| Course | GM502 Leadership Theory and Practice I |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Trait approach analysis |
| Length | About 1,130 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Management |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GM502 Unit 2
Four Words in a Hiring Memo: A Unit 2 Trait Approach Analysis of an Athletics Director
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GM502: Leadership Theory and Practice I
Unit 2 Trait Approach Analysis
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The university, its athletics department, the director and every event are composite and illustrative; the studies cited are real.
Why a Hiring Document Makes a Good Test
The search committee's recommendation to the university president described the finalist as "resilient, decisive, driven and trustworthy, with the personal qualities to lead a Division II program through a period of change." A hiring document is a useful test case because it records trait claims before anyone could check them. Eighteen months later, the department's records, meeting minutes, budget documents and two staff surveys provide a basis for checking.
The department sponsors fourteen sports, employs 46 coaches and staff, and had run deficits for three years when the director was hired. The president's charge was to balance the budget without cutting a sport.
The Trait Approach
Shelley Kirkpatrick and Edwin Locke reviewed the research on leader traits and concluded that traits do matter: leaders tend to stand apart on six qualities: drive, the wish to lead, integrity, confidence, intelligence and expertise in their field. They emphasized that traits are only a precondition; leaders must also act on them (Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1991).
Stephen Zaccaro later argued that traits work in combinations rather than one at a time, and that they influence leadership mainly through more immediate attributes such as skills, expertise and problem-solving ability. In his model, distal traits like personality shape proximal attributes, which in turn shape behavior (Zaccaro, 2007).
That distinction matters for this analysis. A trait such as drive cannot be observed directly. It can only be inferred from behavior, and the same behavior can have more than one cause.
The Evidence Matrix
For each trait claimed, the matrix states the conduct that would confirm it, the conduct that would contradict it and what the record shows.
1. Resilient. *Would confirm:* sustained effort and composure after setbacks. *Would contradict:* withdrawal, abandoned initiatives or visible loss of composure after a setback. *Record:* In her first year, a major donor withdrew a $400,000 pledge after a dispute over facility naming. Minutes from the next three staff meetings show her presenting a revised fundraising plan within ten days, and the department met its revised target by year end. *Verdict:* supported.
2. Decisive. *Would confirm:* timely decisions on contested issues, communicated clearly. *Would contradict:* repeated deferrals or reversed decisions. *Record:* She restructured travel policy for all fourteen teams within her first semester, a change two predecessors had postponed. But a decision to merge two coaching staffs was announced, reversed after objections and announced again in modified form three months later. *Verdict:* mixed. She makes decisions quickly, and at least one was reversed because it was made before key people were consulted.
3. Driven. *Would confirm:* sustained high effort toward ambitious goals. *Would contradict:* low engagement or modest goals. *Record:* She set a goal of a balanced budget in two years and reached it in eighteen months. Staff surveys describe her as "always working." *Verdict:* supported, with a caution: the same survey shows that 38 percent of staff felt workload expectations had become unsustainable.
4. Trustworthy. *Would confirm:* consistency between words and actions, keeping confidences, honest communication about bad news. *Would contradict:* broken commitments or misleading communication. *Record:* The record contains no evidence of dishonesty. But trustworthiness is largely a judgment others make over time, and the staff survey item "I trust the director to act in the department's interest" was rated 3.4 on a five-point scale, down from 3.9 at six months, with comments linked to the coaching merger. *Verdict:* cannot be settled. The record shows no breach of integrity, while trust as others experience it fell.
The record supports two of the four words, complicates one and cannot settle the last, because trust is not a trait the director carries but a judgment her staff keep revising.
What the Matrix Shows About the Trait Approach
Three lessons emerge. First, the traits the committee named were not wrong; resilience and drive are visible in the record and match traits Kirkpatrick and Locke identified. Second, traits did not predict how they would be used. Her decisiveness produced the travel reform and the reversed merger alike, and Zaccaro's model explains why: the outcome depended on a proximal skill, consulting the right people before deciding, which the trait alone did not guarantee. Third, some trait words are claims about relationships rather than about the person. Trustworthiness depends on how staff interpret her actions, and that interpretation changed with events.
What the Research Would Predict
A meta-analysis of personality and leadership found that several broad traits predict both who rises to lead and who is later rated as leading well, with extraversion and conscientiousness among the most consistent, though correlations were moderate (Judge et al., 2002). Moderate correlations mean traits shift the odds of success but leave much to the situation and to behavior. The director's record fits that pattern: her traits help explain her results, but the reversed merger and the drop in trust came from choices about process that a trait profile could not have predicted.
What the Committee Could Have Asked
If traits act through skills, as Zaccaro argues, a search committee can ask about the skills directly. Instead of rating decisiveness, it could have asked the finalist to describe a contested decision she made, whom she consulted before announcing it and what she did when it met resistance. Instead of rating trustworthiness, it could have asked references how she delivered bad news and whether she kept commitments she made under pressure. Those questions would not have guaranteed a different outcome, but they would have produced evidence about the process choices that mattered most in her first eighteen months.
Limits of This Analysis
The record covers eighteen months, a short period in which unusual events, such as the donor's withdrawal, may dominate. Staff surveys capture perceptions, not behavior. And the analysis tests only the four traits the committee named; other traits, or the absence of some, might explain as much.
