personality traits

Traits and insight into leadership

August 28, 2018 by Matthew G Solovey

As you think about the managers and bosses you’ve had over the years, you might mentally sort them into categories of “good” and “bad,” placing them on a spectrum of ability. Some leaders rise to the top and an even smaller subset standout as being exceptional – the type of manager or leader that affected our lives for the better. Some leaders sink to the bottom, with one or two who may have been so poor at their jobs that the thought of them years later still brings feelings of anxiety and dread. While there are probably actions of these leaders that help you mentally sort them, the trait approach to leadership may give you some further insight.

The trait approach looks at characteristics that proven leaders have that can then be used to predict who might be a successful and effective leader (Northouse, 2016). There are many studies over the years that present a large number of traits associated with successful leadership, with varying degrees of emphasis and interaction between these traits (Northouse, 2016).

Think of a leader who you appreciated and was exceptional and think of what impression this leader left with you. For me, it was a manager I will call Jenny. Jenny took a chance on me to help me change careers. She was the type of boss who I could always depend on. When I needed her help, she was there. When I needed her input to move a project forward, she always made sure I had it. She supported me as I adjusted to a new career path and always made time to talk one-on-one on a personal level. Once, we were involved in a high-profile event that she asked me to help with. During the presentation – in front of senior leadership – the presentation stopped working. While I didn’t know audio-visual equipment, I tried to help the multimedia staff fix the problem and was promptly blamed for the issue by senior leadership. Jenny remained cool and calm through the ordeal and then shielded me from further embarrassment and reprimand, sticking up for me. In addition, she was very outgoing and decisive. She made decisions quickly and stood by them and never backed down from advocating for what she thought was right, despite often being outnumbered.

What made Jenny a good leader? Jenny had four of the five personality dimensions that make a good leader, called the Five Factor Model of Personality (Pennsylvania State University, 2018). In particular, she showed aptitude in conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism and extraversion. She was conscientious by following through with help and input. She was agreeable by being empathetic to my needs as a person and making time to talk personally. Neuroticism means emotional stability (Pennsylvania State University, 2018) and she showed it through the example of the presentation disaster by remaining calm and then working through the difficult follow up in a way that protected me. She showed extraversion by having an effect on the office through her decision-making and fighting for what she thought was right, exhibiting self-confidence. These four traits combined to make a strong leader that had a strong positive effect. There is a fifth dimension as well: openness to experience. This dimension means being broad-minded and curious and seeking out new experiences (Pennsylvania State University, 2018.)

How did your leader’s actions align with these traits? While we are born with certain traits, a good leader can evaluate how he or she fits into the Five Factor Model and will then modify their behaviors to address weaknesses (Pennsylvania State University, 2018). A good leader has self-awareness.

Now think of the worst leader you’ve known. Just as the Five Factor Models gives a roadmap towards successful leadership, the six Dark-Side Personality Traits are a good indicator of poor leadership ability. These six traits are: being argumentative, having interpersonal insensitivity, narcissism, fear of failure, perfectionism and impulsivity (Pennsylvania State University, 2018).

In my experience, I had a manager I’ll call Jonathan. Jonathan was the type of manager who caused me to expend a lot of energy and effort to deal with and had a habit of sewing discord in the office. Based on the six Dark-side Personality Traits, Jonathan was argumentative because he was always very sensitive when criticized and was suspicious of others and their intentions (Pennsylvania State University, 2018), especially with peers. He was interpersonally insensitive because he wasn’t aware of how he came across to others and couldn’t put himself in other people’s shoes (Pennsylvania State University, 2018). One could say he was tone-deaf and oblivious to what those around him were dealing with. He was also very self-centered to the point he overestimated his own abilities, often giving direction that didn’t make sense or was overly optimistic. Jonathan had a fear of failure too, to the point of being paralyzed of making big decisions, which affected the office efficiency and effectiveness greatly. Often, decisions were made to just keep things as they were instead of implementing a new process (Pennsylvania State University, 2018) that could have addressed a failure in the system. There was also perfectionism, with Jonathan so focused on every minor detail that projects quickly languished and missed due dates by months. Priorities were rarely set and maintained (Pennsylvania State University, 2018), and even if they were, often weren’t kept. Jonathan even had impulsivity, where he ignored the feelings of his followers and never kept promises and commitments (Pennsylvania State University, 2018), even something as small as “I’ll get that input on your project to you by end of day.” He never considered the consequences of his actions on others (Pennsylvania State University, 2018), like failing to respond to an email question or ignoring voicemails when a person needed more input to do their own job.

Jonathan had all six of the Dark-Side Personality Traits. Can you imagine how difficult and exhausting it was to work for Jonathan? Much of my energy was spent either trying to get the resources I needed to complete my job or picking up the pieces of Jonathan’s own ineptness. How many of the six Dark-Side Personality Traits did your worst leader have?

Understanding these traits has helped me not only better understand the leaders I have worked under, but self-reflect on what traits I have and what behaviors I need to change to be a stronger leader myself. By considering the success and disasters of leaders we have worked with and what traits they have, we can better understand our own leadership journey.

References:

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7^thed.).Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Pennsylvania State University. (2018). Lesson 2: Trait approach. Leadership in work — PSYCH 485. Online course lesson, Penn State World Campus. Retrieved August 28, 2018 from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1942231/modules/items/25010751

Can I Change My Personality to Become a Better Leader?

