Both great man and trait theories agree that leaders are naturally raised to ascend to authority based on the same criteria. For example, conventional Western Europeans believed that a person born in a royal family or in a military background had high chances of leading the concern community.
Similar views emerged in the US concerning the countries political leaders. Scholars of Organizational management projected their observation to claim that for one to emerge as a leader, he or she has to be taller than most of his followers. Based on popular theories of leadership, this essay dwells on this notion regardless of isolated exceptions. Tall personalities make better leaders than their short counterparts.
According to Great Man theory, a good leader needs to stand at about 6 feet tall. Statistical analyses towards this effect also show a higher likelihood of tall people making good leaders. Explaining leadership on the basis of inheritance indicates that good leaders portray common characteristics deemed desirable by their followers.
However, in this view height does not play a major role in people’s perceptions about the appearance of their leaders. Nonetheless, tall leaders always exude more confidence in their articulation of commands thereby having good mastery skills to lead a successful organization.
In terms of heredity, perhaps height is the most argued factor in theories of leadership. For instance, in the United States, leadership theorists observed that with the exception of 1924, 1972 and 1976, all winning candidates were taller than their counterparts (Robbins & Judge2007, p. 648).
Leadership theorists used these results to narrate that tall personalities make good leaders, unlike similar personalities albeit shorter in their height. Other characteristics leading to the dominance of tall people in leadership include strength and hairiness.
In a tall person, strength and height combined to exude boldness and mastermind courage than all other hereditary traits. In the view of leadership theorist coincides with the shyness and timidity inherent in shorter personalities whose height bounds them to obscurity without intentions.
In the end, other factors such as wealth and family background contribute to elevate the tall person into almost undeterred leadership. In the process, the leaders have to show a lot of intelligence before his or her followers besides outsmarting their rivals (Bass, 1990, p. 146).
Since the physique of tall people only adds to their posture and natural ability to illustrate their ideas better, the society has more confidence in them concerning tall orders assignments such huge group security and social welfare as opposed to short people. On the other hand, the shorter rivals of tall aspiring leaders also usually tend to look down upon themselves in the same way.
As growth and development entails both quantitative and qualitative increase, the follower’s general perception of leaders tend to begin with physical size as a measure of their ability. Hence, the pride associated with tall people in their articulation of institutional objectives, tends to be more appealing to the followers than those of short persons.
This aspect of the followers’ judgment emerged from the behaviorist theory. This school of thought maintained that good leaders behave well in the sight of their followers. It also claimed that good leaders oppose autocracy and instead prefer democratic style of management (Sashkin, 1984, p. 7).
Conclusion
The opinion that tall people use their heights to overlook certain negligible problems amongst their followers interrelations, mean that their discretionary judgments often fall in place like a one-fits-all kind of solution to their followers. Therefore, with all other views considered, a tall person in a group has high likelihood of making a good leader.
Reference List
Bass, B.M., 1990. Bass & Stogdill’s handbook of leadership. New York: The Free Press.
Robbins, S. P. & Judge, T. A., 2007.Organizational behavior. 12th ed. Upper Saddle River, (NJ): Prentice Hall Press.
Sashkin, M.,1984. Participative management is an ethical imperative. Organizational Dynamics Journal, 12(4),pp.5-11.