Effects of Gender and Dominance on Leadership Emergence: Incentives Make a Difference

Several decades of laboratory research have shown that high-dominant women, when paired with low-dominant men, are less likely than expected to emerge as leaders on gender-neutral tasks. The current study was designed to investigate the impact of an incentive on leadership emergence in mixed-gender pairs in which one member was high in personality dominance and one was low. Across incentive conditions, men high in personality dominance were more likely than women to emerge as leaders. Under the no-incentive condition, personality dominance relative to men did not significantly improve women’s leadership likelihood; men were more likely to emerge as leaders regardless of personality dominance. However, under the incentive condition, high-dominant women were significantly more likely to emerge as leaders than were their low-dominant male counterparts, and high-dominant men were also more likely than low-dominant women to emerge as leaders.     

Why do leaders engage in destructive behaviours? The role of leaders’ working environment and stress

Complementing previous research on antecedents of destructive leadership, we examined the role of work stressors in the emergence of active and passive destructive leadership behaviours. Building on conservation of resources theory, we examined direct and indirect relations between leaders’ perceptions of workload, role ambiguity and intragroup conflict on ratings of their own destructive leadership, as well as mediating paths through perceived stress. We used a two-wave survey design consisting of a random sample of 1311 managers. Structural equation modelling revealed that work stressors were only related to passive forms of destructive leadership, whereas personality was related to both active and passive forms of destructive leadership. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Opinion leadership types or continuous opinion leadership traits?

Opinion leadership is typically conceptualised as a continuous personality trait. However, many authors adhere to the view of qualitatively different opinion leadership types and apply arbitrary criteria to split continuous trait scores into two groups (i.e., opinion leaders vs. non‐leaders). The present study is the first to empirically evaluate this approach. A sample of N = 3812 adults (67% women) was administered a validated opinion leadership scale. Finite mixture models examined whether the latent trait distribution can be represented by a set of discrete trait levels that reflected distinct opinion leadership types. The results did not give support to a discrete typology that distinguished leaders from non‐leaders. Rather, opinion leadership was best characterised as a continuous trait.     

Cognitive and Personality Predictors of Leader Performance in West Point Cadets

The question of how to develop effective leaders is one of major importance to military organizations. This study, which examines a large cohort of U.S. Military Academy cadets over time, tests the influence of cognitive and personality variables on military leadership performance over a 4-year period. Hierarchical multiple regression procedures are used to identify factors at entry into the Academy that successfully predict military development grades as upperclassmen, 3 to 4 years later. A moderately stable cross-validated model reveals cognitive factors (college entrance scores, social judgment skills, and logical reasoning) and personality factors (agreeableness and conscientiousness) that contribute to later leader performance. A main effect for gender on leader performance was also identified, with women performing better than men. The amount of variance in leader performance scores accounted for by variables examined here, although modest, is notable considering the time interval involved. Nevertheless, future studies should explore additional factors, particularly personality ones, that may influence leader performance in developing leaders.     

Personality profiles of effective leadership performance in assessment centers

Most research examining the relationship between effective leadership and personality has focused on individual personality traits. However, profiles of personality traits more fully describe individuals, and these profiles may be important as they relate to leadership. This study used latent class analysis to examine how personality traits combine and interact to form subpopulations of leaders and how these subpopulations relate to performance criteria. Using a sample of 2,461 executive-level leaders, six personality profiles were identified: Unpredictable Leaders with Low Diligence (7.3%); Conscientious, Backend Leaders (3.6%); Unpredictable Leaders (8.6%); Creative Communicators (20.8%); Power Players (32.4%); and Protocol Followers (27.1%). One profile performed well on all criteria in an assessment center; remaining profiles exhibited strengths and weaknesses across criteria. Implications and future directions for research are highlighted.     

Perceptions of Femininity in Leadership: Modern Trend or Classic Component?

