III. Donald Trump and Leadership Approaches
After reading a bit of a literature concerning Leadership Theories and Approaches I will try to describe how Donald Trump fits in each of them. (Northouse 2012).
3.1. Trait Approach In order to determine the causes of what made certain individuals great leaders, several leadership traits were studied. They focused on the innate abilities and qualities possessed by leader. These theories were named like ‘great man’ – because they consider that leaders are simply born to be leaders. In case of Donald J. Trump he was born in business family I already mentioned above, his father was also real estate businessman. He has a lot of good innate characteristics which could make anyone successful but it wasn’t enough. His father guided him in a very good manner through his life. In Donald’s book, “Think like a billionaire” the contributions of his father were mentioned so many times. He mentioned it that his father was a good real estate businessman and he taught him everything he knows about business, he took him with himself on different occasions and taught him how to deal? How to work in different situations? How to make tough decisions when required? etc. It’s true that Donald Trump earned what he has today, not given by his father but the knowledge through which he earned
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Trump gives high salaries to his employees and demands high results from them. Trump is a type of leader who leads from the front, he himself works hard so, he also wants others to do same for him, but in reality this may not be possible because followers can follow their leader, but they can’t be exactly same like him. With this type of leadership style he may lose some talented people who could be assets for the organization, and I think every employee would feel uncomfortable if they are treated like
Throughout Donald's life success was not easy for him or his businesses. The Trump organization revealed that it was 5$ billion in debt in 1990, with as much as 1$ billion spent by Donald Personally. With all the casinos, hotels, and cars Trump had to create a bailout system that would allow him to take out two to three mortgages on most of properties. Unsurprisingly Donald Trump filed for bankruptcy four times. Although he was in the hole, he was able to get himself out and with that I think that he wouldn't have been able to make any crucial business decisions without the help of many bankers and lawyers but also the use of a free enterprise system.
Niccolo Machiavelli published his famous book “The Prince” in 1513, which is considered as a “handbook” for leaders. “The Prince” explains to the reader(s) how to acquire and maintain political authority. According to Machiavelli, an ideal leader, is a person who is attentive of the men around him, believes the end justifies the means, and destroys disloyalty by trickery or falsifying his purpose. Many leaders throughout history have showed one or many traits that Machiavelli stated in his work. Therefore, Donald Trump, would fall under the category of a Machiavellian leader.
From the vantage point of the present, it is easy to look back at the tenure of any great leader and draw conclusions about just what it was that made him/her great. We can examine the circumstances under which their leadership flourished; piece together what we know of their character and personality traits; delve into the factors that may have driven them; and dissect their leadership style all in an effort to pinpoint the source of their success. The ‘Great Man’ theory, popular in the 19th century and now thoroughly debunked, held that leaders are born, not made; suggesting that men like George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., and Winston Churchill were born with the innate capacity to change the world (Landis,
Lucky for the people Mr. Trump is just that. Trump owns Trump Organization, a company ranked 62nd of the top 100 companies in the U.S.. The company is worth roughly 9.5 billion dollars alone (NAGLE). Donald Trump as a standalone figure is worth roughly 4.5 billion dollars. If there is a physical representation of a person’s success, it would be money. Trump has taken his father’s role in the real estate world and not only met, but exceeded the expectations that he was imagined to have. He expanded rapidly from the original company and broadened its range from New Jersey to Florida to Manhattan, and even The New York Suburbs ("Trump Organization."). Even after he went bankrupt four times, he managed to pull himself out of the dirt and rise back up to his dominate spot. He surrounds himself with winning people and anyone who can’t perform at the level Trump demands, he fires. He doesn’t settle for mediocrity. He is a fierce competitor and that's what America
19). Still a part of the Great Man Leadership era, these trait theories just went a step further in attempting to pinpoint exactly which traits of these “great men” were consistently associated with the leaders, in an effort to more clearly define what a great leader was. This was again a further attempt to be able to identify a leader early on and predict which individuals were born to become leaders. It is thought that a major flaw with these theories was the failure to account for external factors, such as the environment in which the individuals were brought up in, as well as the situations they experienced (Horner, 2007, p. 270). Still today we do continue to study the characteristics of leaders in order to better define and understand what makes someone a good leader.
