Relationship between Locus of Control and Leadership
Question 1 Significance of Locus of Control
In a general way, locus of control, a principle, is the level of confidence of their fate and was initiated by Julian Rotter in 1954.  In the area of personality psychology, locus of control refers to the degree to which people expect that they can control events that impact on them. Locus of control is split into internal and external. Human beings with a strong internal locus of control deem that they have ability to control their own life. It means that they expect that their life stem basically from their actions. Rotter (1990) represents the internal locus of control as the level to which persons believe that intention or a result of their behavior is depend on their own behavior or individuality, while external locus of control as the level of people believe that the intention or result is a function of uncontrollable factors. Or Rotter claimed that they regard the outcome is unpredictable. What’s more, people need to pay attention that locus of control is a continuum. There has not a hundred percent external or internal locus of control personality. On the contrary, a majority of people locate on the point between 100 percent of internal and 100 percent of external characteristic. People have an internal locus of control characteristic are as followed. Firstly, they tend to take responsibility for what they have done and few affected by the comment of others. Secondly, they often do a good job at work under the circumstances of they are permitted to operate on their own mind. Thirdly, most of them have a strong feeling of self-efficacy. As a result, they usually spare no effort to gain what they want and have confidence to meet challenges. Most important of all, they are apt to physically healthier, happier, more independent, and can gain biggish success in the career. (Neill, 2006) When talking about an external locus of control, they are apt to talk to external factors for their situation. In addition, they often believe in luck or chance for any accomplishment. Phares claimed that the research has revealed that on account of these differences in cognitive expectancies, people have internal locus of control personality respond differently than external characteristics in different circumstances (Phares, 1976). Moreover, Connolly inclined that as a general predisposition of locus of control, it not only influences behavior through a series of conditions, but also a particular range of beliefs that may be true to more narrow conditions (Connolly, 1980). According to what I have mentioned above, it seems that higher internally oriented individual is a better characteristic for a person who wants to success. In learning field, in the 1970s and 1980s, Cassandra B Whyte, an American higher education administrator and educational researcher, associated locus of control with scholastic achievement of students booked in higher education. Internals would result of ten times in successful theoretical progress and they performed better technically, whilst the externals tended to have lower academic performance levels. (Brion, 2007) What’s more, in business field, triumphant leaders and entrepreneurs generally showed a strong internal locus of control characteristic, because they can control themselves strictly and go towards their goals insistently, like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. However, people argue that there are no better or worse types for internal or external, since people with an external oriented characteristic can often seen as humble and agreeable. Moreover, they are more appreciation and share praise with those around them. Therefore, people with external locus of control personality can do a good job as assistants, especially those whose jobs are to encourage others to go forward. So, it is quite imperative to know which group we are in and decide what should we change and improve or using our advantage of locus of control to develop our careers more expertly. For companies, interviewer can measure the interviewees’ locus of control score, and take it as a reference data when select the right person from candidates. I did not mean that candidates with high external locus of control should be excluded, externality can do a good job on provide psychological support to their colleagues, even the whole business. Locus of control scales can be fully used in several of areas. It is perfect known use may have been in the field of health psychology. Some scientists suggested that scales of locus of control are related with obesity, dieting, mental health, examination, weight control and preventative-health, etc. Additionally, locus of control was positively related with positive health behaviors and signed unhealthy symptoms. Grantz suggested that those information offer demonstration for a social learning viewpoint on the development and maintenance of individuals’ locus of control and advised that locus of control should be regarded both a state- and trait-level formulation in further research. All in all, locus of control plays an important role in educational field. Grantz pointed that by comprehending its efforts students and teachers can lead to more effective and worthwhile schooling (Grantz, 2006).
 
Question 2 Relationship between “Locus of Control” and Effective Leadership  
“The one thing over which you have absolute control is your own thoughts. It is this that puts you in the position to control your own destiny.” is a famous saying by Paul G. Thomas who is the author of Advanced Psycho Cybernetics and Psycho-feedback. As an effective leadership trait, if you want to be successful, in most cases, it is essential to have internal locus of control attitude. And it is the same in leadership. Before talking about the correlation between locus of control and effective leadership, we need to know what characteristic effective leadership shows. Although effective leadership is variety, I summarized 7 common grounds: trustworthy, self-aware and insightful, keep learning and growing, high self-worth and self-esteem, find solutions without fix blame, grow subordinates, and comply. And people with external personality imply that they consider their consequence and life are controlled by external factors like chance, luck, fate, etc. which they can not control. No matter what position you are in a company, the idea is to get them to shop making excuses or blame other external factors, and start to take responsibilities instead. Yukl found that one of the crucial traits of an effective leader is internal locus of control (Yukl, 2006). The following statement can explain it. “Leaders, with internal oriented individual, tend to be popularity among his or her subordinates. On one hand, an internal individual is regarded as more formidable than an external one because he or she takes responsibility for matters. Meanwhile, they don’t trust that they can improve their condition by themselves. What’s worse, they often have a sense of hopeless or powerless when facing difficult conditions. (Neill, 2006)  Leaders with an internal oriented individual would highlight that he or she can change adverse situations” (Dubrin, 2010). People must firmly deem that they have control over their own life and though there may be factors beyond themselves control if they are to provide any meaningful leadership. It is pointless to always look for an external factor in anything wrong. “Effective managers demonstrated a strong confident of self-efficacy and internal personality, as proved by behavior such as initiating action, taking steps to circumvent obstacles, seeking information from a numerous of proveniences, and accepting responsibility for no matter success or failure” (Yukl, 2006, pp. 185-186). Internal leaders tend to take action positively to solve problems. “People with internal locus of control characteristic consider that consequences were turned out by their decisions. Further more, they are much more satisfied with leaders who shown participative responses than who were directive. On the contrary, people with external oriented individuals are more pleased with leaders who with directive behaviors than the one with participative behaviors. Subordinates notions of their own accomplishment and capacities to achieve specific tasks can also affect certain conductor behaviors. Subordinates who hold that they are completely competent of implement a work are not as tend to accept a directive conductor as they would a leader who shows participative behaviors” (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2012, pp. 544-545).According to Bruttel and Fischbacher’s research in 2013, we can see that conductors have super level cognitive capacities and would like to use them, they advise creating a stimulating condition. In particular, internal oriented leaders have demand of measures nursing trust in self-efficacy, like the assignment of responsibility. From the discovery that leaders are with a high value to virtue, they draw the conclusion that it is worthwhile to give potential talents motivation to trust in the successful completion of their recommendation. The connection between internal locus of control and effective leadership may be explained by the fact that people with an internal oriented individual believe in their capability to implement self-appointed objectives (Klein & Wasserstein-Warnet, 1999) and to change the condition (Andrisani & Nestel, 1976; Klein & Wasserstein-Warnet, 1999). They feel individually responsible for the job’s accomplishment, and when something is beyond their expectation, it is by the reason of deficient participation on their role in their own fault to direct the team correctly (Klein & WassersteinWarnet, 1999). In contrast, external oriented individual success and failure to uncontrollable factors, like chance, coincidence, fate, or the influence by others (Klein & WassersteinWarnet, 1999).  They are less appealed to achievement-related tasks, because defeat is more likely to be due to the nature of the task and fortune (Lee-Kelley, 2006). All in all, in the area of leadership, Hiers and Heckel (1977), Anderson and Schneier (1978), and Mc Cullough, Ashbridge and Pegg (1994) all demonstrated that successful leaders were born with a strong internal locus of control, however, a minority of successful ones typically are a low internals.

