A trait profile of top and middle managers

Although trait leadership theory has been widely criticized by scholars over the past century (Stogdill, 1948; Mann, 1959) employers always want to know what kind of abilities and psychological traits distinguish their future employees. The trait approach plays an important part in human resource management practices for selecting, developing and planning the career paths of managers (Armstrong, 2010). Interestingly, Zaccaro (2007) points out that even Stogdill (1948) review, although cited as evidence against leader traits, contains conclusions suggesting that individual differences can still predict leader effectiveness. Trait leadership is defined as integrated patterns of personal characteristics that reflect a range of individual differences and foster consistent leader effectiveness across a variety of group and organizational situations (Zaccaro et al., 2004). Top and middle level managers play different roles in organizations and therefore require different skills (Koźmiński, 2011, 2013; Griffin, 2013). In many studies, top managers are shown to differ from middle managers in terms of (1) analytical mental ability (Jensen, 1998; Schmidt and Hunter, 1998; Judge et al., 2004; Sternberg, 2007; Caruso et al., 2013); (2) emotional intelligence (Miller, 1999; Barling et al., 2000; Palmer et al., 2001; Gardner and Stough, 2002; Goleman et al., 2002; Goleman, 2006; Boyatzis, 2011; Caruso et al., 2013); and (3) personality (Judge et al., 2002; Hogan and Holland, 2003; Bono and Judge, 2004). Other results underline that mental ability and personality together play a significant role in management (Lepine et al., 2000).