Bài giảng Nghệ thuật lãnh đạo - Chapter 3: Individual Differences and Traits

NGHỆ THUẬT LÃNH ĐẠO
 MSMH: NS301DV01 
 Chapter 3:
Individual Differences 
 and Traits
 Purpose
After studying this chapter, you will be able to:
 ●Explain the role of individual difference 
 characteristics in leadership
 ●Describe the difference between the past and 
 current approaches to leadership traits
 ●Discuss the role demographic characteristics play 
 in leadership
 ●Identify the impact of values on leadership
 ●Present the relationship between emotional 
 intelligence and leadership
 ●Highlight the role of the “Big Five” and other 
 personality traits that are relevant in leadership
 ●Understand cross-cultural differences in individual 
 difference characteristics 
 Content
●Elements of individual difference 
 characteristics 
●The demographic characteristics of leaders
●Values 
●Abilities and skills 
●Relevant personality traits
●Using individual characteristics 
 Chapter 3
 3.1- Elements of 
Individual Difference 
 Characteristics 
 2 Elements of Individual 
 Characteristics 
●2 determinants of individual characteristics: 
 Heredity and Environment
 ○ Heredity: consist of individuals’ gene pool, gender, 
 race, end ethnic background.
 ○ Environment: include physical location, family, culture, 
 religion, education, and friends.
●Interaction between heredity and environment
 ○ Environment and social conditions can reinforce 
 generic patterns to influence a leader’s personality, the 
 education system, and parental upbringings.
 4 Individual Difference 
 Characteristics 
●Demographic factors: such as age, and ethnic 
 background
●Values: are stable, long-lasting beliefs end 
 preference about what is worthwhile and desirable 
 (Rokeach, 1973). 
 ○ Values are closely related to personality. Personality 
 refers to a person’ character and temperament; 
 whereas values are principles that a person believes
 ○ Like personality traits, values guide a leader’s behavior 
 and are influenced by a combination of biological and 
 environmental factors (Zaccoro, 2007), values are 
 shaped early in life and are resistant to change. 
 ○ Values also are influenced heavily by one’s culture.
 Individual Difference 
 Characteristics 
● Personality: is a stable set of physical and psychological 
 characteristics that make each person unique.
● Abilities and Skills:
 ○ Ability, or aptitude, is a natural talent for doing 
 something mental or physical, such as intelligence.
 ○ A skill is an acquired talent that a person develops 
 related to a specific task.
 ○ Ability is somewhat stable over time, skills change 
 with training and experience from one task to another.
 ○ You cannot train leaders to develop an ability or 
 aptitude; but you can train them in new leadership 
 skills. Organizations, therefore, recruit and hire leaders 
 with certain abilities and aptitudes, and then train them 
 to acquire needed skills.
 Multiple Perspectives and 
 the Impact of the Situation
● When situations provide little guidance and are 
 loosely structured, a person’ individual characteristics 
 can have a strong impact (Barrick and Mount, 1993; 
 Mischel, 1973; Weiss and Adler, 1984) 
● When situations provide strong behavioral cues – that 
 signal what behaviors and actions are expected and 
 appropriate – most people behave according to those 
 cues regardless of their personality traits or other 
 individual characteristics.
 Individual Characteristics 
 Provide a Range
Each individual characteristic provides a behavioral zone of 
comfort.
 ● The zone of comfort includes a range of behaviors that 
 come naturally and feel comfortable to perform because 
 they reflect individual characteristics. Behaving outside of 
 that zone is difficult, takes practice.
 ● Although individuals are ease in their behavioral comfort 
 zone, they learn and grow by moving to zones of 
 discomfort. The behaviors outside of the comfort zone 
 challenge them and push them to their limits.
Individual Characteristics 
 and Behaviors 
 Leaders’ Individual 
 Characteristics and Leader 
 Behaviors 
Kirkpatrick and Locke (1991) list a number of traits 
that facilitate a leader’s acquisition of needed 
leadership skills:
 ● Drive, which include motivation and energy
 ● Desire and motivation to lead
 ● Honesty and integrity
 ● Self-confidence
 ● Intelligence
 ● Knowledge of the business
 Leaders’ Individual 
 Characteristics and Leader 
● Some of the traits, namelyBehaviors intelligence and drive, cannot 
 be acquired through training. Others, such as knowledge 
 of the industry and self-confidence, can be acquired with 
 time and appropriate experience.
● The trait of honesty is a simple choice.
● Integrity, or a lack of it, is cited as a key factor in 
 leadership. Bad leadership contain elements of lack of 
 trust, dishonesty, and unwillingness to be held 
 accountable on the part of the leaders.
