Chapter 1: Leadership Theories Leadership theories are attempts to answer some of the questions people have about leadership. These theories range from simple “armchair philosophies” about personal characteristics and actual relationships between leaders, followers, and situations. Great Man Theory Thomas Carleyle, an influential Scottish historian, is credited with the maxim: “the history of the world is but the biography of great men.” We can easily identify with Carleyle's point of view as specific examples of men who seem to have changed the course of history immediately come to mind de Gaulle, Hitler, Jesus Christ, Lincoln, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Lenin and Martin Luther King. Winston Churchill, a man who for many personifies the great man, is the main subject of a recent book, The Great Man. On a less grand scale, there have been great leading men in business and industry: Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, Mellon, Gould, Sloan, and Harriman. In great man theory the emphasis is on the person, who he is, and what makes him the right path. it is. Presumably, by studying the personalities, behaviors and characteristics of these great men, a greater awareness of leadership can be gained. This view implies that we can learn how to become effective leaders by studying these men and emulating those characteristics that appear to explain their successful leadership. Very often, when people lament the severe lack of leadership in American society, they are referring to a great man type of leader. What is often overlooked is that the demands placed on today's leaders have become incredibly complex and far-reaching. Contemporary society is less responsive to the appeal of great men leaders and is less willing to play a docile role of follower,... by the way...l in cases of competition between groups. The point is that, even if it is not possible to find universal traits, it may be possible to find personality traits common to homogeneous types of groups or situations. Third, for the purposes of personnel selection into an organization one will often rely on an assessment of personality traits. Finally, despite the lack of agreement on a complete list of leadership traits, there is some agreement on some: intelligence, social maturity and breadth, internal motivation and drive to succeed, and human relations attitudes. These traits are not in any sense “universal” traits. However, as Keith Davis notes in his discussion of these traits, “Studies show that there is a more than random chance that a leader has more of these traits than the general population and sometimes even more than the average follower.”.”.