Question 3 Personal “Locus of Control” Scores Analyzing  
Relationship between Locus of Control and Leadership  作业代写
From the outcome of locus of control scale which designed by H. Levenson, it shows that I got a low grade at 40. And it means that I have strong internal locus of control characteristic. And about the detail score of internal scale, powerful others scale, and chance scale, I got 37(high score), 15(low score), and 13(low score) respectively. High score of internal scale indicates that I expect to have control over my own life. And low score of powerful others scale indicates that I expect powerful others do not have control over my life. Last, low score in chance scale part indicates that I expect chance forces do not control my life. Generally, people with an internal locus of control have more leadership characteristic in their career and more successful. But sometimes having an external oriented individual can be a benefit, especially in circumstances that companies need a considerate and more easy-going staff. People like me with a high internals are apt to be very accomplishment-oriented. This may let colleagues recognize that I am difficult to get along with or I am an aggressive guy. And from the result of the scale, we can see that I am with a very high internal locus of control and dying to control everything. People who are very controlling can result in difficulties in taking direction. If people with high internal oriented personality and don’t want others dislike and avoid you, you need to make sure to pay more attention to the caring of colleagues and subordinate. What’s more, internally should take carefully to manage risks, because random events do occur for variety of reasons. People can not handle all risks even they have enough determination. Another field in career is leadership. Lots of research has been done on what forms effective leadership in companies, along with staff behavior to leader reactions or leadership style, and the numerous leadership strategies accepted (Spector, 1982; Kinicki & Vecchio, 1994), some of which have made use of\ the concept of locus of control. The outcome assumed above suggests that a connection exists between effective leadership and locus of control, with an internal locus of control being the preferable way for effective leadership in companies. It is advised that it is of specific significant that leaders with an internal oriented individual tend to believe that they can handle a greater level of control over circumstances in their environments (Strickland, 1989). As a result, may be I need to plan my career map towards a leader talent and avoid holding the post of assistant.
Reference
Andrisani, P. J., & Nestel, G. (1976). Internal-external control as contributor to and outcome of work experience. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61(2), 156-165.
Brion Humphrey(2007): External Vs. Internal Locus of Control
http://www.ehow.co.uk/about_6499163_external-vs_-internal-locus-control.html
Connolly, S.G. (1980). Changing expectancies: Counseling model based on locus of control. Personnel and Guidance Journal, 59, 176-180.
Dubrin, A. J. (2010). Leadership: Research findings, practice and skills (6th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western/Cengage Learning.
Grantz, M. (2006). Locus of control and its impact on education. Retrieved 21 Apr, 2006, from
http://www.units.muohio.edu/psybersite/control/education.shtml
Hughes, R. L., Ginnett, R. C., & Curphy, G. J. (2012). Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Klein, J., & Wasserstein-Warnet, M. (1999). Predictive validity of the locus of control test in selection of school administrators. Journal of Educational Administration, 38, 7-24
Neill, J. (2006). What is locus of control? Retrieved from http://www.wilderdom.com/psychology/loc/LocusOfControlWhatIs.html
Phares, E.J.(1976). Locus of Control in Personality. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press.
 
Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement: Psychological Monographs: General & Applied 80(1) 1966, 1-28.
Rotter J.B. (1990). Internal Versus External Control of Reinforcement: A Case History of a Variable,American Psychologist, April 1990, 490-493
Spector, P.E. (1982) Behavior in organizations as a function of Employee’s Locus of Control.Psychological Bulletin Vol.91 no.3 pp.482-497
Strickland,B. R. (1989) Internal-external control expectancies.: from contingency to creativity. American Psychologist 44. pp.1-12
Yukl, G. (2006). Leadership in organizations (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Relationship between Locus of Control and Leadership  作业代写