● Just as some traits are necessary for leadership, they can 
 be detriment when carried to an extreme. 
 ○ A leader with too much drive may refuse to delegate tasks, and a 
 desire for too much power can work against a leader’s 
 effectiveness (Bennis and Nanus, 1985)
 Chapter 3
 3.2- The Demographic 
Characteristics of Leaders
 Homogeneity 
Homogeneity of the executives
 ● Although education opens the door for diverse people to 
 reach leadership positions, and although there has been 
 progress in the number of women and people of diverse 
 nationalities in leadership positions, the leadership path is 
 still primary influenced by birthplace, nationality, 
 religion, education, social class, gender, and race 
 (Mayo and Nohria, 2006)
 ● Formal organizational leadership is still heavily dominated 
 by males.
 Homogeneity 
●Homogeneity in demographic background 
 does not necessarily lead to similar approaches 
 in managing a business and leading followers; 
 but to lead to high diversity of tho ... in life  
 types of skills and attributes that people use to solve 
 everyday challenges they may face.
 ○ People with this type of intelligence either change their 
 behavior to adapt to the environment, manipulate the 
 environment, or find a new environment (Sternberg et 
 al., 2000)
 ○ WICS model of leadership – integrates Wisdom, 
 Intelligence, and Creativity in a System approach 
 putting intelligence at the center of leadership traits 
 (Sternberg 2003)
 Emotional Intelligence 
●Emotional Intelligence (EI; or EQ for Emotional 
 Quotient): the ability to interact well with 
 followers, satisfy their emotional needs, and 
 motivate and inspire them  social and 
 interpersonal aspects of intelligence.
 Components of Emotional 
 Intelligence
 Component Description 
Self- Being aware of and in touch with your own 
awareness feelings and emotions
Self-regulation Being able to manage various emotions and 
 moods without denying or suppressing them
Self-motivation Being able to remain positive and optimistic
Empathy for Being able to read others’ emotions 
others accurately and putting yourself in their place
Interpersonal Having the skills to build and maintain 
and social positive relationship with others
skills 
 Creativity
● Creativity, also known as divergent thinking or lateral 
 thinking – is the ability to combine or link ideas in new 
 ways to generate novel and useful alternatives 
 (Sternberg, 2007)
● Creativity is a necessary component of leadership 
 because leaders are often expected to develop new ideas 
 and directions that others will follow.
● Creative leaders listen intently to all sources, especially 
 to bad news, in order to know where the next problem is 
 emerging. They value subjective as objective information.
 Creativity
●Creative leaders typically share 4 characteristics:
 ○ Perseverance in the face of obstacles and self-
 confidence.
 ○ Willingness to take risks.
 ○ Willingness to grow and openness to experience 
 ○ Tolerance and ambiguity
 Skills 
●Leadership skills are divided into 3 categories: 
 technical, interpersonal, and conceptual
●The impact of ability and skills on leadership 
 depends to a great extent on the situation. 
●Situational factors, such as the type of 
 organization, level of leadership, ability and 
 needs of followers, and type of task at hand, all 
 influence what abilities and skills leaders will 
 need to be effective.
 Skills Category
 Skills Description 
 Category
Technical skills Knowledge of the job processes, methods, 
 tools, and techniques.
Interpersonal Knowledge of interpersonal relationships 
skills including communication, conflict 
 management, negotiation, and team 
 building.
Conceptual Know of problem solving, logical thinking, 
skills decision making, creativity, and reasoning in 
 general.
 Chapter 3
 3.5- Relevant 
Personality Traits
 Relevant Personality Traits
No specific traits can predict who will become a leaders or 
which leaders will be effective. Traits do play a role in 
leadership in several ways (Zaccaro, 2007)
 ● Some traits are consistently associated with leadership.
 ● A leader's personality influences his/her preferences, 
 style, and behavior.
 ● Personality may affect the ease with which a leader 
 learns skills and able to implement them.
 ● Being aware of key personality traits shown to affect 
 work-related behaviors can help leaders develop their 
 self-awareness and aid them in their learning and 
 development.
 ● Traits can be strong predictors of leadership when 
 considered in an integrated system that includes several 
 individual difference characteristics and situational and 
 contextual variables.
 The Big Five Personality 
 Dimensions
1.Conscientiousness
2.Extraversion-Introversion
3.Agreeableness
4.Emotional Stability
5.Openness to Experience
 The Big Five Personality 
 Dimensions
 Conscientiousness 
The extent to which individuals 
are hardworking, organized, 
dependable, and persevering 
(high conscientiousness) 
versus lazy, disorganized, and 
unreliable (low 
conscientiousness).
