One of the main issues that arise when examining the term leadership is
that, in fact, despite the popularity of the topic, a common definition could
not be found. Bass and Stogdill have observed that there are as many
definitions for the term “leadership” as the number of people that have
tried to define it. One of the first systematic attempts to study leadership
was the trait approach that sought to study traits common to people who
are great leaders. This approach, which attracted the interest of researchers
throughout the 20th century, perceived leaders as people born with special
traits connected with the meaning of successful leadership. It turned out
that it was impractical to recognize the personality characteristics which lead to leadership. Since the 1930s many studies have been conducted in
both the psychological and sociological sciences, which criticize this
approach. Moreover, the existence of great leaders having completely
different personality traits makes apparent the need to focus not only on
traits but also on the environment and the followers in order to understand
the behavior and the efficacy of the leader.