Ascertaining Whether Great Employees Can Make Great Leaders (Dissertation Sample)

Ascertaining Whether Great Employees Can Make Great Leaders
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Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Abstract PAGEREF _Toc444216897 \h 4Introduction PAGEREF _Toc444216898 \h 4Background of the study PAGEREF _Toc444216899 \h 4Statement of the problem PAGEREF _Toc444216900 \h 5Aims and objectives PAGEREF _Toc444216901 \h 5Rationale for the study PAGEREF _Toc444216902 \h 6Research methods PAGEREF _Toc444216903 \h 6Comprehensive literature review PAGEREF _Toc444216904 \h 9Theoretical framework PAGEREF _Toc444216905 \h 9Five-factor personality traits PAGEREF _Toc444216906 \h 9Personality traits and good employees PAGEREF _Toc444216907 \h 10Extraversion in employees PAGEREF _Toc444216908 \h 11Neuroticism PAGEREF _Toc444216909 \h 11Conscientiousness PAGEREF _Toc444216910 \h 12Agreeableness PAGEREF _Toc444216911 \h 13Openness to experience PAGEREF _Toc444216912 \h 13Personality traits and good leaders PAGEREF _Toc444216913 \h 16Neuroticism PAGEREF _Toc444216914 \h 16Extraversion PAGEREF _Toc444216915 \h 17Agreeableness PAGEREF _Toc444216916 \h 17Conscientiousness PAGEREF _Toc444216917 \h 18Openness PAGEREF _Toc444216918 \h 18Discussion of the literature review PAGEREF _Toc444216919 \h 20Summary PAGEREF _Toc444216920 \h 23Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc444216921 \h 24Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc444216922 \h 27References PAGEREF _Toc444216923 \h 28
Abstract
The focal aim of the investigation was to determine whether good employees make great leaders or whether they do not. This is subdivided into specific objectives that are based on the five-factor personality traits. The traits are extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. The research methodology used in determining the objectives was a mixed method secondary research based on a literature review strategy of analysis. The results of the study showed that extraversion, agreeability, conscientiousness and openness made up good employees. However, only conscientiousness and openness truly mean that the great employee would be a great leader. The main recommendation that has been made based on the findings is that organizations need to look at conscientious and open employees in developing leaders from the existing organization. This will improve the development of good leaders by the firm.
Introduction
Background of the study
Leadership is something that has existed in society since early records all the way to recent times. There has been a transition on what it takes to be a leader. All the way from the early monarchical leaders to the elected political leaders in recent times. In truth, every community or country is reliant in leadership to achieve certain goals. This is evident even in the organizational set up where companies appoint CEOs and managing directors to provide leadership that guides an organization to achieve a specific set of goals. Research by Talyor et al. (2014) found that the selection of the right leaders in an organization determined the organizational success. Their research mainly reviewed how visionary leaders influence the employees to increase their productivity and boost the organizational success. Their study showed that high leadership skills have a strong relationship with organizational effectiveness.
Another study was conducted by Mastrangelo et al. (2014) also found that there was a considerable relationship between organizational performance and enduring leadership. The research reviewed the personal and professional leadership aspects that pushed the employees to co-operate with each other and the leaders in achieving organizational goals. There are numerous different leadership styles that can be adopted to get the best from an organization. A laissez-faire leadership method uses a minimalistic approach while an autocratic leadership style imposes absolute authority over employees in the organization. A participative leadership style allows democratic inclusion of employee ideas while a transactional style is based on rewards and punishment based on the accomplishment of set goals. Finally, a transformational leadership style is centered on the motivation of the employees. Different styles work at different times and on different types of employees.
Statement of the problem
One important consideration is that most organizations have adopted human resource development programs that find young talent and nurture this talent for specific positions in leadership. This strategy means that organizations have to start nurturing the future leaders of the organization from a young age. However, this creates the conundrum of determining which of the talented employees hired in the organization has the potential to become a leader. The question that most talent management programs seek to ascertain is whether the personal traits of some employees makes them better leaders.
Aims and objectives
The main objective of the study is to ascertain whether great employees can always make great leaders based on the five-factor model of personality. This can be better emphasized with the following specific objectives.
* To ascertain whether employees who are self-confident or have neuroticism can make good leaders
* To ascertain whether employees who have extroversive personalities can make good leaders
* To ascertain whether employees who are open, creative and divergent thinkers can make good leaders
* To ascertain whether employees who have agreeable personalities can make good leaders
* To ascertain whether employees with conscientious personalities can make good leaders
Rationale for the study
The personality model by Bass (1990) is accepted by many people like a window to how different personalities manifest. The five different personality types in a way make good employees depending on the situation. However, there is a need to determine whether this can be used to determine whether the employees can be good leaders. Most of the studies that have been conducted are quite old, and there is a need for a more up to date study to ascertain whether, in the modern organization, the same character traits can be used to determine whether good employees can be good leaders.
Research methods
Any research undertaking requires the alignment of the underlying paradigm with the actual process of conducting the said research. A paradigm refers to the ideology or thought process that the respondent had when embarking on the research. A paradigm can be either deductive or inductive in nature. The deductive paradigm refers to research with the aim of answering research questions based on a specific theory. This refers to a top-down and conventional approach when it comes to conducting research. Alternatively, an inductive research tries to use the research questions in the creation of tentative hypothesis or tentative theories. This is more complicated and more difficult as the tentative theory must be different from any theory postulated by previous scholars. The research paper uses that former approach since the theories on personality traits are measured based on leadership skills that employees may have. This is deductive in nature, and the research objectives are determined based on this paper.
It is then important to ascertain the best approach that the research paper can use in determining whether the objectives are true or not. The research approach is either primary in nature of secondary in nature. The former refers to the gathering and examination of information that is original in nature. This information has to be unique to the research, and active data collection methods have to be applied. The detriment with this is that the data may not be available, or there may be restrictions on time and money. However, it provides an effective way of determining the research objectives in a unique way. The latter approach involves the use of past company information, scholarly work, and even newspaper articles to ascertain whether the objectives are legitimate. The detriment is that the information may have errors that are incorporated into the current study. However, it consumes less time and money as compared with other research studies. Based on the information that has been provided, the data collection approach and analysis will be based on secondary research due to the time limitation and the nature of the research.
The nature of the information is also ascertained by the investigator. Information is categorized into two broad categories in statistical data gathering and examination. It can either be qualitative or quantitative data gathered and examined. The two have different characteristics. The former involves the examination and accumulation of data that is made up of no characters or numbers. This is mainly collected and analyzed in prose form where the respondents provide information from interviews. The latter is somewhat different since it embodies the collection of information using characters and numerals. This is a lot easier to collect and analyze, but the type of information that is obtained is not as exact as in qualitative research. In recent decades, researchers have been using a combination of both types of research in an attempt to gain the benefits of both of them. This is known as mixed research methods. Since secondary analysis requires the use of both types of research, then the main research approach that will be used is secondary research methods.
Finally, it is vital to determine the exact nature of the research undertaking. The strategy used in any research secondary research can be subdivided into two main categories. The first is a case study analysis where different companies, individuals or countries or only one are used as the main aspects of research. This is a lot more complicated than most other types of research. The case study that uses only one entity is known as a...