Topic > The most useful individual characteristics for effective leadership

There are many factors that influence a person to become a good leader. For example, whether you might be a good role model, whether you continuously improve your management skills, how well you know your business and your team, and so on. However, in this essay I will mainly focus on the importance of certain individual traits for effective leadership. First, I present some personalities that employees might have that are related to their job performance. Secondly, I focus on some individual characteristics that a good leader should have. Finally, I discuss transformational leadership as a guiding ideology for leaders. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Different people possess different traits to different degrees. As a result, the compositional result makes different people suitable for different jobs. It is a common belief that personality will definitely influence job performance. Before you guide followers, you need to know what kind of people they are, so you can assign relatively appropriate work to everyone. Therefore, you are more likely to improve the efficiency of your team and lead them towards a better future. Different people have their specific personalities. So, they will have different intentions in communicating styles, making friends and approach to problem solving and so on. For example, even though there may be many constraints or barriers, proactive people tend to improve or change the environment in which they work rather than accept it if they are not satisfied with it. Therefore, they may not be suitable for jobs with strong role control or specific requirements. There are also some dimensions to describe individual behaviors. For example, people who have a rule orientation are aware of rules and requirements and will obey and strive to comply with them. People who possess reliability will implement the assignment in a more reliable or immutable way. And people who tend to be more loyal and self-disciplined may identify more with the value of their company. As noted by Edwards, employees who care a lot about managers' salaries and evaluations should focus more on "participation that is consistent, practical, trustworthy, empathetic, identifies with the job and with quitting." The big five dimensions of personality are widely accepted as a good framework for analyzing traits. which includes “neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness”. Neuroticism is a dimension to measure people's ability to experience aversive emotions. Leaders should keep an eye on this and keep an eye on followers' emotional changes. People who score high can easily become emotionally labile. These people may be more emotional or impulsive. They may make unreasonable decisions. Therefore, it will be dangerous to put excessive pressure on them. On the other hand, people who score low would be more rational and calmer. In most cases, they could control themselves better and let reasons help them make decisions rather than being overwhelmed by feeling or impulse. Even if they are in a depressed mood, they have ways to get out of it early or keep it under control. Some people might even process it like computers. They may leave all the negative emotions in the corner to be dealt with after finishing the work they need to complete on time. Extraversion concerns an individual's tendency or ability to communicate, interact, or participate in activities with others. The peopleExtroverts 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 on their own and normally only talk to friends they already know or communicate passively with others. However, this does not mean that they are hostile or negative. They can perform jobs independently and excellently. Considering this factor, leaders should try to match employees with suitable jobs. Extroverts may be better suited to jobs that require contact with others, such as a salesperson or teacher. In contrast, introverts may be better suited to jobs that don't require much 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 more easily accept new ideas about politics or society. They are very interested in learning about the world and experiencing 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 better suited to jobs that require them to come up with new ideas or learn new things frequently. People who score low on this dimension may feel more comfortable with posts of varying maturity or will not experience major changes within a certain period. Agreeableness measures an individual's willingness to help and believe in others. Agreeable people will tend to be more altruistic and show their empathy for the situations of others. They are ready to cooperate 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 are not willing to believe others and focus more on themselves. They can also be aggressive at times. Therefore, agreeable people will be better suited to jobs where collaboration represents a significant portion. They will be very nice members to unite the team. As a result, the team is more likely to increase efficiency and achieve the intended goal. In contrast, antagonistic people may be more competitive and suited to working alone. Conscientiousness refers to people's ability to self-discipline and the ability to plan and carry out tasks well. Normally, conscientious people will have clear goals, strong determination and a well-structured plan. They have some common characteristics such as hardworking, reliable and tidy. People who score low on conscientiousness will be less demanding in demanding themselves. However, this does not mean that they lack these features. They may prefer to work in a low-stress environment. People who score high may work intensive jobs or those jobs require high discipline. Good traits could be a kind of power of leaders. So, 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 followers better. These traits are five components of emotional intelligence at work, 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 a complex ability to recognize,examine or even control oneself so as not to be influenced by the external environment and people. It is truly a valuable quality. Because once someone has it, they can realize how individual emotions and behaviors could affect others. As leaders, they need to understand the way people think, what employees want and how they would be affected by what leaders or colleagues do and also the environment they find themselves in. Then they can implement more targeted programs to achieve their goals. Self-regulation means that someone will not make decisions or communications emotionally. They can remain rational or have good control of themselves in most cases. As leaders, especially in a high position, they must keep their minds clean even if they encounter many problems. They also cannot let adverse traits such as stereotypes or impulses influence their judgments and attitudes towards colleagues. When leaders are self-motivated, they can persist in their work with enthusiasm for a long time. They get the job done thanks to internal dynamics, rather than external pressure or demands. As a result, this would lead to high efficiency and standard 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, crucial to building or managing a harmonious and sustainable team. Because this ability will help leaders think more from other people's perspectives, which will be helpful in better understanding employee behaviors or emotions. Therefore, leaders could provide meaningful suggestions to employees or better design the management institution in order to promote the team's work efficiency. While leaders are willing to care about employees, they must also have good social skills to make effective communications. They could listen to both bad news and good news and motivate their teams much better. When the leader could be a great communicator, he can also resolve many conflicts within the team well and get to know the employees much better and more efficiently. Leaders should also understand how to better lead employees. There are several leadership theories that many researchers focus on. Everyone has their own values. I intend to talk mainly about transformational leadership which I think is a good guiding ideology for leaders. Transformational leadership refers to the leader who moves followers beyond immediate self-interests through idealized influence (charisma), inspiration, intellectual stimulation, or individualized consideration. It raises the follower's level of maturity and ideals, as well as concerns for success, self-realization, and the well-being of others, the organization, and society. Idealized influence was initially called charisma. However, some researchers believe that charisma can blindly relate to cult leaders. Therefore, they consider transformation as a broader concept and charisma as a part of it and choose a very neutral term to replace it. Idealized influence refers to the ability to influence employees in a profound and notable way. That is, the leader who possesses this ability is respected by the followers. Therefore, they will be more loyal and devoted. To achieve this, transformational leaders shift employee requirements from basic to much higher aspects, that is, from personal security or material needs to achievability or mental requirements. For example, leaders can.