Essay: To What Extent Does Personality Affect Leadership?

The interests for leaderships within the corporate world is an important turning point in today’s business environment. The role of leadership and high job implementation have marked an extraordinary change.

Leadership theory became more wide-ranging and conspicuously occidental in nature after British colonization of North America and progress of a federalist mind-set within the colonies. The up-and-coming American Revolution against England and American Civil War created the substance for an industrial revolution in the United States. Governmental organization structure, a consistent work force and demanding leadership theories typified American leadership (Jacques, 1996).

In the early 20th century, leadership theory began to merge a personality trait perspective as well as job related skills-based qualities as the basis of formative leadership qualifications. When it became evident that job skills and personality traits were not acceptable judges of leadership success, leadership theorists began to ruminate behavioural and situational characteristics as well.

During the industrial revolution, organization principles were based on demographic, social and monetary issues that related to a relatively stable command and control, invention oriented environment, i.e. People who have task-oriented personality types tend to have considerable focus on details. They are not comfortable initiating an action-plan until they are satisfied they have all the necessary facts.

On the other hand, people who have relations-oriented personality types tend to have considerable focus on the result and are comfortable initiating an action-plan when they have just the essential facts (Blake & Mouton, 1982). Therefore, it is important for a leader to understand personality and accurately adjust leadership style to the management situation. Bass (1990) states,

 

“Personality theorists tended to regard leadership as a one-way effect: Leaders possess qualities that differentiate them from followers. But these theorists did not acknowledge the extent to which leaders and followers have interactive effects by determining which qualities of followers are of consequence in a situation. (p. 12)”

Personality predicted leadership emergence across a variety of people and settings. Lord (1986) states, “In short, personality traits are associated with leadership emergence to a higher degree and more consistently than popular literature indicates” (p. 407). In addition, Barrick and Mount (1993) have found a significant association between personality and job performance.

In conclusion, one may argue that personality traits may impact leadership to an extent, however, other situational and ecological factors do also have a significant impact on leadership styles and behaviour. As much, one should not exclude one from another given that leadership can be very situation specific.

References

Bass, B. M., & Stogdill, R. M. (1990). Bass & Stogdill’s handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial applications (3rd ed.). New York: Free Press.

(Accessed 20th April, 2017)

Lord, R. G., DeVader, C.L, & Alliger, G.M. (1986). A meta-analysis of the relation between personality traits and leadership perceptions: An application of validity generalization procedures. In B. M. Bass (Ed.), Bass & Stogdill’s handbook of leadership: Theory, research, & managerial applications (3 ed., pp. 90).

(Accessed 20th April, 2017)

Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1993). Autonomy as a moderator of the relationship between the Big-Five personality dimensions and job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78(1), 111-118.

(Accessed 21st April, 2017)

Jacques, R. (1996). Manufacturing the employee: Management knowledge from the 19th to 21st centuries. London: Sage Publications.

(Acessed 23rd April, 2017)