Leader' s characteristic change in creative group

In the historical process human values and personal features characterizing a human being has been obviously changing. In this thesis we will focus on the development and changing of leadership characteristics in the historical framework analyzing personalities of tribal leaders, hunters, feudal lords, industrialists, enterprise leaders and other authorities in the leadership position. The experience of the Western culture and the United States of America will be analyzed in the theoretical part of the thesis and the examples of the Lithuanian creative enterprises will be presented and examined in the practical part. The aim of this work is to study the historical development of the personal characteristics of creative group leaders. The period from hunters’ society to nowadays knowledge society was chosen for the study emphasizing the developing Creative Class. For exhaustive analysis in the first and the second part of the thesis the theoretical leadership preconditions in the above mentioned societies will be examined concentrating on the leadership conception, leader’s characteristics and the changing of those characteristics through the historical periods. In the practical part of the thesis the evolution of changing leader’s characteristics will be analyzed providing the examples of Lithuanian medium creative enterprises. Interview with the help of a questionnaire was chosen as a method. Today’s leader (a valued worker tomorrow) is creative, communicative, cooperative and capable of motivating and encouraging other people as well as supporting initiatives. A leader can also effectively gain knowledge (information) and forward it to other workers uniting and improving a working environment as a result. By providing information about the achievements of his/her enterprise, a leader creates and strengthens the image and culture of the enterprise. Which leader’s characteristics are important? All 20 respondents attach great importance to such features as competence in the represented field, leading his/her business to a success, valuing the staff. The features that are inherited from the family, gained by experience and individual attempts in spiritual self-improvement are given less importance. The less valued features are self-improvement, being an example for others to follow, open-mindedness for changes, being fair and constant, ability to inspire others, taking care of workers not only as a staff, but human beings. Leaders are very colorful personalities; therefore it is difficult to generalize. However, it is obvious that their behavior is based on the mature world outlook. Leader’s personal philosophy is a starting position in creating relationship with the surrounding environment. It is possible to draw the inference that a theoretical conception of leadership corresponds to the practical understanding of the phenomenon among the respondents – a leader is a strong, responsible personality, which has the abilities to create a vision, cooperate and reach the maximum results