Investigating the relationship between personality and Leadership Essay

Investigating the relationship between personality and Leadership - Essay Example One such example is application of the trait theory of personality to the leadership skills displayed by Jack Welch when he was the CEO of GE. The definition of personality as a group of traits owes a lot to Raymond Cattell who fully supported the idea of a personality being formed as a mixture of various elements (Statt, 2004). He presented sixteen different factors which affect human personality and considered them to be the source traits from which other traits were to be found in humans. The collection of these traits and the way a person responds to various situations creates a surface persona which we think of as the personality of an individual (Plucker, 2007). Cattell’s research shows us that personality plays a great role in how people react to situations and leaders are one group of people who often have to respond to changing situations on a rapid basis (Plucker, 2007). They may also have to guide and lead people towards a given goal, share their vision with the followers and motivate the followers when their intrinsic motivation is lacking. Such constructs of personality are certainly supported by research as well as business analysts of which Welch (2005) reports that leadership connects deeply with the personality of an individual. Leadership itself is a rather difficult term to define because many different philosophers, thinkers and even business professionals have give different meanings for it. However, the general directions given by analysts like Welch (2005), Byrne (1998) and Gardner (1995) have several common points with the definition given by House (2004) who states that the quality of leadership is, â€Å"The ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members (House, 2004, Pg. 15)†. With this definition, the importance of leadership in business can be fully understood if it is applied to the