II.

Literature review

1. Personality
Over six billion people live on this planet, yet no two of us are alike.
Our differences are predominantly reflected in our distinctive actions and
our personal appearances. For centuries, people have wondered what makes
each of us act the way we do. During this wonderment, people have come to
the conclusion that actions reveal our character traits, which in turn reveal
our personality. Our personality makes us unique. Furthermore, people
distinguish themselves from others by their personal blend of characteristics
and the level of emphasis placed on each trait. This distinction reflects our
personality and makes us who we are: one in six billion.

Personality is defined as a unique blend of traits characterizing
individuals, and influencing their interaction with their environment. The
terms personality, characteristics and traits are used interchangeably
throughout this paper. They refer to those variables judged to be most
important and relevant to a variety of human functions, specifically
leadership, which further distinguish an individual and influence his/her
interaction with his/her environment. In Army for example, the Army's
Leadership manual lists seven values, three attributes, four skills and three
actions as the fundamental leadership characteristics for effective leaders.
Character is described in terms of an individuals values and attributes, and
is the sum total of an individuals personal traits.


2. Leadership styles
A combination of influencing others and accomplishing the desired
goal is essential in defining leadership. A leader is a leader because he or she
has followers. One thing that distinguishes the process of leading is the
willingness of the followers. People with authority, such as police officers,
can force people to do things they do not want to do, but this is not
leadership. Leaders inspire, challenge, enable, empower and encourage
others to want to follow them to accomplish their shared missions or goals.
Leadership is a dynamic process that deserves study. Leadership is a quality
and a skill, which is both admired and needed in our military and our
society. As pointed out in the definitions, leadership is a relational process
involving personal interactions between leaders and followers. Leaders must
continue to expand their understanding of themselves, their role in
leadership, and develop their own leadership skills. One way to understand
leadership is to review the various leadership theories that have evolved over
the past century.
Many organizations require from leaders the ability to set and
communicate goals, motivate, inspire initiative and empower the followers
and facilitate change. Such style of leadership is known as transformational.
On the other hand they may require effectively coordinating the subordinates
in accordance with procedures and standards; this type of leadership is
typically referred as transactional. The attributes of transformational and
transactional styles are further explained below. There is a link between an
individuals personality and the leadership style individuals are most
comfortable with and more likely to use. The connection between
personality and leadership style was noted by several researchers and
leadership specialists (e.g. Bass, 2000, 2008; Pillai, Schriesheim, &
Williams, 1999; de Charon, 2003). It is important to understand your natural
leadership style so you can capitalize on your natural leadership strengths (or
be aware of and address your natural weaknesses) for your career
development, self-fulfillment and success at the workplace. Jung Typology
Profiler for Workplace determines the most likely natural leadership style
of an individual based on personality type and the expressiveness of various
behavioral qualities such as vision, power, resourcefulness, empathy and
other behavioral qualities. Based on your personality assessment, the JTPW
Career Development Profile provides practical tips for becoming a more
effective leader (or a more content worker if leadership is not your strength)
and indicates possible pitfall.


3. Relationship between Personality and Leadership styles
The question of personality influences on leadership has been off
studied but still presents a source of controversy. The unique blend of traits
of a leaders personality creates his or her leadership style and determines
the quality of their leadership ability. Individuals with certain personality
traits including integrity and honesty, vision, personal courage, good
judgment, compassion, intelligence and knowledge, self-confidence,
perseverance, enthusiasm, and initiative are more likely to become effective
leaders. Four personality types are more likely to become effective leaders.
ISTJ, ESTJ, ENTJ, and INTJ account for roughly 78 percent of middle grade
to flag rank officers in the United States military. All of these personality
types include thinking and judging (TJ). These four types, however, make up
only 30 percent of the general population. Ninety-five percent of senior
military leaders are thinkers, leaving only five percent as compassionate
feelers.
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. The combination of leadership
style and personality type appears to meld into a psychological combination
that produces the ethos of a leader. Leaders are not just identified by their
leadership styles, but also by their personalities, their awareness of
themselves and others, and their appreciation of diversity, flexibility, and
paradox (Handbury, 2001, p. 11). In addition, McGregor (1960) states, It
is quite unlikely that there is a single basic pattern of abilities and
personality trait characteristics of all leaders. The personality characteristics
of the leader are not unimportant, but those which are essential differ
considerably depending on the circumstances | Relationship Between
Leadership and Personality 2(p. 180). Therefore, it may indeed, make a
difference in ascertaining personality type in order to determine the correct
job match between an employee and his or her colleagues.

