A Review on the Development of Trait Theory of Leadership

This paper reviews about the development of trait theory of leadership. By qualitatively review of the studies in 20th century, this paper emphasizes the contribution of integrating five-factor model (FFM) into the trait theory. By carefully analyzing the studies done about FFM and leadership, this paper points out that the lack of consistency in conceptualization and methodology among the trait theory studies are the major problems that lead to the inconsistency result among different studies. Facing the situation that few research is done communication-specifically, the paper also proposed three direction that communication can contribute to the theoretical development in future. 1. The Development of Trait Theory in Leadership The trait theory of leadership is based on the assumption that leaders possess certain personal characteristics which can differentiate them from non-leaders[1]. Those traits are born and innate and remain unchanged across situations. Scholars working hard to discover what are the traits that make some people "leader-like". They focused on factors like height, weight, appearance, intelligence and disposition, as well as status, social skill, mobility, popularity and other social traits [2]. They want to find out what of those determinates have the strong explanation or prediction power towards leadership. Basically, as Lord et. al.[3] pointed out, two types of leaderships are studied, leadership emergence and leadership effectiveness. Leadership emergence, or called perception of leadership, identifies factors that make the person leaderlike [4]. The perception normally studied by peer rating or observer rating method, in a group without formal leaders. While leadership effectiveness refers to the leaders' performance. Hogan et. al.[4] suggested that the effectiveness of leadership should be evaluated by the outcome, in team, group or organizational level. However, Judge et. al. [5] pointed out that in assessment of leadership effectiveness, most studies still used ratings of leadership from supervisor, peer or subordinates. Such rating still reflected the perception of leadership effectiveness but not objective outcome. But the difference between leadership emergency and effectiveness can be conceptualized in two level of analysis [5]. Leadership emergence is studying the leadership within a group, and leadership effectiveness is between-group phenomenon. Although the two concepts are different, but in practice and from the results of trait findings, the two concepts are not too distinction, especially when all measured by perception [6]. 328 2020 International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries (ICEIPI 2020) Published by CSP © 2020 the Authors The study of trait in the context of leadership communication is heavily influence by psychology and is in the sociopsychological tradition in communication theories [7]. Although the trait theory had having their place in Organizational Communication book for very long time, the basic methodology or findings are still cited from psychologists' works. The conclusion over whether traits can alone predict the leadership and what traits constitute effective leadership is still in debate both over psychology and communication scholars. 1.1. The Origin of the Theory Trait theories are the earliest approach that tries to understand leadership [1]. The origin of the trait theory may probably dated back to the theory of the "great man" in the writings of the early Greeks and Roman times[8] . The "great man" hypothesis is that "history is shaped by the force of extraordinary leadership[5]", and they owns special trait that different from ordinary persons. Trait theory also assume that leaders owns certain traits, but leaders not limited to those few heroic man anymore. The earliest study on trait theory of leadership is Terman's [9] study about pedagogy of leadership in applied psychology. During the early 20th century, the trait theory was widely believed by researchers and numerous studies were conducted in finding certain psychological and physical characteristics of leaders[2] . Almost the same time, during late 19th century and early 20th century, a psychological testing movement emergence. Therefore, studies attempting to build up relationship between leadership and traits were mostly in statistical way [10]. 1.2. A Crisis and Critiques There was a crisis of trait theory of leadership starting from late 1940s and early 1950s, with the publication of two influential reviews from Stogdill[11] and Mann [12]. The earliest skeptical towards trait theory attributes to Stogdill. In his review of 124 studies and surveys conducted between 1904 and 1947, Stogdill uncovered extreme inconsistency in the findings of both what traits leaders possessed and the strength of correlation between a give trait and leadership prowess. Therefore, he concluded, " A person does not become a leader by virtue of the possession of some combination of traits, but the pattern of personal characteristics of the leader must bear some relevant relationship to the characteristics, activities, and goals of the followers. [11] " There were five reasons that trait theory was criticized of being an inadequate theory[13] . First, the traits that were suggested associated with leadership were inconsistent, especially the strength of the association. Second, trait studies did not identify between qualities between good and bad leadership. Third, most trait studies did not established that whether the traits were possessed before or after the leadership experience. Fourth, researches were based on debatable assumptions of what were the components of personality. Fifth, the traits needed for obtaining or maintaining leadership might be different. This rejection towards trait approach was largely and widely followed, like Jennings [14] concluded: " fifty years of study have failed to produce one personality trait or set of traits that can be used to discriminate between leaders and non-leaders. " This abandon lasted for thirty to forty years until late 1980s. Lord et. al. [3] published "A meta-analysis of the relation between personality traits and leadership perceptions: an application if validity generalization procedures", in which he pointed out three aspects of misinterpretation with in Mann and Stogdill's work. First, the two reports did not clarify between leadership emergency and leadership effectiveness. Second, actually, there were "many consistently significant relationship between personality and leadership emergence in both reviews. [3] " Third, the actually number of studies which Mann based on for conclusion was far fewer than what in other scholar's perceptions. He criticized that Mann and Stogdill's works were overgeneralization and too pessimistically. In the result of re-examination of Manning's work, Lord