 The Big Five Personality 
 Dimensions
 Extraversion-Introversion 
The degree to which 
individuals are gregarious, 
assertive, and sociable 
(extraverts) versus being 
reserved, timid, and quiet 
(introverts).
 The Big Five Personality 
 Dimensions
 Agreeableness 
The extent to which 
individuals are cooperative 
and warm (highly 
agreeable) versus cold 
and belligerent (highly 
disagreeable).
 The Big Five Personality 
 Dimensions
 Emotional Stability 
The degree to which 
individuals are 
insecure, anxious, 
depressed, and 
emotional 
(emotionally 
unstable) versus 
calm, self-confident, 
and secure 
(emotionally stable).
 The Big Five Personality 
 Dimensions
Openness to Experience 
The extent to which 
individuals are creative, 
curious, and cultured (open 
to experience) versus 
practical and with narrow 
interests (closed to 
experience).
 Other Personality Traits
●Locus of Control
●Type A Behavior
●Self-Monitoring
●Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
●Machiavellian Personality 
●Narcissism 
 Locus of Control
●Locus of control is an indicator of an individual’s 
 sense of control over the environment and 
 external events. 
 Locus of Control
● People with a high internal locus of control 
 ○ believe that many of the events around them are a result of their 
 action,
 ○ feel a sense of control over their lives,
 ○ attribute their successes and failures to their own efforts,
 ○ are more proactive and take more risks,
 ○ demonstrate the motivation, energy, and self-confidence,
 ○ are less anxious, set harder goals, and are less conforming to 
 authority,
 ○ make greater efforts to achieve their goals and tend to be more 
 task oriented,
 ○ tend to be more ethical in their decision making and harsher on 
 bribery, and open to globalization.
 Locus of Control
● People with a external locus of control 
 ○ attribute the events in their lives to forces external to them – such 
 as luck, other powerful people, or a deep religious faith,
 ○ attribute their success to luck and interpersonal skills rather than to 
 their intelligence and ability 
 ○ do not generally perceive a high degree of control over their lives
 ○ are more reactive to events and less able to rebound from 
 stressful situations 
 ○ rely on others’ judgments and conform to authority more readily
 ○ are likely to use more coercive power
 ○ tend to be reactive, 
 ○ believe others will do the same and overcontrol their followers to 
 compensate for how they perceive others.
 Type A vs. Type B Behavior
●Type A Behavior Pattern: A pattern of behavior 
 involving high levels of competitiveness, time 
 urgency, and irritability.
●Type B Behavior Pattern: A pattern of behavior 
 characterized by a casual, laid-back style; the 
 opposite of the Type A behavior pattern.
 Type A Behavior
● Type A: trying to do more in less and less time, need for 
 control.
● Type A characteristics and behaviors:
 ○ Time urgency: being in a hurry, impatience, and worries about 
 time.
 ○ Competitiveness: highly competitive in work, social, and sport 
 situations; measure outcome against others and keep track of 
 performance; getting ahead and winning.
 ○ Polyphasic behaviors: involves doing several things at once. 
 Although everyone is likely to undertake several activities when 
 pressured, Type A often do so even when not required to by work 
 or by other deadlines.
 ○ Hostility: is manifested in explosive speech; diffused anger; 
 intolerance for delays or mistakes; and a generally fiery, 
 aggressive, and sometimes malicious style of interaction
Type A Behavior
 Type A Behavior
Relationship between Type A to leadership: Type A executives
 ● see more threats in the environment of their organizations, and set 
 challenging strategies that still provide them with a sense of control;
 ● tend to be poor delegators and generally prefer to work alone. With 
 the increasing focus on cooperation, use of teams, and empowerment 
 as a leadership style, the inability to delegate can present an obstacle 
 to successful leadership.
 ● like to maintain control over all aspects of their works;
 ● tend to set high performance goals, and have high expectations for 
 themselves and those around them. Such high expectations lead to 
 faster promotions at lower organizational levels, to high performance 
 and high quality, as well as to overload and burnout when carried to 
 an extreme.
 ● do not recognize and admit that they are tired. They are hard 
 workers who may not understand other people’s less approach to 
 work.
 Self-Monitoring
●Self-monitoring: identifies the degree to which 
 people are capable of reading and using the cues 
 from their environment to determine their 
 behaviors.
●A personality trait involving the extent to which 
 individuals adapt their behavior to the demands of 
 specific situations so as to make good 
 impressions on others.
