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Trait leadership is defined as integrated patterns of personal characteristics that reflect a range of individual differences and foster consistent leader effectiveness across a variety of group and organizational situations (Zaccaro, Kemp, & Bader, 2004). The theory of trait leadership developed from early leadership research which focused primarily on finding a group of heritable attributes that differentiated leaders from nonleaders. Leader effectiveness refers to the amount of influence a leader has on individual or group performance, followers’ satisfaction, and overall effectiveness (Derue, Nahrgang, Wellman, & Humphrey, 2011). Many scholars have argued that leadership is unique to only a select number of individuals and that these individuals possess certain immutable traits that cannot be developed (Galton, 1869). Although this perspective has been criticized immensely over the past century, scholars still continue to study the effects of personality traits on leader effectiveness. Research has demonstrated that successful leaders differ from other people and possess certain core personality traits that significantly contribute to their success. Understanding the importance of these core personality traits that predict leader effectiveness can help organizations with their leader selection, training, and development practices (Derue et al., 2011). == History of research on trait leadership == The emergence of the concept of trait leadership looks back to Thomas Carlyle's "great man" theory, which stated: "The History of the World () was the Biography of Great Men."〔 〕 Subsequent commentators interpreted this view to conclude that the forces of extraordinary leadership〔 Carlyle in ''On Heroes'' did not use the word "leadership" in his discussion of the hero as divinity, as prophet, as poet, as priest, as man of letters, and as "king" ; he mentions "leader" and "leaders" only 6 times (once quite disparagingly) in that work. See 〕 shape history (Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka, 2009). Influenced by Carlyle, Francis Galton in ''Hereditary Genius'' (1869) took this idea further. Galton found that leadership was a unique property of extraordinary individuals, and suggested that the traits which leaders possessed were immutable and could not be developed. Throughout the early 1900s, the study of leadership focused on traits. Cowley (1931) commented that the approach to the research of leadership has usually been and should always be through the study of traits (Cowley, 1931). Many theorists, influenced by Carlyle and Galton, believed that trait leadership depended on the personal qualities of the leader; however, they did not assume that leadership only resides within a select number of people (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002). This trait perspective of leadership was widely accepted until the late 1940s and early 1950s, when researchers began to deem personality traits insufficient in predicting leader effectiveness (Stogdill, 1948; Mann, 1959). In 1948, Stogdill stated that leadership exists between persons in a social situation, and that persons who are leaders in one situation may not necessarily be leaders in other situations. This statement has been cited ubiquitously as sounding the death knell for trait-leadership theory. Furthermore, scholars commented that any trait's effect on leadership behavior will always depend on the situation (Huges, Ginnett, & Curphy, 1996; Yukl & Van Fleet, 1992). Subsequently, leadership stopped being characterized by individual differences, and behavioral and situational analyses of leadership took over and began to dominate the field of leadership research (Bass, 1990). During this period of widespread rejection, several dominant theories took the place of trait leadership theory, including Fiedler's (1967) contingency model, Blake and Mouton's (1964) managerial grid, Hersey and Blanchard's (1969) situational leadership model, and transformational and transactional leadership models (Avolio, Sosik, Jung, & Berson, 2003; Bass, 1985; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, & Fetter, 1990). Despite the growing criticisms of trait leadership, the purported basis for the rejection of trait-leadership models began to encounter strong challenges (Kenny & Zaccaro, 1983; Lord, DeVader, & Alliger, 1986) in the 1980s. Interestingly, Zaccaro (2007) pointed out that even Stogdill's (1948) review, although cited as evidence against leader traits, contained conclusions supporting that individual differences could still be predictors of leader effectiveness. With an increasing number of empirical studies directly supporting trait leadership (Judge et al., 2002; Judge, Colbert, & Ilies, 2004), traits have reemerged in the lexicon of the scientific research into leadership. In recent years, the research about leader traits has made some progress in identifying a list of personality traits that are highly predictive of leader effectiveness. Additionally, to account for the arguments for situational leadership, researchers have used the round-robin design methodology to test whether certain individuals emerge as leaders across multiple situations (Kenny & Zaccaro, 1983). Scholars have also proposed new ways of studying the relationship of certain traits to leader effectiveness. For instance, many suggest the integration of trait and behavioral theories to understand how traits relate to leader effectiveness (Derue et al., 2011). Furthermore, scholars have expanded their focus and have proposed looking at more malleable traits (ones susceptible to development) in addition to the traditional dispositional traits as predictors of leader effectiveness (Hoffman, Woehr, Maldagen-Youngjohn, & Lyons, 2011). Context is only now beginning to be examined as a contributor to leaders' success and failure. Productive narcissistic CEOs like Steven Jobs of Apple and Jack Welch of GE have demonstrated a gift for creating innovation, whereas leaders with idealized traits prove more successful in more stable environments requiring less innovation and creativity (Maccoby, 2007). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「trait leadership」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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