Personal Qualities and Personality of Leaders

Emotional Resilience: Emotional stress arises in managerial positions because they work in situations that involved authority leadership, power, interpersonal conflict, meeting deadlines all with some degree of uncertainty and ambiguity. Successful Managers need resiliency to cope.

Mental Agility & Creativity: Mental agility includes the ability to grasp problems quickly, to think of several things at once to switch rapidly from one situation to another, to see quickly the whole situation (rather than ponderously plough through all its components) and to think on one’s facts. Because of the hectic nature of managerial work, successful managers must posses these abilities.

Creativity means the ability to come up with new responses and to recognize useful approaches. It involves not only having fresh ideas, but also the ability to recognize good ideas when they come from other sources.

Balanced Learning Habits & Skills: Successful managers learn independently. They take responsibility for the rightness of what they learn, rather than passively depending on an authority figure of expert. Successful managers can think abstractly as well as concretely. The relative concrete ideas to attract one (and vice versa) rather quickly. This ability, sometimes known as a helicopter mind enables them to generate theories to develop their own practical ideas.

Self awareness: The way managers view their roles affect their values, their feelings, strengths and weaknesses, and a host of other people factors. Therefore, we must help them be aware of their abilities and the part they play in determining leadership behavior.

Factors Influencing Leadership Styles:

Personality of leaderships:

Value Systems: How strongly do they feel that individuals should share in decision making? How convinced are they that the officials paid or chosen to assume responsibility should personally carry out the burden of decision making? What relative importance do they attach to organizational efficiency and personal growth of subordinates?

Confidence in Group Members: Leaders differ in the amount of trust they have in other people. After considering the knowledge and competence of a group in dealing with problems, leaders may (justifiably or not) have more confidence in their own capabilities than in those of group members.

Leadership Inclinations: Leaders differ in the way they function most comfortably. For example, directive leaders issue orders and resolve problems easily. Some leaders operate best in a team role where they continually share functions with subordinates.

Feelings of Security in Uncertain Situations: Leaders who release control over the decision making process reduce the predictability of the outcome. Leaders with greater needs for predictability and stability are more likely to “tell” or “sell” than to “join”. Social psychologists increasingly view tolerance for ambiguity as a key in people’s manner of dealing with problems.

Personality of group members: Before deciding how to lead groups, leaders also need to understand the influence of personality variables. Generally, leaders permit groups greater freedom if the following conditions exist:

1. If members have relatively high need for independence;
2. If members have a readiness to assume responsibility;
3. If they have a relatively high tolerance for ambiguity;
4. If they are interested in the problem and feel that it is important;
5. If they understand the identity with the goals of the organizations;
6. If they have the necessary knowledge and experience to deal with the problem.
7. If they expect to share in decision making.

How to be an effective Discussion Leader:

Lending a discussion effectively is a skill that few possess. This ability to bring the combined intelligence and experience of many to bear on a problem effectively and congenially can be developed with practice.

1. Make sure the discussion room is as pleasant as possible and the chairs for the participants arranged in a circle so that all participants can see each other equally easily.
2. Your first task as discussion or group leader is to explain the purposes of the meeting or the precise questions(s) to be discussed.
3. Let the group know exactly its role, e.g. to react to give recommendations, or to decide.
4. Remember the principle: Don’t do it yourself. Let someone else take minutes or be reorder. Redirect questions back to the group. Be a traffic policeman, not a goalkeeper.
5. Don’t be afraid of a little silence at the beginning as members focus on the problem.