Conclusion
The search committee's four words were partly borne out. Resilience and drive are well supported by the record. Decisiveness is real but cut both ways. Trustworthiness cannot be settled from the record because it is a judgment staff make and revise. The trait approach correctly identified qualities the director has, but it could not predict the process choices that shaped her most contested decisions. A hiring document that described skills and behaviors, such as how a candidate consults before deciding, would have been more useful than one that described character.
References
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
Kirkpatrick, S. A., & Locke, E. A. (1991). Leadership: Do traits matter? Academy of Management Executive, 5(2), 48-60. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.1991.4274679
Zaccaro, S. J. (2007). Trait-based perspectives of leadership. American Psychologist, 62(1), 6-16. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.62.1.6
The Purdue Global GM502 Unit 2 instructions
In Unit 2 of GM502 you test trait claims made about a real or composite leader against evidence of how that leader behaved. Find a document that records trait claims before they could be checked, such as a hiring memo, a promotion announcement or a performance review. Set out the trait approach using its key sources, including at least one that explains how traits work through skills or behavior. Build a matrix: for each claimed trait, state in advance what conduct would confirm it and what would contradict it, then report what the record shows and reach a verdict. Some claims may be impossible to settle, and saying so is part of a good analysis. Discuss what the matrix reveals about the trait approach itself. State how far your evidence can reach, then end on what the claims got right and what a more useful document would have described. Expect five to six pages under APA 7 headings.
Inside the GM502 Unit 2 example
The paper quotes the search committee's sentence and explains why a hiring memo makes a fair test. Kirkpatrick and Locke's six traits and Zaccaro's model of traits acting through proximal skills set up the analysis. The matrix takes each word in turn: a $400,000 pledge withdrawal and a revised fundraising plan support resilience; a quick travel reform and a reversed coaching merger make decisiveness mixed; a balanced budget in eighteen months supports drive, with a workload caution from the staff survey; and a fall in the trust item from 3.9 to 3.4 leaves trustworthiness unsettled. The highlighted sentence summarizes those verdicts. A section uses Judge and colleagues' meta-analysis to explain moderate correlations. Another lists questions the committee could have asked about consulting before deciding. Limits and a conclusion recommending skill-based hiring documents close the paper.
GM502 Unit 2 rubric: what earns full points
Instructors grading this GM502 analysis reward a fair test. Stating confirming and contradicting conduct before reading the record shows the writer did not fit evidence to a conclusion. Each verdict should rest on specific events, and mixed or unsettled verdicts earn credit when they are explained. Accurate use of trait theory matters: Kirkpatrick and Locke's list and Zaccaro's account of traits working through skills should be applied, not only summarized. The section on what the matrix reveals about the approach carries significant weight, since it moves from one leader to the theory. Using meta-analytic evidence to interpret the strength of trait effects shows graduate-level reasoning. Honest limits and a practical conclusion complete the paper. The Academy of Management Executive, American Psychologist and Journal of Applied Psychology sources, cited in APA 7, give the analysis a solid base.
Common GM502 Unit 2 mistakes, and how to avoid them
GM502 Unit 2 papers often confirm every trait a leader is said to have, using whatever evidence fits. Setting the test criteria first prevents that. Others treat trait words as facts about a person, missing that some, such as trustworthiness, are judgments others make and revise. A frequent gap is ignoring how traits work through skills, so a reversed decision gets blamed on a lack of decisiveness when the real issue was process. Many papers skip the meta-analytic evidence and so overstate or understate what traits predict. Limits are often left out. Find a document with trait claims, define what would confirm and contradict each, read the record, give a verdict with reasons, explain any claim that cannot be settled, connect the findings to trait research and suggest what a better document would have said.
Get a GM502 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Send the trait claims under test, whether they come from a hiring memo, a performance review or a published profile, along with what you have seen the person do and the Unit 2 prompt and rubric. The first analysis is free and arrives inside 24-48h, built on whichever trait framework your reading assigns. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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GM502 Unit 2 questions, answered
Where can the trait claims come from if there is no hiring memo?
Anywhere someone put qualities in writing: a promotion announcement, an award citation, a performance review, a press profile, even the phrases colleagues routinely use about the person. Written claims work best because they are fixed, and nobody can revise them once the evidence arrives. Remembered reputation can serve, but then the paper should say so and treat the claim as looser.
Which trait list should the analysis use?
Whichever your Unit 2 reading presents. Kirkpatrick and Locke's list is common because its traits are concrete enough to test, and Big Five research offers another option with stronger measurement behind it. Mixing lists tends to blur the analysis, and one list applied with stated evidence standards usually earns more than a quick survey of several.
Is it acceptable to conclude that a claimed trait was wrong?
Yes, and a contradicted claim often makes the paper's strongest section. Leadership instructors see many analyses confirming every quality a leader is credited with, and a mixed verdict tends to be trusted more. Show the evidence that cuts against the claim, consider whether the trait could still be present but hidden by circumstance, and say where you land.
Where can I find a free GM502 Unit 2 sample paper?
This page carries a full GM502 Unit 2 trait approach analysis testing four trait words from an athletics director's hiring memo against eighteen months of her record, with an evidence matrix, trait research and APA 7 references.
Why could trustworthiness not be settled in GM502 Unit 2?
The record showed no breach of integrity, but trust is a judgment staff form and revise over time. The staff survey's trust item fell from 3.9 to 3.4 after a contested merger, so the evidence describes changing perceptions rather than a fixed trait.