Chapter 4 The Leader As An Individual

Chapter 4
The Leader as an Individual

Learning outcomes:
• Identify major personality dimensions and
understand how personality influences
leadership and relationships within an
organization.
• Clarify your instrumental and end values, and
recognize how values guide thoughts and
behavior.
• Define attitudes explain their relationship to
leader behavior.
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Learning outcomes: (Contd.)
• Explain attribution theory and recognize how
perception affects the leader-follower relationship.
• Recognize individual differences in cognitive style
and broaden your own thinking style to expand
leadership potential.
• Understand different types of leadership roles and
the cognitive skills, personalities, and behaviors that
might contribute to your success and happiness in
each type of role.

Background to the Chapter:
• In Chapter 2, we examined studies of some personality
traits, individual qualities, and behaviors that are
thought to be consistent with effective leadership.
• In Chapter 3, we examined contingency theories of
leadership, which consider the relationship between
leader activities and the situation in which they occur.
• This Chapter explores the individual in more depth,
looking at some individual differences that can
influence leadership ability and success.

Personality & Leadership:
• Personality is defined as the set of unseen
characteristics and processes that underlie a
relatively stable pattern of behavior in
response to ideas, objects or people in the
environment.
• Leaders who have an understanding of how
individuals’ personalities differ can use this
understanding to improve their leadership
effectiveness.
A model of personality:
• Most people think of personality in terms of traits.
• Traits have been distilled into five general
dimensions that describe personality.
• The Big Five Personality Dimensions are;
– Extraversion.
– Agreeableness.
– Conscientiousness
– Emotional Stability
– Openness to experiences

• Each dimension contains a wide range of
specific traits.
• Each trait that you can think of to describe an
individual would fit into one of the Big Five
Dimensions.
• The factors represent a continuum, in that a
person may have a low, moderate, or high
degree of each of the dimensions.

• Extraversion is the degree to which a person is
outgoing, sociable, talkative, and comfortable
meeting and talking to new people.
• These are the traits that influence behavior in
group settings.
• One study showed that 4 in 10 top executives
tested as introverts. Thus the quality of
extraversion is not as significant as is often
presumed.
• Agreeableness is the degree to which a person is
able to get along with others by being good-
natured, cooperative, forgiving, compassionate,
understanding and trusting.
• A leader high on agreeableness seems warm and
approachable, whereas one who is low on this
dimension may seem cold, distant and insensitive.
• Traits of agreeableness seem to be particularly
important in today’s collaborative organizations.

• Conscientiousness is the degree to which a
person is responsible, dependable, persistent,
and achievement oriented.
• A conscientious person is focused on a few
goals, which he or she pursues in a purposeful
way, whereas a less conscientious person
tends to be easily distracted and impulsive.

• Emotional Stability refers to the degree to
which a person is well-adjusted, calm, and
secure.
• A leader who is emotionally stable handles
stress well, is able to handle criticism, and
generally doesn’t take mistakes and failures
personally.

• Openness to experience is the degree to which a
person has a broad range of interests and is
imaginative, creative, and willing to consider new
ideas.
• These leaders are intellectually curious and often
seek out new experiences through travel, the arts,
movies, reading widely, or other activities.
• Open mindedness is important to leaders because
leadership is about change rather than stability.

• Despite the logic of the Big Five Personality dimensions, they can
be difficult to measure precisely.
• In addition, since each dimension is made up of numerous traits,
a person can be high on some of the specific traits but low on
others.
• 70 years of research on personality and leadership has shown
evidence that successful leaders score high on four dimensions
i.e. extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and
emotional stability while results for openness to experience are
less consistent.
• Research has mostly been confined to subjects in the USA and
may not be applicable in other cultures.

• It is also important to note that few leaders have
consistently high scores across all of the Big Five
dimensions, yet there are many successful leaders!
• Higher scores on the Big Five dimensions are not
necessarily predictive of leadership effectiveness and
persons who score toward the lower end of the scale can
also be good leaders.
• The value of the Big Five for leaders is primarily to help
them understand their own basic personality dimensions,
and then learn to emphasize the positive and mitigate the
negative aspects of their natural style.

Personality Traits & Leader Behavior:
• Two specific personality attributes that have a

significant impact on leadership behavior are:
Locus of control
Authoritarianism

• Locus of control defines whether a person
places the primary responsibility for what
happens to him or her within him/herself or on
outside forces.
• People with high internal locus of control
(internals) believe their actions determine what
happens to them whereas those who believe
outside forces determine what happens to them
have a high external locus of control (externals)
• Internals in general are more self-motivated, are in better
control of their own behavior, participate more in social
and political activities, more actively seek information, are
better able to handle complex information and problem
solving, and are more achievement-oriented than
externals. Internals are more likely to assume or seek
leadership opportunities.
• People with a high external locus of control typically prefer
to have structured, directed work situations, they are
generally not as effective in situations that require
initiative, creativity, and independent action.