Recently, leadership theorists have commonly suggested that leaders should demonstrate new, arguably feminine, leadership behaviors. This contrasts with traditional stereotypes of leadership as strictly masculine. However, leadership research has a long history of recognizing two categories of leadership behaviors, initiation of structure and consideration, which appear to reflect stereotypically masculine and feminine behaviors. In the current study, 24 undergraduate volunteers rated traits of purported leaders based solely upon their viewing of the leaders’ faces. These faces were visually impoverished so that the raters had to rely on implicit personality theories of leaders to guide their ratings. The results demonstrate that participants’ ratings of purported leaders’ masculinity and femininity indeed correlate very closely with their ratings of initiation of structure and consideration respectively.     

Personality And Leadership Composition in Top Management Teams: Implications For Organizational Effectiveness

This study examines whether top management team (TMT) personality and leadership are associated with organizational effectiveness beyond the effects of CEO personality and leadership, as suggested by upper echelons theory. Using direct measures of personality and leadership, rather than proxy variables from archival sources or demographic data, we found that mean levels of conscientiousness among TMT members were related to lagged indicators of organizational performance, as were CEO conscientiousness and transformational leadership. Follower commitment to the organization was found to be associated with higher levels of transformational leadership from both the CEO and TMT. The results are consistent with the upper echelons perspective that organizational effectiveness is influenced not only by the CEO but also by a dominant coalition of leaders. Yet, the results also show that the CEO plays a distinct role in influencing organizational financial performance and collective organizational commitment. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

Big Five Personality Traits as the Predictors of Creative Self‐Efficacy and Creative Personal Identity: Does Gender Matter?

The aim of this study was to examine the relation of the Big Five personality factors to two self‐concept variables of growing importance in creativity literature: creative self‐efficacy (CSE) and creative personal identity (CPI). The analysis, conducted on a large (N = 2674, 49.6% women) and varied‐in‐age (15–59 years old) nationwide sample of Poles, using the structural equation model, demonstrated that personality factors are responsible for 23% of CSE and 21% of CPI variances. CSE and CPI were associated with all five personality dimensions: positively with Openness to Experience, Extraversion and Conscientiousness, negatively with Neuroticism and Agreeableness. The separate analyses conducted on men and women showed the differences among the predictors of CSE and CPI. Although Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism predicted CSE among both men and women, Extraversion was positively and Agreeableness negatively related to women's CSE. Conscientiousness was positively related to CPI only among men, and Agreeableness was negatively related to it only among women. Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness predicted CPI in the same manner among men and women.     

Prime Minister Leadership Styles in Foreign Policy Decision-Making: A Framework for Research

Although the institutional contexts of prime ministers in parliamentary democracies and of U.S. presidents are very different, both types of executive leaders influence the decision-making processes through their leadership styles. Leadership style includes how the leaders relate to those around them, how they like to receive information, and how they make up their minds. While there are numerous empirical studies and theoretical frameworks on the leadership styles of U.S. presidents, few studies of prime ministers are concerned with personality and styles of leadership. This paper reviews the literature on U.S. presidential styles and on organizational leadership in order to construct a framework for the study of prime minister leadership styles. Components of the proposed framework are illustrated with examples of British prime ministers and German chancellors. In addition, categories of dependent variables to be explained by leadership style are discussed. I argue that leadership style has the greatest impact on the decision-making process and that although the direct effect of leadership style on foreign policy behavior is less, leadership style indirectly influences foreign policy through the decision-making process.     

Peaks and Valleys: Predicting interests in leadership and managerial positions from personality profiles

This study investigates the relationship between personality and leadership and managerial interests at different levels of the vocational interest taxonomy. Personality scale scores from four different inventories were used to predict vocational interests of 574 adults. Influencing/enterprising interests, leadership and supervisory interests, and job‐specific managerial interests (e.g., CEO, Media Executive, Human Resources Director) served as criterion measures. A multiple regression‐based pattern recognition procedure recently devised by Davison and Davenport was applied to identify configurations of personality scores relating to these interest criteria. The personality profile pattern predictive of influencing and leadership interests was stable across different managerial domains. Results indicate that personality profile patterns drive the predictive power of personality scores, and that they explain a larger proportion of the variance in influencing and leadership interests compared with individuals' absolute trait levels.     

