Week 3: Leadership as person

Introduction

Your journey through the Five Ps of leadership (Grint and Smolović Jones, 2022) begins here. The focus of the first P, person, is on who a leader is. This perspective says that the ‘personhood’ of whoever is in charge is what really counts as leadership.

This person perspective began by trying to identify key traits that made leaders effective – it was a preoccupation of Plato in Ancient Greece, but also of the Victorian-era essayist Thomas Carlyle, and traces of it persist into the present (Grint, 2010). The traits view has been roundly criticised, however, because it assumes that people are genetically born leaders rather than made into leaders through development and experience. On a related note, as it took existing senior organisational leaders as its evidence base, the traits view inevitably privileged the characteristics of white men, who were grossly overrepresented in these roles.

Although trait-based leadership is highly problematic, this does not mean that adopting a person-view of leadership has little to add. This perspective can tell us about what might make leaders more appealing and may also tell us about the importance of being an ethical leader. In this week, you will be introduced to two influential person theories that explore the nature of personal inspiration and ethics: transformational leadership theory, and authentic leadership theory.

Figure 1 Black leaders can inspire others to follow – as on this Earth Day March for Science, where likenesses of prominent Black scientists Mary Jackson and Neil deGrasse Tyson are carried

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This is a photograph from the Earth Day March for Science. March participants can be seen holding cardboard cut-outs of Mary Jackson, NASA’s aerospace engineer and leader in ensuring equal opportunities for future generations, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, recognised for bringing the importance of science to the masses.

Figure 1 Black leaders can inspire others to follow – as on this Earth Day March for Science, where likenesses of prominent Black ...

By the end of this week, you should be able to:

• understand how the ‘leadership as person’ perspective holds value for your practice in relation to inspiration and ethics
• identify the strengths and weaknesses of transformational leadership theory, so that you can practice more inspirational leadership
• identify the strengths and weaknesses of authentic leadership theory, so that you can practice more ethical and responsive leadership.