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  • Essay / The Most Useful Individual Traits for Effective Leadership

    There are many factors that influence a person to become a good leader. For example, if you could be a good role model, if you continually improve your management skills, how well do you know your company and your team, etc. However, in this essay I primarily focus on the importance of certain individual traits for effective leadership. First, I introduce some personalities that employees may have that are related to their job performance. Second, I focus on certain individual qualities that a good leader should possess. Finally, I talk about transformational leadership as a guiding ideology for leaders. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Different people will possess different traits to different degrees. Therefore, the composite result makes different people suitable for different jobs. It stands to reason that personality will certainly influence job performance. Before leading followers, you need to know what kind of people they are, then you can assign relatively suitable work to each one. As a result, you are more likely to improve your team's efficiency and lead them towards a better future. Different people have their own specific personality. Therefore, they will have different intentions when it comes to communication styles, making friends, and approaches to solving problems, etc. For example, even if there are many constraints or obstacles, proactive people tend to improve or modify the environment in which they work rather than accepting it if they are not satisfied with it. Therefore, they may not be suitable for jobs requiring strict role control or specific requirements. There are also certain dimensions to describe individual behaviors. For example, rule-oriented people are aware of rules and requirements and they will obey and commit to following the rules. People possessing reliability will implement the mission more reliably or immutably. And people who tend to be more loyal and more disciplined may identify more with the value of their company. As Edwards noted, employees who care a lot about salaries and managers' evaluations should focus more on "being consistently present, practical, reliable, empathetic, identifying with the work, and quitting." The big five dimensions of personality are widely accepted as a good framework for analyzing character traits. which includes “Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness”. Neuroticism is a dimension to measure the possibility of people being in a negative emotion. Leaders need to keep an eye on this and changes in follower emotion. People who score high can easily become emotionally unstable. These people may be more emotional or impulsive. They may make unreasonable decisions. It would therefore be dangerous to exert excessive pressure on them. On the other hand, people who score low would be more rational and calm. In most cases, they could control themselves better and let reasons help them make decisions rather than being overwhelmed by feelings or impulses. Even if they are in a depressed mood, they have ways of getting out quickly or maintaining good control. Some people might even treat it like computers. Theymight leave all negative emotions aside to deal with them after finishing the work they need to finish on time. Extroversion concerns the individual tendency or ability to communicate, interact, or participate in activities with others. Extroverted people are more positive and optimistic and feel more energetic at work. They tend to make more friends and use the resources around them. Introverted people may prefer to solve problems themselves and only talk normally to friends they already knew or who passively communicated with others. However, this does not mean that they are hostile or negative. They can carry out work independently and excellently. Considering this factor, managers should try to match employees with suitable jobs. Extroverts may be more suited to jobs that require coming into contact with other people, such as a salesperson or a teacher. On the contrary, introverts may be better suited to jobs that don't require a lot of contact with people, such as an engineer or programmer. “Openness to experience includes active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, attention to inner feelings, preference for variety, intellectual curiosity. and independence of judgment. People who are more open to experience accept new ideas about politics or society more easily. They are very interested in knowing the world and discovering new things. They are also more sensitive to emotions. People less open to experience would be more conventional and conservative. They prefer familiar things and rarely or weakly express their emotions. Therefore, people who score high on this dimension will be more suitable for jobs that require coming up with new ideas or frequently learning new things. People who score low on this dimension may be more comfortable with posts that are more or less mature or that will not experience many changes over a certain period of time. Agreeableness measures an individual's willingness to help and believe others. Agreeable people will tend to be more altruistic and empathetic to other people's situations. They are willing to collaborate with others and help strangers. They believe that their efforts will be rewarded and that the people they have helped will help them in return. Unpleasant people are more skeptical. They don't want to believe others and focus more on themselves. Sometimes they can even be aggressive. Therefore, agreeable people will be more suited to jobs in which collaboration is an important part. They will be very friendly members to bring the team together. Therefore, the team is more likely to increase its efficiency and achieve the expected goal. On the contrary, antagonistic people may be more competitive and adept at working alone. Conscientiousness refers to whether people demonstrate self-discipline and are able to plan and execute their tasks well. Normally, conscientious people have clear goals, strong determination and a well-structured plan. They have some common characteristics like hard work, reliability and orderliness. People who score low on conscientiousness will be less demanding of themselves. However, this does not mean that they lack these characteristics. They may prefer to work in a low-stress environment. People who score high may do intensive work or these jobsrequire great discipline. Good characteristics could be a kind of power for leaders. Therefore, I want to talk about some important traits that leaders should possess to be good role models and let these traits also help them manage their followers better. These characteristics constitute five components of emotional intelligence in the workplace, as Goleman states in the seminal Harvard Business Review article “What Makes a Leader?” » which are self-awareness, self-regulation (or management), motivation, empathy (social awareness) and social skills (relationship management). Self-awareness is complex and is an ability to recognize, examine, or even control oneself so as not to be influenced. by the external environment and people. This is truly a valuable quality. Because once someone owns it, they can realize how much individual emotions and behaviors can influence others. As leaders, they need to understand how people think, what employees want and how would they be influenced by what leaders or their peers do as well as the environment in which they operate. They can then implement more targeted programs to achieve their goals. Self-regulation means that someone will not make decisions or communicate emotionally. They can remain rational or have good self-control in most cases. As a leader, especially in a high position, they must keep their minds clean even if they encounter many problems. They also cannot let negative traits such as stereotypes or impulses influence their judgments and attitudes towards their colleagues. Motivated, they can persevere in their work for a long time with enthusiasm. They perform their work because of internal dynamics rather than external pressure or demands. Therefore, this would lead to high efficiency and quality level of their work. At the same time, they would serve as role models for employees to encourage them to work harder. As good leaders, they should not only be role models in work, but also in morality. Therefore, empathy is another important quality that a leader should possess, essential in building or managing a harmonious and sustainable team. Because this ability will help leaders think more from the perspective of others, which will be helpful in better understanding employee behaviors or emotions. Therefore, leaders could give meaningful suggestions to employees or have a better design of the management institution in order to promote the team's work efficiency. Although leaders are willing to care about employees, they also need to have good social skills to communicate effectively. They could listen to bad news as well as good news and better motivate their teams. When the leader can be an excellent communicator, he can also resolve many conflicts within the team well and know the employees much better and more effectively. Leaders also need to understand how to better lead employees. There are different theories of leadership that many researchers focus on. Everyone has their own values. I intend to talk primarily about transformational leadership which I believe is a good guiding ideology for leaders. Transformational leadership refers to the leader who takes his or her follower beyond his or her immediate personal interests through idealized influence (charisma), inspiration,.