where they were best suited. 


o   Higher Score-higher level executive jobs. 


o   Lower Score-infantry, custodial work, and menial jobs.  

Trait Theories of Leadership:

 
·         Trait theories investigations examined leaders’ innate personal characteristics.  First they thought you were born with these qualities and then it was believed that these traits could be learned to an extent. 

·         Ohio State Leadership Studies:

·         WW2 the GI Bill was enacted so there wouldn’t be so many workers in the field at once.  

·         Caroll Shartle was someone who was studying and teaching GIs in the college classrooms.  Inspired by George Marshall former army chief of staff and secretary of state to become a leader

·         Ohio State was the first to examine leadership from a multidisciplinary approach. 

Ralph Stodghill –part of Ohio leadership team 1948

·         Did a study that reviewed 100 leadership studies and posited that leadership might be situational and nature and should be considered, “in terms of interaction with variables which are in constant flux and change.”

·         He examined 28 traits in literature as associated with leadership that concluded that:

o   The average person that occupies a leadership position exceeds the average group member in: (1) intelligence; (2) scholarship (3) dependability in exercising responsibilities; (4) activity and social participation; and (5) socioeconomic status.  

o   The qualities, characteristics, and skills required in a leader are determined to a large extent by the demand of the situation in which he is to function as a leader. 


In the late 20th century charismatic leadership began to take momentum.  

            1985 Bernard Bass’s book Leadership Beyond Expectations-integrated trait study with transformational leadership by including charisma as a quality of transformational leadership, initiating a reviewed interest in traits. 


  These traits provide a benchmark or goals of what we may want to see in our leaders …if we choose to become leaders in ourselves.  
 
 
 
 
  1. How have leadership traits that were studied changed over time?

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