 Self-Monitoring
●High self-monitors (SMs) – individuals who 
 score high on the scale – 
 ○ are able to read environmental and social cues 
 regarding what is appropriate behaviors, and use those 
 cues to adjust their behaviors;
 ○ can present themselves and manage impressions, and 
 are able to mirror and mimic others’ behaviors;
 ○ are particularly good at getting along with others and 
 even may be more likely to emerge as leaders because 
 of their ability to get ahead, and that they may be more 
 adaptive and innovative.
Self-Monitoring
 Self-Monitoring
●Low self-monitors 
 ○ do not read the cues or do not use them to change their 
 behaviors;
 ○ are more internally determined and are likely to appear 
 constant across different situations  make them more 
 accurate decision makers regarding performance 
 ratings and personnel decisions.
 Impact on conflict management 
● Impact of gender, self-monitoring, and Type A on 
 conflict management and leadership in organizations:
 ○ High SMs emerge as leaders more often than do Low 
 SMs.
 ○ Men emerge as leaders more often than do women.
 ○ Type As are in conflict more often than are Type Bs, 
 particularly when dealing with their subordinates.
 ○ High SMs resolve conflicts cooperatively when dealing 
 with their subordinates and supervisors.
 ○ Women generally report lower levels of conflicts with 
 both their subordinates and supervisors.
 ○ High SM women are especially sensitive to various 
 organizational cues and seem to perceive more 
 conflict.
 Myers-Briggs Type 
 Indicator (MBTI)
●MBTI is one of the most widely used personality 
 tests in organizations for leadership training and 
 team building (Hammonds, 2001)
●Four MBTI Categories:
Myers-Briggs Type 
 Indicator (MBTI)
 Machiavellian Personality 
●A personality trait involving willingness to 
 manipulate others for one’s own purposes. 
●The Machiavelli (Mach) scale: measures an 
 individual’s willingness to put self-interest and 
 his/her preferences above the interests of the 
 groups, and the ability to influence and 
 manipulate others for personal gain (Jaffe, 
 Nebenzahl, and Gotesdyner, 1989; Panitz, 1989).
 Machiavellian Personality 
●High Machs: 
 ○ view human nature cynically, show few scruples, and 
 are willing to set outside the bounds of formal authority;
 ○ are more flexible in the type of behavior they use to 
 influence others, relying on emotional appeals rather 
 than logic and rational argument.
●Low Machs: 
 ○ tend to be overly naïve and trusting.
 Machiavellian Personality 
●Neither the high Machs nor low Machs are likely 
 to be effective leaders.
 ○ High Machs are too focused on their personal goals; 
 ○ Low Machs are not skilled at the legitimate tactics 
 essential for effective leadership.
●Individuals who are medium Machs tend to be 
 the most effective leaders. 
 ○ They are good negotiators, and savvy about 
 manipulation of others to reach goals, but, they do not 
 abuse their power, and they focus on achieving 
 organizational rather than personal goals.
 Narcissism 
Characteristics of narcissism:
 ● Grandiose sense of self-importance and exaggeration of one’s 
 achievement and talents
 ● Preoccupation with power and success
 ● Arrogance
 ● Indifference to others and self-absorption
 ● Inability to tolerate criticism and a fragile self-esteem
 ● Desire to be the center of attention at all times
 ● Sense of entitlement
 ● Exploiting others without guilt to achieve goals
 ● Lack of empathy for others and inability to understand others’ feelings
 ● Trouble building meaningful relationships
 Chapter 3
 3.6- Characteristics 
of Leaders Who Fail
 Characteristics of leaders 
 who fail
● Abrasive, intimidating style
● Coldness and arrogance
● Untrustworthiness
● Self-centeredness and overly political actions
● Poor performance
● Inability to delegate 
 Chapter 3
3.7- Using Individual 
 Characteristics 
 Using individual 
 characteristics 
Despite the validity of the constructs presented, it is 
important to limit the use of the scales to the purpose for 
which they are developed. The scales are all good self-
awareness and self-development tools.
 ● Self-awareness: the first step to leadership effectiveness 
 is being aware of one’s strengths, weaknesses, and 
 personality characteristics.
 ● The self-awareness trends in the business sector are 
 leading to the use of 360-degree feedback, which allow 
 managers to receive feedback about their behaviors, 
 style, and performance, not only from their bosses but 
 also from their peers and subordinates.
 ● Another self-awareness tool is the use of mediation and 
 self-reflection  increasing self-awareness and 
 managing stress.
Questions?