February 5, 2014 by Kimberly Ann Sisti

The trait approach has been frequently used to study leadership. The supporters of this approach determined that the personality traits of good leaders are innate, not learned. One of the most well-known models of personality is the Five Factor Model (FFM). The FFM of personality includes the following broad dimensions: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extraversion (Pennsylvania State University). Possessing some or all of these traits is a good indicator of a successful leader (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002), with extraversion being the greatest predictor of a post-interview job offer in a leadership position (Caliguiri, 2000).

My personality traits portray me as an introvert and not highly open to experience, so does that mean that I will not hold a leadership position in the future, or not be what is considered to be a good leader? Since I am not best suited for a leadership position according to the trait approach, it made me wonder if I could alter my personality to increase the probability of my earning a leadership position. Would I be able to fight genetics and the life experiences that shaped me into who I am today? I turned to the trusty internet for some answers.

According to Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford University, the static-character research that is based on the FFM doesn’t consider an in-between area (Bryner, 2007). Dweck believes this area contains the fundamental beliefs that individuals develop as they grow. She goes on to propose that two mindsets, fixed or growth, develop early in life and play a large part in personality, specifically motivation and achievement. She claims that the unfixed traits are only beliefs and they can be changed. As such, since beliefs can change, so can personalities.

I found another article that described one’s personality as being partially genetic. Experiences also help to form our personalities; they change our minds, actions, and feelings (Goodman, 2012). The article also went on state that our “Big 5” personality traits (FFM) change over time. These changes are actually responses to normal life transitions. It asserts that if we can challenge our pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving, and make those changes permanent, then our personality will be altered. An example provided in the article is an exercise to help one become more extroverted. If I, being an introvert, were to enter a social setting, pretend that I felt perfectly comfortable, and challenged my pattern of behavior by initiating a conversation with a stranger, that I would eventually develop new patterns and become more sociable and assertive.

Since I cannot change my genetics or past experiences to alter my personality in the present, I see no harm in performing exercises like the one mentioned in Goodman’s article to help me in my career in the future. Forcing myself into different environments will provide me with new and varied experiences which will, in turn, affect my personality. Like Goodman’s article suggests, I can “fake it ‘til (I) make it” (Goodman 2012), and continue to challenge myself to improve my sociability and openness to experience. In turn, this will help me become a better leader in the future.

References:

Bryner, J. (2007). Study: Your Personality Can Change (and Probably Should). Live Science. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/9507-study-personality-change.html

Caliguiri, P. M. (2000). The Big Five Personality Characteristics as Predictors of Expatriate’s Desire to Terminate the Assignment and Supervisor-Rated Performance. Personnel Psychology, 53(1), 67-68.

Goodman, N. (2012). Can You Actually Change Your Personality? Mother Nature Network. Retrieved from http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/can-you-actually-change-your-personality

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.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2014). Lesson Commentary 2: Trait Approach. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp14/psych485/001/content/02_lesson/01_page.html

Why Isn’t Robin Williams our President?

September 9, 2012 by

According to Judge, Bono, Ilies, and Gerhardt’s 2002 meta-analysis, there is a “strong relationship between the Big Five traits and leadership.” (Northouse, 2013) The “Big Five traits” are defined as neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. (Northouse, 2013) Specifically, they found that extraversion carried the most weight. If that is the case, why isn’t Robin Williams the President of the United States? It’s certainly worked for most of our presidents thus far, right? In fact, according to both Rubenzer & Faschingbauer and Young & French, US Presidents are believed to be more effective if they’re seen as extraverted. (Rubenzer & Faschingbauer, 2004; Young & French, 1996)

Instead, Ronald Riggio, Ph.D. argues that social skills should be examined. As he explains, “Think of extraversion as a potential for social effectiveness–a sort of social ‘energy.’ But if the person lacks the social skills to direct that energy, then the person will not be socially effective.” (Riggio, 2011) Without going into my personal political beliefs, those who believe the current administration has failed might say this is why. There is no question that a high level of extraversion exists, however accomplishing goals is perceived to be a problem over the last four years.

Taking the political example even further, a possible explanation of extraversion and effectiveness may lie just as much with the followers as with the leader. In a study by Grant, Patterson and Hofmann, it was found that extraverted leaders tend to be most effective with introverted followers and introverted leaders are most effective with extraverted followers. (Grant, Patterson and Hofmann, 2011) The study found that pairing extraverts with extraverts and introverts with introverts created a friction that prevented work from being accomplished. Related to the earlier political comparison, it could stand to reason that a presidential administration may be more or less effective depending on the combination of personalities involved. If we have an extraverted President (as most are perceived by the nature of campaigning), the most effective follower would be an introverted Senate and House. Even reading that might make you chuckle, as we rarely describe any politician as introverted.

In the end, even the most extraverted president will be ineffective if facing a combination of an extraverted support system and a lack of social skills allowing him/her to direct that energy. Looking at it that way, we can never say never to Robin Williams as President, as extraversion is just the tip of the iceberg in leadership effectiveness. There’s always a write in vote, right?

Grant, A.M., Patterson, Gino, F. & Hofmann, D.A. (2011). Reversing the extraverted leadership advantage: The roles of employee proactivity. Academy of Management Journal, 54(3). Retrieved from http://www.management.wharton.upenn.edu/grant/GrantGinoHofmann_AMJ2011.pdf

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice (6^th edition). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.

Riggio Ph.D, R.E. (2011, October 20). Why Extraversion May Not Matter. Cutting-Edge Leadership.
Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201110/why-extraversion-may-not-matter

Rubenzer, S., & Faschingbauer, T. 2004. Personality, character, & leadership in the White House: Psychologists assess the presidents. Washington DC: Brassey’s.

Young, T. J., & French, L. A. 1996. Judged political extroversion-introversion and perceived competence of U.S. Presidents. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 83:578.