While with the style and situational approaches there is an emphasis on interacting with followers, servant leadership takes this even a step further as it involves putting followers before everything else. We can see how traits are important in this leadership style in the model with the antecedent condition of leader attributes. This shows that traits interact with the ability to engage in servant leadership. So, a servant leader needs to have moral development and emotional intelligence. Being a servant leader also relates to this last theory of emotional intelligence. With this theory, the most effective leaders are the ones that are very sensitive to their emotions and how they will affect others. The competencies within emotional intelligence demonstrate several traits that help with being emotionally intelligent like having self-confidence and being conscientious of others around you. Conscientiousness also relates back to one the "Big Five" personality traits in the trait approach.
The Traits Behind Being A Leader
There are many cases in which being a leader
requires a person to have certain traits. For example, early leadership studies
show that certain traits are important for a leader to have. The trait approach mentions the "Big Five" personality traits, which are neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. It also says that a leader
should have intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, and
sociability. These are all things one should cultivate in order for others to
see them as a leader. Intelligence is a trait that is prevalent in other
leadership theories as well. For instance, the skills approach also includes individual attributes that are
trait-like. Here, we see that leaders needs general cognitive ability, or the
trait of intelligence, that contributes to their leadership outcomes. Leaders
using this approach also need to have good social judgment in order to have
better leadership outcomes. Sociability is a trait that is seen in many
leadership theories.
The above two theories focus more on leaders.
There are some theories that focus more on the leader-follower relationship,
but still require leaders to have certain traits in order for them to be
successful in using the theory. For example, leader-member exchange theory, or LMX, is focused on the
interactions between leaders and subordinates. Leaders wanting more subordinates
in the in-group requires them to have sociability so that they can build that
mutual trust and respect between each other. We see this same trait needed in
the path-goal theory as well because
here, leaders needs to motivate their followers to accomplish designated goals.
That can only happen if the leader is involved and demonstrates sociability to
help their subordinates and remove obstacles around them.
Other approaches that have a stronger focus on followers, but still need the leader to have certain traits are the situational approach and the style approach. In the situational approach, it’s important for a leader to be flexible so that they can adjust their leadership style to fit the situation and what their followers need. So here, we see that having the trait of flexibility is also important in a leader. Of those four main traits discussed with authentic leadership that leaders should have is resilience. Resilience is the ability to change and be flexible with different situations. This very closely relates to the situational approach where leaders have to be flexible and change depending on their followers. In both of these situations, the leader has to be able to adjust their leadership styles to accommodate to changing situations. The style approach also requires adjusting your leadership style to fit the situation, however this approach showed a major shift in research from just a trait focus to also including behaviors and actions of leaders. Though even with this shift, leaders still need to possess a certain trait to use this approach. Leaders using this approach need to have concern for other people in certain styles, as well as the determination to get things done in other styles. Here, we see leaders needing the traits of sociability and determination, two traits also seen in the trait approach.