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Behaviors of Effective Leaders

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Behaviors of Effective Leaders
Sandra Tallant
Grand Canyon University
October, 7, 2015

Behaviors of Effective Leaders Effective leaders can exhibit behaviors that are conducive to the success of their leadership. Sometimes those behaviors may be abnormal or part of a syndrome like psychopathy. Other times behaviors are considered normal according to personality ratings. Taken together these behaviors can be characteristics found in an effective leader. In addition, behaviors of an effective leader can be categorized into three themes of personality traits, personal leadership styles, and leader self-identity. While not all behaviors are conducive to effective leadership, all the above themes are vital to the development of successful leaders of the past, present and future. The shared themes were synthesized from three articles all of which discussed the effective leader. First, the Odom, Boyd, and Williams (2012) article, “Impact of Personal Growth Projects on Leadership Identity Development” whose purpose was to explain the importance of personal growth in the identity of self for potential leaders of the future. Next, “Fearless Dominance and the U.S. Presidency: Implications of Psychopathic Personality Traits for Successful and Unsuccessful Political Leadership” written by Lilienfeld, et al (2012) whose purpose was to explore psychopathic personality traits that are present in effective leaders in the business and political world. Finally, the purpose of the last article written by van Eeden, Cilliers, and van Deventer (2008) called “Leadership Styles and Associated Personality Traits: Support for the Conceptualization of Transactional and Transformational Leadership” was to determine the personality traits found in transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize common themes

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