ORGS 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Trait Theory, Work Unit, Motivation

• School: York University
• Department: Organization Studies
• Course: ORGS 1000
• Professor: Stephen Friedman

Document Summary

Theories that refer to personality, social, physical or intellectual traits that differentiate leaders from non-leaders. Leadership motivation high need for socialized power to accomplish team"s or firm"s goals. Emotional intelligence perceiving, assimilating, understanding, and regulating emotions. Flexibility ability to adapt to needs of followers and requirements of situation. Drive inner motivation to pursue goals; need for achievement, quest to learn. Self-confidence high self-efficacy regarding ability to lead others. Knowledge of the business familiar with business environment; aids intuitive decision making. 50+ years of research: some traits only moderately increase leadership success. Traits more predictive of leader emergence than leader effectiveness. At the same time, perhaps some types of leadership can"t be innate (eg. transactional) Appropriate leader behaviour (optimal combination of initiating structure and consideration) depends on the readiness of the employees in the work unit. Readiness is broadly defined as the degree to which employees have the ability and the willingness to accomplish their specific tasks.