Leadership Assessment

Leadership Assessment

Earlier in the course, you were asked to informally evaluate your leadership skills and qualities. In this Final Project, you use formal assessment tools to identify your areas of strength and areas in which you need further development. You may use the results of this self-assessment to develop a plan to gain the skills and experiences that will help you move toward achieving your short- and long-term professional goals and objectives

Reading

· Northouse, P. G. (2018). Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Sage.

o Chapter 1, “Understanding Leadership” (pp. 1–18)

o Chapter 2, “Recognizing Your Traits” (pp. 21–44)

o Chapter 3, “Engaging Strengths” (pp. 47-75)

o Chapter 4, “Understanding Philosophy and Styles

o Chapter 6, “Developing Leadership Skills” (pp. 117-138)

o Chapter 15, “Culture and Leadership” (pp. 383-421)

o Chapter 16, “Leadership Ethics” (pp. 423-449)

Note : Review your Paper

Leadership and Management: A Personal Perspective that you wrote on your strengths, growths, skills, traits etc to help with this final project assignment Attached document

Using the assessment tools provided in Introduction to Leadership: Concepts and Practice, conduct a self-assessment of your own leadership characteristics, style, and skills. Complete at least four assessment tools for this self-assessment. In addition, select one tool to give to a colleague or supervisor so he or she can assess your leadership skills.

Assignment

(2–4 pages in APA format)

Evaluate your current leadership characteristics, style, and skills based on the assessment tools you and your colleague/supervisor completed. Be sure to:

· Include actual results or summaries of the results you collected using these tools

· Identify personal leadership strengths as well as areas for improvement

· Include references to the leadership concepts covered in this course and relevant issues related to ethics, diversity, and power in the organizational setting

APA format Intext Citations and References
CHAPTER 1: Understanding to Leadership

Concepts and Practice

Fourth Edition

Peter G. Northouse

Western Michigan University

Understanding Leadership

Introduction

This book is about what it takes to be a leader. Everyone, at some time in life, is asked to be a leader, whether to lead a classroom discussion, coach a children’s soccer team, or direct a fund-raising campaign. Many situations require leadership. A leader may have a high profile (e.g., an elected public official) or a low profile (e.g., a volunteer leader in Big Brothers Big Sisters), but in every situation there are leadership demands placed on the individual who is the leader. Being a leader is challenging, exciting, and rewarding, and carries with it many responsibilities. This chapter discusses different ways of looking at leadership and their impacts on what it means to be a leader.

What is Leadership?

Leadership Explained

At the outset, it is important to address a basic question: What is leadership? Scholars who study leadership have struggled with this question for many decades and have written a great deal about the nature of leadership (Antonakis, Cianciolo, & Sternberg, 2004; Bass, 1990; Conger & Riggio, 2007). (See Box 1.1.)

In leadership literature, more than 100 different definitions of leadership have been identified (Rost, 1991). Despite these many definitions, a number of concepts are recognized by most people as accurately reflecting what it is to be a leader.

Leadership Basics

“Leadership Is a Trait”

First, leadership is thought of as a trait. A trait is a distinguishing quality of an individual, which is often inherited. Defining leadership as a trait means that each individual brings to the table certain qualities that influence the way he or she leads. Some leaders are confident, some are decisive, and still others are outgoing and sociable. Saying that leadership is a trait places a great deal of emphasis on the leader and on the leader’s special gifts. It follows the often-expressed belief “leaders are born, not made.” Some argue that focusing on traits makes leadership an elitist enterprise because it implies that only a few people with special talents will lead. Although there may be some truth to this argument, it can also be argued that all of us are born with a wide array of unique traits and that many of these traits can have a positive impact on our leadership. It also may be possible to modify or change some traits.

