Leadership seen from a European and non-academic perspective encompasses a view of a leader who can be moved both by communitarian goals but also by the search for personal power. As the European researcher Daniele Trevisani states: "Leadership is a holistic spectrum that can arise from: higher levels of physical power, need to display power and control others, force superiority, ability to generate fear, or group-member's need for a powerful group protector, superior mental energies, superior motivational forces, perceivable in communication and behaviors, lack of fear, courage, determination, higher abilities in managing the overall picture, higher abilities in specialized tasks, higher ability in managing the execution of a task, and higher level of values, wisdom, and spirituality, where any Leader derives its Leadership from a unique mix of one or more of the former factors".
Studies of leadership have produced theories involving traits, situational interaction, function, behavior, power, vision and values,
Charisma, and intelligence, among others. To Plutarch's Lives have explored the question "What qualities distinguish an individual as a leader?" Underlying this search was the early recognition of the importance of leadership and the assumption that leadership is rooted in the characteristics that certain individuals possess. This idea that leadership is based on individual attributes is known as the "trait theory of leadership".
A number of works in the 19th century – when the traditional authority of monarchs, lords and bishops had begun to wane – explored the trait theory at length: note especially the writings of Thomas Carlyle and of Francis Galton, whose works have prompted decades of research. In Heroes and Hero Worship, Carlyle identified the talents, skills, and physical characteristics of men who rose to power. Galton's Hereditary Genius