Personality and Leadership

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Personality and Leadership
Donelson R. Forsyth
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• Everyone is
• unique

• But everyone is similar,
• too, in some ways.

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What is Personality

• Personality

...a distinctive and relatively stable pattern of
behavior, thoughts, motives, and emotions that
characterizes an individual.
The word personality comes from the
Latin "persona", meaning "mask.
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Levels of Personality Analysis
Every human being is
like all others Human nature What are humans, as a species, like?
like some others Individual difference In what ways do people differ from one another?
like no others Individual uniqueness How is this individual special?
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Human Nature Level

• The traits and mechanisms of personality that are
  typical of our species and are possessed by
  everyone or nearly everyone

• The Need to Belong
• The Primal Need for a Leader

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Individual Differences Level

• Ways in which each person is like some other
  people dimensions of variation among people

Extraverted
Introverted
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Individual Uniqueness Level

• Every individual has personal and unique
  qualities not shared by any other person in the
  world

Consider a leader.what do these levels of
analysis tell us about him or her and the way he
or she leads?
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What can personality tell us about leaders and
leadership?

• leadership emergence
• leadership methods and style
• leadership effectiveness
• followers reactions to leaders
• leaders reactions to leading

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Questions to Consider

• Does Personality Influence..
• who becomes a leader?

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Trait theories of leadership

• Early explanations of leadership studied the
  traits of great leaders
• Great man theories (Gandhi, Lincoln, Napoleon)
• Belief that people were born with these traits
  and only the great people possessed them

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• But researchers and reviewers (e.g., Stogdill),
  when they compared the characteristics of leaders
  to non-leaders, found few differences.
• A few characteristics were correlated with
  leadership, but the relationships were weak.

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New Advances and Renewed Interest
As Steve Zaccaro conclude in their chapter
Leader Traits and Attributes
Better Theory
?
Better Measures
?

• Emerging consensus leaders do possess certain
  qualities that set them apart from other people.

Better Methods
Better Statistics
?
Example Big Five Theory
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Big Five Factors and Leadership
Personality ? Leadership
Emergence
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Questions to Consider

• Does Personality Influence.
• how one leads, when a leader?

Leadership Style
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Example Fiedlers Contingency Theory

• Fiedler studied various leaders and organizations
  
• Preferred to only study groups with clear
  indicators of effectiveness/ performance (e.g.,
  teams with win/loss records)
• Revised and extended model based on data

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Personality Variable

• In oversimplified terms, the leader manages
  the group in either of two ways. He can
• Tell people what to do and how to do it.
• Or share his leadership responsibilities with his
  group members and involve them in the planning
  and execution of the task.

Motivational Structure or Leadership Style
Fielder, Harvard Business Review, p. 116
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• The Least Preferred Coworker Scale, or LPC scale.
• Think of the person who you least like to work
  with

Measuring Motivational Style
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LPC Scale

• Think of a person with whom you can work least
  well. He or she may be someone you work with now
  or someone you knew in the past. This coworker
  does not have to be the person you like least but
  should be the person with whom you had the most
  difficulty in getting a job done.

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• Pleasant .8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1. Unpleasant
• Friendly .8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1. Unfriendly
• . . .
• Insincere .1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8. Sincere
• Kind .8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1. Unkind

.
Low score Task Motivated (57) High score
Relationship Motivated (63) (If 58-62,
socioindependent) ambivalent, mixed
motivations, socially independent, not clear
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Leadership and Type
ESTJ Supervisor ISTJ Inspector ESFJ Provider ISFJ Protector
ESTP Promoter ISTP Crafters ESFP Performer ISFP Composer
ENFJ Teacher INFJ Counselor ENFP Champion INFP Healer
ENTJ Mobilizer or Fieldmarshal INTJ Mastermind ENTP Inventor INTP Architect
Guardians (SJ)
Administrators
Conservators
Artisans (SP)
Operators
Entertainers
Idealists (NF)
Advocates
Mentors
Rationals (NT)
Engineers
Coordinators
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Questions to Consider

• Does Personality Influence. . .
• who is effective as a leader?

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Example Fiedlers Contingency Theory

• High LPC leaders most effective in moderately
  favorable situations
• Low LPC leaders most effective in very favorable
  or very unfavorable situations

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Example 2 Intelligence

• Intelligent leaders
• Are faster learners.
• Make better judgments, decisions.
• Are better at visioning and developing strategies
  to make their vision a reality.
• Can develop better solutions to problems.

Depends, though, on type of intelligence and
situation
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Fiedlers Cognitive Resources Theory

• Why do some highly intelligent leaders behave so
  poorly?
• Fiedlers CRT suggests several factors important
  to consider

Experience Stress Relations with
co-workers Directiveness of leader
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Fiedlers Cognitive Resources Theory

• When stress is high, people fall back on
  experience.
• If inexperienced, high intelligence is of little
  help.
• So, even less intelligent individuals perform
  well under stress (if experienced).

• Other factors (e.g., directiveness) also
  important
• Implication Monitor and regulate stress

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Other Questions to Consider

• leadership emergence
• leadership methods and style
• leadership effectiveness
• followers reactions to leaders
• leaders reactions to leading

• Does Personality Influence . . .
• how people relate to leaders?

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Other Questions to Consider

• Does Personality Influence. . .
• how leaders change over time?

• leadership emergence
• leadership methods and style
• leadership effectiveness
• followers reactions to leaders
• leaders reactions to leading

Need for Power!