| Course | BU 530 Business Leadership Foundations |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Trait and behavioral approaches |
| Length | About 970 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for BU 530 Unit 2
Declared Dead in 1948, Revived in 2002: How Much of the Trait Search and the Ohio State and Michigan Behavior Studies Actually Replicated
Student Name
Business, Herzing University
BU 530: Business Leadership Foundations
Instructor Name
January 19, 2026
Declared Dead in 1948, Revived in 2002: How Much of the Trait Search and the Ohio State and Michigan Behavior Studies Actually Replicated
The Question
The first two research programs in leadership asked different questions. The trait program asked who leaders are; the behavioral program asked what leaders do. This paper reports each program as its researchers designed it, then asks the uncomfortable question about both: when the findings were tested again with better methods, how much survived?
The Trait Search
What it was looking for
Early twentieth-century researchers assumed that leaders possess qualities that other people lack, and that those qualities could be identified by comparing leaders with non-leaders. Studies measured characteristics such as intelligence, height, self-confidence, dominance and sociability in groups of children, students, soldiers and managers, and looked for differences.
The 1948 verdict
Stogdill (1948) surveyed 124 of these studies. He found that some characteristics, including intelligence, initiative and persistence, appeared repeatedly, but that the findings were inconsistent across studies and settings. His conclusion was that possessing some combination of traits does not by itself make someone a leader; the traits that matter depend on the situation and on the characteristics and goals of the people being led. Textbooks for several decades presented this as the end of trait research, though Stogdill himself had not said traits were irrelevant.
The revival
The revival came from better methods rather than new ideas. Lord et al. (1986) applied validity generalization, a meta-analytic technique that corrects for sampling error and unreliable measures, to the same kind of studies. They reported reliable links between being perceived as a leader and three characteristics in particular: intelligence, dominance and masculinity-femininity, and that earlier reviews had understated the relationships because they counted studies rather than combining their results.
Judge et al. (2002) then organized the scattered trait measures under the five-factor model of personality. Across 222 correlations from 73 samples, extraversion had the strongest and most consistent relationship with leadership, followed by conscientiousness, openness to experience and low neuroticism; agreeableness was barely related. Taken together, the five traits produced a multiple correlation with leadership of .48. The same review found the traits to be better predictors of who comes to be seen as a leader than of how effectively that person leads.
The Behavioral Programs
Why they started
The behavioral programs were a deliberate response to the trait search. If stable characteristics could not explain leadership, perhaps observable behavior could, and behavior had a practical advantage: it can be learned.
Ohio State
Researchers at Ohio State University developed questionnaires on which followers described their leader's behavior, and factor analysis of the responses produced two broad dimensions. Consideration covered behavior showing concern for followers, respect for their ideas and attention to their welfare. Initiating structure covered behavior that defined roles, set standards and organized the work. The two were treated as independent, so a leader could be high on both, low on both or high on one.
Michigan
At the University of Michigan, researchers compared supervisors of more and less productive work groups and described a similar contrast between an employee-centered orientation and a production-centered one. The Michigan work initially treated these as opposite ends of a single scale, though later work moved toward treating them as separate.
What Happened When the Findings Were Tested Again
The behavioral findings had a difficult middle age. Through the 1970s and 1980s reviewers reported inconsistent relationships between the two dimensions and performance, and the questionnaires were criticized for measuring followers' general impressions of their leader rather than specific behaviors. The dimensions were widely treated as outdated.
Judge et al. (2004) reassessed them with meta-analysis across 163 independent correlations for consideration and 159 for initiating structure. Both had meaningful relationships with leadership outcomes. Consideration was more strongly related to follower satisfaction with the leader and to motivation, and initiating structure was somewhat more strongly related to group and organizational performance. The authors titled the paper after the dimensions' neglect, and the findings suggest the neglect had been a mistake. DeRue et al. (2011) went further, combining trait and behavior research in one meta-analytic model and finding that leader behaviors accounted for more of the variation in leader effectiveness than traits did.
Verdicts
| Program | Original claim | Status after replication |
|---|---|---|
| Trait | Leaders have identifiable personal qualities | Partly supported: moderate links to emergence, weaker to effectiveness |
| Ohio State behavior | Consideration and initiating structure describe leader behavior and matter for outcomes | Supported after reassessment, with different outcomes for each dimension |
| Michigan behavior | Employee-centered supervision is associated with productive groups | Broadly consistent with the consideration findings, but less often retested on its own terms |
Why the Difference Between Emergence and Effectiveness Matters
The most useful single finding in this history is easy to miss. Traits predict who gets seen as a leader better than they predict who leads well. In practice that means an organization that promotes on visible traits, the confident and sociable person who speaks first in meetings, may be selecting for emergence and hoping for effectiveness. In construction, where foremen are often promoted because they are the strongest or most forceful person on a crew, the risk is concrete: the trait that made someone stand out on the roof is not evidence that they will run a crew well.
The behavioral findings point the other way. Consideration and initiating structure are things a person can learn and practice, and the reassessment suggests they matter for outcomes. A promotion process that looked for evidence of both, rather than for presence alone, would be better aligned with what the research now supports.
The Question Both Programs Left Open
Neither program explained why the same trait or behavior worked in one setting and failed in another. Stogdill had raised that question in 1948, and the behavioral programs reproduced it: initiating structure helped some groups and frustrated others. Both programs measured leaders as if the situation were held constant, when the situation was often what decided the outcome. That gap is what the contingency theories in Unit 3 tried to fill, and it is why a fair verdict on the trait and behavioral programs is that they were more right than their critics allowed and less complete than their founders hoped.
