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Power and Politics

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Power and Politics Paper

Thomas Baniel

MGT/307 Organizational Behavior and Group Dynamic

December 19, 2009

George Beaini

Leadership is the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals. The source of this influence may be formal, such as that provided by the possession of managerial rank in an organization (Robbins & Judge, 2009). Because management positions come with some degree of formally designated authority, a person may assume a leadership role simply because of the position he or she holds in the organization. Leaders establish direction by developing a vision of the future; then they align people by communicating this vision and inspiring them to overcome hurdles (Robbins & Judge, 2009). Throughout history strong leaders have been described in terms of their traits, trait theories of leadership differentiate leaders from non-leaders by focusing on personal qualities and characteristics. Different studies identified nearly 80 leadership traits, but only 5 of these traits were common in 4 or more studies (Robbins & Judge, 2009). A breakthrough of these studies came when researchers began organizing traits around the Big Five personality framework. It became clear that most of the dozens of traits emerging in various leadership reviews could be submitted under one of the Big Five and that this approach resulted in consistent and strong support for traits as predictors of leadership (Robbins & Judge, 2009). Extraversion is the most important trait of effective leaders when organized around the Big Five personality framework, conscientiousness and openness to experience also showed strong and consistent relationships, though not quite as strong as extraversion (Robbins & Judge, 2009). The traits of agreeableness and emotional stability weren’t as strongly correlated with leadership; it does appear that the trait

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