• Authoritarianism is the belief that power and status
differences should exist in an organization.
• Individuals who have a high degree of this trait tend to
adhere to conventional rules and values, obey
established authority, respect power and toughness,
judge other critically, and disapprove of the expression
of personal feelings.
• Such a leader is likely to rely heavily on formal
authority and unlikely to share power with
subordinates.
• Dogmatism a trait closely related to
authoritarianism, refers to a person’s
receptiveness to others’ ideas and opinions.
• A highly dogmatic person is close-minded and not
receptive to others’ ideas.
• Dogmatic individuals when in leadership positions
tend to often make decisions quickly based on
limited information, they are unreceptive to ideas
that conflict with their opinions and decisions.

Values and Attitudes:
• Values are fundamental beliefs that an
individual considers to be important, that are
relatively stable over time, and that have an
impact on attitudes, perception and behavior.
• We are constantly valuing things, people, or
ideas as good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant,
ethical or unethical, and so forth.
• Strong values in certain areas can have a
powerful influence on behavior.
• End values sometimes called terminal values are
beliefs about the kind of goals or outcomes that are
worth trying to pursue.
• Instrumental values are beliefs about the types of
behavior that are appropriate for reaching goals.
• Although everyone has both instrumental and end
values, individuals differ in how they order the values
into priorities, which accounts for tremendous
variation among people. Part of this difference relates
to culture.
• Values are learned, not inherited, but some
values become incorporated into a person’s
thinking very early in life.
• Our values are generally fairly well established
by early adulthood, but a person’s values can
also change throughout life.
• Leaders personal values affect his or her
perception of situations and problems, they
also affect how leaders relate to others.
Attitudes & Leadership:
• Attitude is an evaluation – either positive or
negative – about people, events, or things.
• A positive attitude to life is often considered a
key to successful and effective leadership.
• Behavioral scientists consider attitudes to have
the following three components:
– Cognitions (thoughts)
– Affect (feelings) and
– Behavior.
• The cognitive component includes the ideas
and knowledge a person has about the object
of an attitude.
• The affective component concerns how an
individual feels about the objective of an
attitude.
• The behavioral component of an attitude
predisposes a person to act in a certain way.

• Although attitudes change more easily than values,
they typically reflect a person’s fundamental values
as well as a person’s background and life
experiences.
• Self-concept refers to the collection of attitudes we
have about ourselves and includes the elements of
self-esteem, whether a person generally has positive
or negative feelings about himself.
• In general leaders with positive self-concepts are
more effective in all situations.
• The way in which the leader relates to
followers also depends significantly on his or
her attitudes about others.
• A leader’s style is based largely on attitudes
about human nature in general – ideas and
feelings about what motivates people,
whether people are basically honest and
trustworthy, and about the extent to which
people can grow and change.
Social Perception & Attribution Theory:
• By perception we mean the process people use

to make sense of their surroundings by selecting,
organizing, and interpreting information.
• Values and attitudes affect perceptions, and vice
versa.
• Because of individual differences in attitudes,
personality, values, interests, and experiences,
people often “see” the same thing in different
ways.
• Perceptual distortion - errors in judgment that

arise from inaccuracies in the perceptual
process.
• These errors include:
– Stereotyping.
– Halo effect.
– Projection, and
– Perceptual defense.

• Stereotyping is the tendency to assign an

individual to a broad category and then attribute
generalizations about the group to the individual.
• Stereotyping prevents people from truly knowing
those they classify in this way.
• Negative stereotypes prevent talented people
from advancing in an organization and fully
contributing their talents to the organization's
success.
• Halo Effect is an overall impression of an

person or situation based on one
characteristic, either favorable or unfavorable.
• A halo blinds the perceiver to other
characteristics that should be used in
generating a more complete assessment.
• The halo effect can play a significant role in
performance appraisal.

• Projection is the tendency of perceivers to see

their own personal traits in other people.
• Leaders project their own needs, feelings,
values, and attitudes into their judgment of
others.
• The best guards against errors based on
projection are self awareness and empathy.

• Perceptual defense is the tendency of

perceivers to protect themselves against
ideas, objects, or people that are threatening.
• People perceive things that are satisfying and
pleasant, but tend to disregard things that are
disturbing and unpleasant.
• Recognizing perceptual blind spots can help
people develop a clearer picture of reality.

Attribution Theory:
• Attribution theory refers to how people
explain the causes of events or behaviors.
• An internal attribution says that characteristics
of a person led to the behavior.
• An external attribution says something about
the situation caused the person’s behavior.
• Attributions are important because they help
people decide how to handle situations.

Attribution Theory:
• Social scientists have identified three factors that
influence whether people identify an attribution as
external or internal:
1. Distinctiveness. Whether the behavior is unusual
for that person. If it is distinct the perceiver will
most probably make an external attribution.
2. Consistency. Whether the person being observed
has a history of behaving in the same way. People
generally make internal attributions about
consistent behavior.
Attribution Theory:
3. Consensus. Whether other people tend to respond
to similar situations in the same way. A person who
has observed others handle similar situations in the
same way will likely make an external attribution.
• In addition to the above people also tend to have
biases that they apply when making attributions.
• When evaluating others, we tend to underestimate
the influence of external factors and overestimate
the influence of internal factors.

