Differences Between Trait and Behavioral Theories of Leadership

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR 1
Organizational Behavior
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Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR 2
Introduction.
Teamwork is a group of people combine efforts, and solve problems together, it is the most
efficient way to carry out tasks. However, it does not always give the expected results due to
some reasons. This paper will discuss some of the differences between behavior and trait theories
of leadership, how an organization can choose and develop a successful leader. The article will
also give examples of innovations that have affected organizational behavior and disrupt changes
as well.
Reasons why teamwork don’t give the expected outcomes
Some of the reasons successful businessmen like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet give are:
1. Unknown purpose: Where the members of the group don't understand the meaning of
doing the work, they could never succeed. It is therefore essential for team members to
know the aims or objectives of the group, procedure to carry on activities and how to
determine their success in meeting the goals (Driskell, Salas & Driskell, 2018).
2. Poor leadership Every team needs a leader to facilitate its running, leaders are responsible
for assigning a task, following up of work procedures, planning for meetings, and many
other duties. A team that does not have a capable leader may lack direction and morale
hence member becoming reluctant of doing their work, which may lead to failure of the
whole group.
3. Too many members in one group: teams with a large number of participants may be
difficult to control because every person has a different idea, and they all think their
opinions are right. Some people are also tough to work with because they lack
interpersonal skills when such people are put together in the same group; it becomes a

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR 3
hard task to control them for the leader. Again, when a team has many members, some
may be reluctant, leaving all the tasks to be performed by some active members.
4. Erratic membership. There should be a consistent membership where all members
understand each other and are used for working together. This helps the leaders to invite
only the right people in a meeting, although new members can join the group, people
work better with people they are already used to (Grover, Porter, & Morphet, 2017).
5. Fear of failure: sometimes people fear to share their idea because they fear that they
might fail the entire group. It is not healthy for the team because every team needs to be
challenged to develop creativity and innovation among the group members.
Difference between traits and behavioral theories of leadership.
Trait leadership theory uses a leader's characteristics to determine their leadership success. It
emphasizes that a leader is born and cannot be made (De Ridder & Lensvelt-Mulders, 2018).
This theory uses some traits to evaluate the success of a leader in future, some of this traits are
emotional stability, competence, honesty, self-motivation, desire to achieve among other
characteristics a successful leader should have (FleTroy, Justin, Jitendra, & Bharat, 2017). As for
behavioral-leadership theory, it emphasizes on leaders being made and that everybody could be
trained and become a very successful leader. This theory focuses on the behaviors of a leader
instead of the characteristics of leaders. Both approaches could be right because there are both
born and made leaders; some leaders don't need to be trained because leadership is already in
them. However, there are also several very successful leaders who have been trained to become
leaders at different points of life.