trait

(noun)

An identifying characteristic, habit, or trend.

Related Terms

Examples of trait in the following topics:

  • Common Traits of Entrepreneurs

  • Leadership Traits

    • Researchers have debated the traits of a leader for many decades.
    • Early trait theory proposed that merely a few personality traits have the ability to determine the success of a leader.
    • These models rests on two basic premises about leadership traits.
    • First, leadership emerges from the combined influence of multiple traits, as opposed to coming from various independent traits.
    • This diagram shows one contemporary theory of the essential traits of a leader.

  • The Trait-Theory Approach

    • Following studies of trait leadership, most leader traits can be organized into four groups:
    • Trait leadership also takes into account the distinction between proximal and distal character traits.
    • Proximal characteristics are traits that are malleable and can be developed over time.
    • These include traits such as self-confidence, creativity, and charisma.
    • The model rests on two basic premises about leadership traits.

  • Other Important Trait Theories

    • Gordon Allport's disposition theory includes cardinal traits, central traits, and secondary traits.
    • Cardinal trait: A trait that dominates and shapes a person's behavior.
    • An example of a central trait would be honesty.
    • Hans Eysenck rejected the idea that there are "tiers" of personality traits, theorizing instead that there are just three traits that describe human personality.
    • These traits are extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.

  • The Big Five Personality Traits

    • These five factors are assumed to represent the basic structure behind all personality traits.
    • However, as a result of their broad definitions, the Big Five personality traits are not nearly as powerful in predicting and explaining actual behavior as are the more numerous lower-level, specific traits.
    • Employees are sometimes tested on the Big Five personality traits in collaborative situations to determine what strong personality traits they can add to the group dynamic.
    • The Big Five personality traits are typically examined through surveys and questionnaires.
    • Apply the "Big Five" personality traits identified in psychology to organizational behavior

  • Four Theories of Leadership

    • Theories of effective leadership include the trait, contingency, behavioral, and full-range theories.
    • Experts have proposed several theories, including the trait, behavioral, contingency, and full-range models of leadership.
    • The search for the characteristics or traits of effective leaders has been central to the study of leadership.
    • Research in the field of trait theory has shown significant positive relationships between effective leadership and personality traits such as intelligence, extroversion, conscientiousness, self-efficacy, and openness to experience.
    • In response to the early criticisms of the trait approach, theorists began to research leadership as a set of behaviors.

  • Emotional Leadership

    • According to the trait theory of leadership, some traits play a vital role in creating leaders, such as intelligence, adjustment, extroversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and general self-efficacy.
    • The two most prominent approaches to understanding EI are the ability and trait EI models.
    • Trait EI refers to individuals' self-perceptions of their emotional abilities.
    • EI traits can be challenging to assess accurately because they rely on self-reporting, rather than observations of actual behaviors.
    • Personality traits are generally believed to be resistant to significant change, so the EI trait model is used to help people better manage their emotional abilities within the constraints of existing behavioral tendencies.

  • Leadership Model: The Ohio State University

    • Prior to 1945, most studies of leadership sought to identify the individual traits of effective leaders.
    • Trait theories of leadership were the first to approach leadership study systematically.
    • Trait studies, however, yielded inconsistent results and opened the door to broader perspectives on understanding the behavior of leaders.
    • In 1945, a group of researchers at Ohio State University sought to identify the observable behaviors of leaders instead of focusing of their individual traits.

  • Leadership and Situational Context: Fiedler

    • The Fiedler model shows that effective leadership depends on how a leader's traits and the surrounding context interact.
    • Fiedler subsequently enhanced his original model to increase the number of leadership traits it analyzed.
    • The Fiedler situational contingency model measures leadership traits with a test that provides a leadership score corresponding to the workplace where the leader would be most suited.
    • The Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) test asks test takers to think of someone they least prefer working with and rate that person from one to eight on a scale of various traits.
    • Some have disputed the model's validity by questioning how accurately it reflects a leader's personality traits.

  • Management versus Leadership

    • Though they have traits in common, leadership and management both have unique responsibilities that do not necessarily overlap.