Through the years, researchers have identified a multitude of traits that are associated with leadership. In Chapter 2 we will discuss some key leadership traits, and in Chapter 3 we will explain how strength-based leadership is a variation of trait leadership. Although there are many important leadership traits, what is most important for leaders is having the required traits that a particular situation demands. For example, a chaotic emergency room at a hospital requires a leader who is insightful and decisive and can bring calm to the situation. Conversely, a high school classroom in which students are bored demands a teacher who is inspiring and creative. Effective leadership results when the leader engages the right traits in the right place at the right time.

“Leadership Is an Ability”

In addition to being thought of as a trait, leadership is conceptualized as an ability. A person who has leadership ability is able to be a leader—that is, has the capacity to lead. While the term ability frequently refers to a natural capacity, ability can be acquired. For example, some people are naturally good at public speaking, while others rehearse to become comfortable speaking in public. Similarly, some people have the natural physical ability to excel in a sport, while others develop their athletic capacity through exercise and practice. In leadership, some people have the natural ability to lead, while others develop their leadership abilities through hard work and practice.

Box 1.1 The Evolution of Leadership

Leadership has long intrigued humankind and has been the topic of extensive literature for centuries. The earliest writings include philosophies of leadership such as Machiavelli’s The Prince (1531/2005) and biographies of great leaders. With the development of the social sciences during the 20th century, inquiry into leadership became prolific. Studies on leadership have emerged from every discipline “that has had some interest in the subject of leadership: anthropology, business administration, educational administration, history, military science, nursing administration, organizational behavior, philosophy, political science, public administration, psychology, sociology, and theology” (Rost, 1991, p. 45).As a result, there are many different leadership approaches and theories. While the words are often used interchangeably, approaches and theories are different conceptually. An approach is a general way of thinking about a phenomenon, not necessarily based on empirical research. A theory usually includes a set of hypotheses, principles, or laws that explain a given phenomenon. Theories are more refined and can provide a predictive framework in analyzing the phenomenon. For example, the spiritual leadership approach is a conceptualization of leadership that does not yet have a body of empirical research to validate it, while contingency leadership theory has a refined set of propositions based on the results of multiple research studies.Not unlike fashion, approaches to leadership have evolved, changed focus and direction, and built upon one another during the past century. To understand this evolution, a brief historical view can be helpful:

Trait Approach

The early trait approach theories were called “Great Man” theories because they focused on identifying the innate qualities and characteristics possessed by great social, political, and military leaders such as Catherine the Great, Mohandas Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Moses, and Joan of Arc. Studies of leadership traits were especially strong from 1900 to the early 1940s and enjoyed a renewed emphasis beginning in the 1970s as researchers began to examine visionary and charismatic leadership. In the 1980s, researchers linked leadership to the “Big Five” personality factors while interest in emotional intelligence as a trait gained favor in the 1990s. (For a discussion of emotional intelligence as a leadership skill, see Chapter 6, pages 126–127.)

Behavior Approach

In the late 1930s, leadership research began to focus on behavior—what leaders do and how they act. Groundbreaking studies by researchers at The Ohio State University and the University of Michigan in the 1940s and 1950s analyzed how leaders acted in small group situations. Behavior approach theories hit their heyday in the early 1960s with Blake and Moulton’s (1964) work exploring how managers use task and relationship behaviors in the organizational setting.

Situational Approach

The premise of this approach is that different situations demand different kinds of leadership. Serious examination of situational approach theories began in the late 1960s by Hersey and Blanchard (1969) and Reddin (1967). Situational approaches continued to be refined and revised from the 1970s through the 1990s (Vecchio, 1987). One of these, path–goal theory, examines how leaders use employee motivation to enhance performance and satisfaction. Another approach, contingency theory, focuses on the match between the leader’s style and specific situational variables.

Relational Approach

In the 1990s, researchers began examining the nature of relations between leaders and followers. This research ultimately evolved into the leader–member exchange (LMX) theory. LMX theory predicts that high-quality relations generate more positive leader outcomes than low-quality relations. Research in the relational approach to leadership continues…