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Every supplier wants to create and retain a loyal customer who engages in continued profitable business with him. Customer Loyalty is the measure of success of the supplier in retaining a long term relationship with the customer. Thus customer loyalty is when a supplier receives the ultimate reward of his efforts in interacting with its […]
Approach to Exports and International Marketing Business Model
Today every individual entrepreneur owned businesses as well as Corporates have changed the way they look at their vision and business planning. Companies how ever big or small are no longer operating in domestic markets alone, for they have at their disposal the entire global market which is just waiting to be captured. The globalization […]
Investment Banking Issues: Why Do IPOs Get Underpriced?
Every year investment bankers help several companies raise capital from the markets. They help these companies in issuing securities and accessing more funds. The issue is that when these companies access the capital markets, they are often growing at a phenomenal pace. This means that these firms have a lot of projects where they want […]
Income Approach to Valuation of Sports Franchises
From the previous articles, we now know that sports franchises across the world are now being viewed as commercial entities. Hence, it is vital to derive the correct valuation for them in order to ensure that buy and sell as well as restructuring transactions can take place at the correct valuation. However, we also know […]
Breaking News: A Case Study of the Indian Media Industry
Historical Evolution of the Indian News Media By most accounts, the Indian Media Industry is one of the world’s most diverse and vibrant in addition to being largely free and fair. The Indian Media has had a long and chequered history starting from the pre-Independence days and including the post independence and the socialist days […]
Are some people born to lead? If we look at the great leaders of the past such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Queen Elizabeth I, and Abraham Lincoln, we will find that they do seem to differ from ordinary human beings in several aspects. The same applies to the contemporary leaders like George W. Bush and Mahatma Gandhi. They definitely possess high levels of ambition coupled with clear visions of precisely where they want to go.
These leaders are cited as naturally great leaders, born with a set of personal qualities that made them effective leaders. Even today, the belief that truly great leaders are born is common.
Top executives, sports personalities, and even politicians often seem to possess an aura that sets them apart from others. According to the contemporary theorists, leaders are not like other people. They do not need to be intellectually genius or omniscient prophets to succeed, but they definitely should have the right stuff which is not equally present in all people. This orientation expresses an approach to the study of leadership known as the great man theory.
Much of the work on this theory was done in the 19th century and is often linked to the work of the historian Thomas Carlyle who commented on the great men or heroes of the history saying that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men”. According to him, a leader is the one gifted with unique qualities that capture the imagination of the masses.
Earlier leadership was considered as a quality associated mostly with the males, and therefore the theory was named as the great man theory. But later with the emergence of many great women leaders as well, the theory was recognized as the Great Person Theory.
The great man theory of leadership states that some people are born with the necessary attributes that set them apart from others and that these traits are responsible for their assuming positions of power and authority. A leader is a hero who accomplishes goals against all odds for his followers.
The theory implies that those in power deserve to be there because of their special endowment. Furthermore, the theory contends that these traits remain stable over time and across different groups. Thus, it suggests that all great leaders share these characteristic regardless of when and where they lived or the precise role in the history they fulfilled.
Many of the traits cited as being important to be an effective leader are typical masculine traits. In contemporary research, there is a significant shift in such a mentality.
Prompted by the great man theory of leadership, and the emerging interest in understanding what leadership is, researchers focused on the leader - Who is a leader? What are the distinguishing characteristics of great and effective leaders? This gave rise to the early research efforts to the trait approach to leadership.
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