PERSONALITY CHANGE IN WOMEN PHYSICIANS FROM MEDICAL STUDENT YEARS TO MID-40S

Scales from the California Psychological Inventory's (CPI; Gough, 1987) Externality and Control clusters, in conjunction with a case study, were used to investigate personality change in a sample of women physicians who entered a Pacific Northwest medical school in 1964–1967. A core of 40 women was retested in their early 30s and mid-40s. From mid-20s to early 30s, the physicians'decreased scores on CPI's Sociability and Empathy scales indicated a greater internality. Decreases on the Responsibility and Good Impression scales indicated greater tendencies to question duties and obligations. An increase on the Achievement-via-Conformance scale indicated greater ability to achieve in structured situations. From early 30s to mid-40s, a further shift toward internality was evidenced by decreased scores on Social Presence and Self-Acceptance. Gains in leadership potential and increases on the Responsibility, Self-Control, Good Impression, and Achievement-via-Conformance scales were also noted.     

Linking leader authentic personality to employee voice behaviour: a multilevel mediation model of authentic leadership development

Drawing on self-consistency and self-concept-based theories, this study examined the antecedents and outcomes of authentic leadership. Specifically, the mediating roles that authentic leadership and organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) play in translating leader authentic personality into employee voice behaviour were investigated. The results, from a sample of 408 subordinate–supervisor dyads from Taiwan, provide evidence of a positive relationship for leader authentic personality with direct reports’ ratings of the leaders’ authentic leadership. In addition, authentic leadership was found to influence subordinates’ voice behaviour, as rated by subordinates’ immediate supervisors; notably, this relationship was partially mediated by the subordinates’ perceptions of OBSE. Furthermore, leader authentic personality was indirectly related to subordinates’ voice behaviour through the mediating influence of authentic leadership and, in turn, subordinates’ perceptions of OBSE. The implications of these results for leadership research and practice, as well as directions for future research, are also presented in this paper.     

在押毒品犯人格类型的聚类分析

目的 :探讨毒品犯的人格分类模型。方法 :以 378名在押毒品犯接受CPI测验数据为基础 ,在 2 0个变量组成的 2 0维空间内对毒品犯进行Q型聚类。结果 :采用分层聚类中的Q型聚类方法分析在押毒品犯的人格类型 ,得到 3种基本的人格类型 ,经F检验和LSD检验 ,表明 3种人格类型在各分量表上的得分具有十分显著的差异。结论 :怯弱 -不成熟型、独立 -不成熟型和可控制 -不成熟型 3种人格类型是一个有效的分类模型 ;这一分类模型有助于监狱开展对在押毒品犯的分类矫治工作     

Personality or Role? Comparisons of Turkish Leaders Across Different Institutional Positions

Personality approaches to politics are often criticized for not examining the effect that institutional role constraints have on individual beliefs and preferences. When leaders appear to change their stance when they change roles, it is assumed that roles have a determining influence. Modern personality theory and contemporary sociological role theory, however, view the effects of roles as interacting with agents’ personalities. In this article, we investigate this question by comparing personality profiles of three Turkish leaders (Özal, Demirel, and Gül) during their tenure as prime minister and during their subsequent time as president. For Gül, we perform an additional comparison during his time as foreign minister. The personality profiles are in the form of quantitative scores generated from machine‐coded content analysis of leaders’ words using the Leadership Trait Analysis method. We hypothesize that different leaders will be more susceptible to changing role contexts, depending on core personality traits, and that different traits are more likely to change with new roles. Overall, our results suggest that leaders’ traits are fairly resistant to changes across roles and that task orientation is the most likely trait to change as leaders adapt to different role demands and expectations. This study makes a contribution to our understanding of the interaction between personality and political contexts by offering specific theoretically derived hypotheses and by empirically and statistically examining a preliminary set of expectations that could be applied more broadly to other leaders.     