Hogan & Kaiser (2005) define leadership as being about the
performance of groups / teams. They argue that measuring personality is a
valid predictor of leadership capability, when looked at from two
perspectives, firstly how you think about yourself, and secondly, how others
think about you, (Reputation). The two aspects of reputation they identify
are the bright side, or when our social performance is at its best (In interview
for example), and the dark side, which reflects the impression you make
when you are off guard, or at your worst. The behaviors or tendencies you
display in the dark side tend to be concealed by well practiced social skills,
but over a longer time period, for instance in a work/career scenario, the
dark side will negatively impact relationships with others. Many well
practiced and refined candidates perform well in interview, using their social
skills to mask their true behavior as a leader. The use of a trait model, where
certain personality characteristics are seen as predictors or indicators of good
leadership, are able to give a below the surface profile of a potential leader,
and provider sign posts to potential problems.

Hogan & Kaiser make the important connection between personality
and organizational performance through the importance of leadership style
(Shaped by personality) shaping employee attitudes and the effective
functioning of the team, which subsequently drives, or hinders,
organizational effectiveness. Where personality is shaped in are younger
years, and therefore less developable during are adult years, the skills
approach focuses on the skills and knowledge required by a leader to be
successful. The skills approach uses 3 skill areas, technical, human and
conceptual and postulates that leadership ability is trainable. That is not to
say that the skills model completely excludes the importance of personality
as one of the three components of the skills model involves personal
attributes which includes personality, cognitive ability and motivation.

The style approach to leadership emphasis the importance of behavior,
which is different from the personal characteristics approach of personality
based models such as the trait approach. A big question of course is can
leaders behave in a way that contradicts their natural characteristics or
personality? Perhaps in the short term, but on an ongoing basis? Using a tool
such as the leadership grid appears to oversimplify the behaviors of
leadership and shows little connection between the model of style and
business performance. What good is a model, if it lacks predictive
capabilities? Likewise who is to say that there is a certain style of leadership
most suited to a specific situation! Situational leadership recognizes that
certain leaders are more successful in certain situations and espouses the
need for leaders to flex and adapt their style to match the situation.
Leadership style within a situational model of leadership focuses on the two
spectrums of support and direction, and requires behavior to be adapted
across both.
When you look at some of the underpinning drivers of leadership
approaches such as style, situation, and skill, we would argue that
personality plays an important part. Our issue with all these models,
including the trait model, is that for all the research and academic debate that
has gone on over the last half century, why are we still so poor at predicting
leadership success? Perhaps leadership of more of an art than a science and
therefore the factors of success are less definable than we may wish for, the
trait approach can be a useful tool in identifying who will not be successful
in a leadership role. However, using an endless list of traits, based on some
theoretical model of leadership.

Using the big five however, (Myers 2007, pp618 -620) and being
clear regarding the consequences of an individuals profile on the role you
are looking to fill can be a valuable process to undertake. For us, businesses
spend too much time looking to select people into a role and not enough
focus on selecting people out of a role. In other words, identify those key
characteristics, such as emotional instability, low drive, and a lack of
conscientiousness, that should exclude a candidate from a process, and then
consider their skills, style, and ability to adapt to different situations to
inform your choice.


A final though on this subject is the different between Abells
approach to linking leadership with strategy, a forward looking approach,
and the immobility of approaches such as the skills approach, which appear
more focused on management tasks rather than the leadership of future
success. We would argue that this gives more support to the idea of using a
personality based approach, such as that proposed by Hogan & Kaiser
(2005), looking for that magic ingredient of leader who can transform the
organisation, and more importantly transform the hearts and minds of the
workforce.