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Explain Trail Approach of leadership
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Joined: Sep 2012
Trait Approach
Between 1930 and 1950, the trait approach lo leadership study was popular. This theory determines the personal characteristics of successful leaders to predict leadership ability in others. This approach was based on the "great man" hypothesis, holding that leaders are born not made various research studies have given various trails for leadership. An analysis of all such researches has been presented by Stogdill. According to him trait theorists have suggested following characteristics of a good leader-
(a) Physical traits such as height, health, vigour, appearance etc.
(b) Intelligence and ability traits such as ability to comprehend, conceptualise, plan etc.
© Personality traits such as tolerance of ambiguity.
(d) Task related traits such as achievement, drive initiative, persistence etc.
(e) Social traits such as cooperativeness, administrative ability interpersonal skill etc.
This approach gives an indication that leader should have certain personal characteristics. This helps management to develop such qualities through training and development programmes. This theory is very simple and still continues to be used along with other theories. Bill, this theory is criticised on various grounds. The list of traits is not uniform. It is difficult to list all trails in even one effective leader. Further, it does not consider the whole environment of leadership of which trail may be one factor. Moreover, no generalisation can be drawn about various traits for leadership as there were considerable variations in traits established by various researches. It is also known what unique combination of traits makes a leader effective and in what proportion these trails should be possessed. Perhaps the underlying assumption to the trail theory has been that leaders are born, not made. Although research has proved that while this is not the case, many people still believe that there are certain inborn traits that make a person a good leader.