Five-factor model of personality and transformational leadership

This study linked traits from the 5-factor model of personality (the Big 5) to transformational leadership behavior. Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, and Agreeableness were hypothesized to predict transformational leadership. Results based on 14 samples of leaders from over 200 organizations revealed that Extraversion and Agreeableness positively predicted transformational leadership; Openness to Experience was positively correlated with transformational leadership, but its effect disappeared once the influence of the other traits was controlled. Neuroticism and Conscientiousness were unrelated to transformational leadership. Results further indicated that specific facets of the Big 5 traits predicted transformational leadership less well than the general constructs. Finally, transformational leadership behavior predicted a number of outcomes reflecting leader effectiveness, controlling for the effect of transactional leadership.     

Individual Differences in Leadership Emergence: Integrating Meta‐Analytic Findings and Behavioral Genetics Estimates

This paper investigates the extent to which differences in the likelihood of emerging as leaders are explained by genetic differences between individuals. Results indicated that approximately 17% of the variance in the latent construct of leadership emergence is explained by genetic effects that are mediated by intelligence and the Big Five personality traits. Because intelligence and the Big Five do not mediate all genetic influences on leadership emergence (other genetically‐influenced personal characteristics, such as height and attractiveness, are likely to mediate genetic effects on leadership emergence), the heritability estimate obtained in this study represents a lower‐bound estimate of the genetic influences on leadership emergence.     

The Relation of Cognitive Ability and Personality Traits to Assessment Center Performance

The aim of the current study was to examine cognitive ability and personality correlates of assessment center exercise ratings. The sample included 429 individuals who participated in a 2-day management development assessment center during a 5-year period. The assessment center yielded scores on 8 exercises. Assessees also completed a measure of cognitive ability (Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal) and the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). The CPI scales were incorporated into 4 of the Big Five personality factors for easier interpretation. Our hypotheses were partially supported since ratings of exercises that were largely interpersonal in nature tended to correlate with interpersonal personality constructs (emotional stability, extraversion, and openness to experience), and ratings of cognitive problem-solving exercises correlated with cognitive ability and conscientiousness.     

Identifying emergent leaders from verbal and nonverbal communications.

Subject/observers were accurate in identifying emergent leadership hierarchies on four leadership dimensions when provided records of target groups' meetings containing only verbal communications, only nonverbal communications, or both types of behavior. With knowledge of participation rates controlled by covariance, the subject/observers' accuracy scores retained significance in three of the information conditions demonstrating the presence of verbal and nonverbal leadership cues independent of participation rates. The value of verbal and nonverbal communications to identifying leaders varied with the type of leadership hierarchy being identified. The findings are presumed to hold for leader selection as well. The author proposes that the question of why a group member has emerged to fulfill a leadership role in a group be studied from the point of view of group members' selecting leaders or permitting emergence rather than leaders emitting behaviors.     

To Be,or Not to Be,Linear: An expanded representation of personality and its relationship to leadership performance

In this study, we tested for a set of complex, nonlinear relationships between derailing/dark side personality composites and leadership performance using two independent samples of managers/leaders (N=1306 and N=290 for Study 1 and 2, respectively). Based on the structure and characteristics of the derailing/dark side trait composites, we expected the relationship between these composites and leadership performance would best be described with an inverted U function. In Study 1, we found evidence of a nonlinear relationship between the derailing composite, as measured by the Global Personality Inventory^©, and behaviorally based, structured ratings of leadership performance in an assessment center. Similarly, Study 2 found evidence for a nonlinear relationship between dark side composites, as measured by the Hogan Development Survey^©, and supervisory/other ratings of leadership performance. We discuss the implications of these complex, nonlinear findings with respect to the continued use of personality for the selection and promotion of future leaders. Limitations of the current study and directions for future research are noted.