For centuries leaders have been analyzed in order to determine what the traits and characteristics of a successful leader are. Leadership, as defined by Koontz and Weihrich (2008) is “the art or a process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals” (p. 311). Leadership plays an important role in employee’s participation, creativity, recruitment to an organization, their commitment to the organization, and productivity levels. Over the years, there have been a number of theories surrounding leadership such as the “Great Man” theory, which, according to Riaz and Haider (2010), “assumes that leaders are born and have innate qualities, therefore, leaders
Trump may be known for his wealth but many aspects has shown that he is definitely bad in business. As president, being good in business is one of the key aspects to succeed, because you have to handle the whole nation’s financial matters. Trump boasted that he earned his own money, but he isn’t like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, who are self-made billionaires who were innovators in their fields. Instead, Trump’s wealth is inherited from his father. Almost all his best-known successes are deducible to family ties or money given to him by his
Donald Trump is a very successful business man that is just trying his hand in politics this election. He was born in Queens, New York on the fourteenth of June in 1946 and later graduated business school at the Warton School of Finance. Other than the acting chairman and president of his own organization, Trump has become a successful author of over 15 bestselling books including “The Art of the Deal.” He is also an Emmy nominee for his show “The Apprentice” which coined the phrase “you’re fired!”(“About Donald J. Trump”). Though he may not have much governing experience, he sure has gotten a lot
As a growing debate, the question at hand is whether great leaders are born with specific leadership traits, or if one can be taught certain traits over time. According to (Wikipedia.com) the approach of listing leadership qualities, often termed "trait theory of leadership", assumes certain traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership. I believe that leadership traits such as honest, competent, initiative, inspiring, hardworking, intelligent, and the ability to lead the masses, are some of the leadership traits one should possess. Within this paper, I will examine the overall concept of leadership traits, while observing the traits that were, or can be associated with successful leaders.
As the owner of a ten billion dollar empire, Trump has established a firm reality that he knows how to make money. He has also shown that he has the leadership capabilities to head a conglomerate with thousands of employees under his wing, and has shown to the people that he can handle this responsibility reliably. Some may argue that Trump has been unsuccessful in the past, as he declared corporate bankruptcy four times over his long and storied career (O'Connor). However, past instances of failure have not been able to stifle him in his pursuit of riches. Many are aware of the fact that some of the country’s greatest presidents have a failed business under their belt. The fact that Trump was able to pick up the pieces of his business after bankruptcy and reinvent his company time and again indicates that he should be applauded rather than
The lack of political knowledge Trump has is startling, yet he has tremendous backing among polling results. He is in the lead now and has been for quite some time now. He has said multiple times that he has good people that will work for him and they will do a great job. His key phrase “we are going to make our country great again” has been the main focus of every one of his speeches. He continuously states that he is going to make this
Donald Trump does not seem to have much experience in politics, so what exactly is his background? Mr. Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 and received a degree in Economics. In 1971 Mr. Trump took control of his father’s company, Elizabeth Trump & Son after working there with his father. Trump eventually renamed the company the Trump Organization. According to his biography on biography.com, “He also moved his residence to Manhattan, where he began to make important connections with influential people. Convinced of the city's economic opportunity, Trump soon became involved in large building projects in Manhattan that would offer opportunities for earning high profits, using attractive architectural design and winning
President Trump began his business career in Real Estate working for his father while he was a student. Trump stated that his real estate career was launched with a "small" one-million-dollar loan from his father. However, Trump proved to be more ambitious than his father as he took interest in various building projects around Manhattan and as
The Trait Approach was the 1st systematic attempt to study leadership. In the 20th century it was known as the “great man” theory. This approach takes a look at the leaders personal attributes such as but not limited to: motivation, energy, intuition, creativity, persuasiveness and foresight. Some of the traits that are essential to this list include: intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability. Thus it focuses mainly on the leader and not on the followers or situations. The strengths of the Trait Approach includes: 1) it is intuitively appealing, 2) it has research to back it’s theory, 3) it highlights the leader, 4) it identifies what the traits of a leader should have and whether the traits we do
Trumps leadership skills are dependent on his personality. When looking at Trumps personality one can see how his leadership skills have developed around it. The article, “The Paradox of Managerial Tyranny”, describes four types of behavior styles, all of which are tyrannical leadership approaches. The egotist, which is one of the four behavior styles best represents Donald Trumps personality. As described in the article, “egotists are motivated strictly by the principles of self-aggrandizement and publicity–seeking. They often attract as much attention with their speeches as with their actions. There is an exaggerated element to their behaviors, and to modest audiences they may see vainglorious (Ma).” In recent public endeavors Trump has been scrutinized because of his controversial behavior and narcissistic personality. Egotists tend to have a huge self-confidence and often are seen as arrogant or selfish. They do not