References
DeRue, D. S., Nahrgang, J. D., Wellman, N., & Humphrey, S. E. (2011). Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: An integration and meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Personnel Psychology, 64(1), 7-52. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2010.01201.x
Judge, T. A., Bono, J. E., Ilies, R., & Gerhardt, M. W. (2002). Personality and leadership: A qualitative and quantitative review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 765-780. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.4.765
Judge, T. A., Piccolo, R. F., & Ilies, R. (2004). The forgotten ones? The validity of consideration and initiating structure in leadership research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(1), 36-51. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.1.36
Lord, R. G., De Vader, C. L., & Alliger, G. M. (1986). A meta-analysis of the relation between personality traits and leadership perceptions: An application of validity generalization procedures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71(3), 402-410. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.71.3.402
Stogdill, R. M. (1948). Personal factors associated with leadership: A survey of the literature. The Journal of Psychology, 25(1), 35-71. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1948.9917362
The Herzing BU 530 Unit 2 instructions
Unit 2 of BU 530 asks students to examine the earliest leadership research programs and judge what survived. Requirements typically include explaining what the trait search was looking for and why, reporting its results honestly, presenting the behavioral programs as a response to it, describing their dimensions as the researchers defined them, and reporting what happened when the findings were retested. Original studies are preferred to textbook summaries where they can be found, since summaries often repeat the oversimplified 1948 verdict. Most versions also expect a short verdict for each program. Illustrating the dimensions with your own manager risks describing a real person in a graded paper; keep illustrations general or composite. A short closing usually explains what both programs failed to answer.
How the BU 530 Unit 2 example is put together
Opening with the two questions the programs asked, the sample reports the trait search in three run-in stages: what it looked for, the 1948 verdict and the revival through better methods, with sample sizes given. The behavioral section explains why the programs began and describes Ohio State's two dimensions and Michigan's contrast. A replication section traces the dimensions' decline and their reassessment by Judge and colleagues, then DeRue's integration. A verdict table rates each program's original claim against its status today. A section on emergence versus effectiveness applies the finding to how construction crews promote foremen, and the close names the open question that led to contingency theory.
Where the points sit in the BU 530 Unit 2 rubric
Rubrics for the trait and behavioral unit generally award points for accurate history, faithful description of each program, an honest account of replication, use of primary sources and a reasoned closing, plus writing. Accuracy earns credit when the 1948 review is reported as what it said rather than as a myth. Description scores when dimensions are defined as the researchers defined them. Replication often decides the grade, and the top band goes to papers reporting both the decline and the reassessment, each with evidence. Primary sources earn points over textbook paraphrase. The closing scores when it identifies a genuine gap rather than restating the paper. Instructors also tend to credit papers that separate emergence from effectiveness, since that distinction is the most practical result of the trait research.
BU 530 Unit 2 help: mistakes that cost points
Trait and behavioral papers lose marks by repeating that trait research was discredited in 1948, which the evidence no longer supports. Another frequent weakness is describing the Ohio State dimensions loosely, as being nice or being strict. Writers often skip the period when the dimensions were doubted, presenting the 2004 result without context. Some rely entirely on a textbook, inheriting its simplifications. Others never mention that traits predict emergence better than effectiveness. Using a named manager as the example raises privacy concerns. Mixing up the Ohio State and Michigan programs is another slip markers notice. If tracing replication feels daunting, our writers can help you build the history from primary studies for your own paper.
Get a BU 530 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Attach the Unit 2 instructions to your BU 530 rubric and whichever studies your section assigns on the early research, and that is enough to start. We write a custom example that frames each program by its question, reports methods before findings and treats replication seriously. First custom sample free, returned in 24 to 48 hours.
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BU 530 Unit 2 questions, answered
Is the trait approach considered discredited now?
Not discredited, but substantially narrowed. The strong version, that a fixed set of qualities identifies leaders across every setting, did not survive testing. Later work revived a more modest claim about certain dispositions being associated with emerging as a leader in some conditions. Report both the collapse and the revival, and attribute each to the reviews that produced them.
Do I need the original studies or will a textbook do?
Follow your instructions, which usually accept scholarly secondary sources at this level. Where a claim is central to your argument, going to the original or to a review article protects you, since textbook summaries have compressed these programs for decades and some of the compressions have drifted. Cite what you actually read rather than what the textbook cited.
Could I illustrate the behavioral dimensions with my own manager?
Keep colleagues out of it, and a supervisor most of all. This unit is about what the research established, not about anybody at your workplace, and a graded description of a real manager's behavior is both identifiable and unfair to them. Performance reviews, 360 summaries and internal feedback records are the employer's material as well. Argue from the studies instead.
Where can I find a free BU 530 Unit 2 sample paper?
Read the whole BU 530 Unit 2 trait and behavioral approaches paper here without paying, including the three-stage trait history, the replication section, the verdict table and margin notes. Need it for different readings? Email the prompt and a matching paper follows free, usually within 48 hours.
Is the trait approach discredited in BU 530 Unit 2?
Not according to later meta-analyses. The sample shows that personality relates to leadership, especially to who emerges as a leader, though less strongly to how effective that leader is.