Attribution Theory:
• Fundamental attribution error is the tendency
to underestimate the influence of external
factors on another’s behavior and to
overestimate the influence of internal factors.
• Self-serving bias error is the tendency to
overestimate the influence of internal factors
on one’s success and the influence of external
factors on one’s failures.

Cognitive differences:
• Cognitive style refers to how a person perceives,
processes, interprets, and uses information.
• When talking about cognitive differences, we
are referring to varying approaches to perceiving
and assimilating data, making decisions, solving
problems, and relating to others.
• Cognitive approaches are not necessarily rigid,
however most people tend to have only a few
preferred habits of thought.
Patterns of thinking & brain dominance:
• Brain has two distinct hemispheres.

• Left hemisphere controls movement of the right
side of the body.
• Right hemisphere controls movement on the left.
• The left hemisphere is associated with logical,
analytical thinking, and a linear approach to
problem solving.
• The right hemisphere is associated with creative,
intuitive, values based thought processes.
Whole Brain Concept:
• Whole brain concept is an approach that
considers not only a person’s preference for
right-brained versus left-brained thinking, but
also conceptual versus experiential thinking;
identifies four quadrants of the brain related to
different thinking styles.
• Herrmann’s whole brain model identifies four
quadrants of the brain that are related to
different thinking styles.
• Some people strongly lean toward using one
quadrant in most situations, whereas others
rely on two, three, or even all four styles of
thinking.
• Exhibit 4.4 shows the four quadrants of
Herrmann’s Whole Brain Model.

• Quadrant A is the part of the brain associated with
logical thinking, analysis of facts, and processing
numbers.
• “A” dominance is rational and realistic, thinks critically,
and likes to deal with numbers and technical matters.
• An “A” quadrant thinking style leader tends to be
directive and authoritative.
• Opinions and feelings are generally not considered as
important as facts.

• Quadrant B deals with planning, organizing facts,
and careful detailed review.
• A person with this style of thinking is well-
organized, reliable, and neat.
• Leader is typically conservative and highly
traditional, they tend to avoid risks and strive for
stability.
• They may thus insist on rules and procedures, no
matter what the circumstances are.
• Quadrant C is the part of the brain associated in the
whole brain model with interpersonal relationships
and intuitive and emotional though processes.
• C-quadrant individuals are sensitive to others and
enjoy interacting with and teaching others. They are
typically emotional and expressive, outgoing, and
supportive of others.
• Leaders with predominately this style of thinking
are friendly, trusting, and empathetic.

• Quadrant D is associated in the whole brain model
with conceptualizing, synthesizing, and integrating
facts and patterns, with seeing the big picture than
with the details.
• Leader with this style is likely to be a visionary with
imagination who likes to speculate, break the rules,
and maybe impetuous.
• This leaders enjoys change, experimentation and risk
taking, and generally allows followers a great deal of
freedom and flexibility.
• There is no style that is necessarily better or worse,
though any of the styles carried to an extreme can
be detrimental.
• Every individual, even those with a strong
preference in one quadrant, actually has a coalition
of preferences from each of the four styles.
• Herrmann’s research indicates that very few, if any
individuals can be wholly balanced among the four
quadrants.

• People can be aware of their preferences and engage
in activities and experiences that help develop the
other quadrants.
• People who reach the top of organizations normally
have well-balanced brains.
• A wider range of thinking styles is particularly
important at higher levels of organizations.
• Understanding that individuals have different styles
can also help leaders be more effective in interacting
with followers.
Problem Solving Styles:
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Carl Jung believed that differences in individual
behavior resulted from preferences in how we go
about gathering and evaluating information for
solving problems and making decisions.
• Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a form of
personality testing which shows preferences in
how people gather and evaluate information for
solving problems and making decisions.

• The MBTI uses four different pairs of attributes
to classify people in 1 of 16 different
personality types.
1. Introversion versus extraversion: Extraverts
(E) gain energy from being around others and
interacting with others, whereas introverts (I)
gain energy by focusing on personal thoughts
and feelings.

2. Sensing versus intuition: Identifies how a person absorbs
information. Those with a sensing preference (S) gather
and absorb information through the five senses, whereas
intuitive people (N) rely on less direct perceptions.
3. Thinking versus feeling: Shows how much consideration
a person gives to emotions in making a decision. Feeling
types (F) tend to rely more their values and sense of
what is right and wrong. Thinking types (T) tend to rely
more on logic and be very objective in decision making.

4. Judging versus perceiving: People with a
judging preference like certainty and closure.
They enjoy having goals and deadlines and
tend to make decisions quickly based on
available data. Perceiving people on the
other hand enjoy ambiguity, dislike
deadlines, and may change their minds
several times before making a decision.

• As with the whole brain approach, MBTI types
should not be considered ingrained or
unalterable.
• By understanding their MBTI type, leaders can
learn to maximize their strengths and
minimize their weaknesses.

Matching Leaders with Roles:
• Individual differences help in part to explain
why a leader might succeed in some situations
but fail in others, despite appearing to have all
the necessary skills and abilities for the job.
• Researchers have found that, although there is
a core set of competencies that all leaders
need, there is significant variation in the
cognitive skills, behavior, and personalities that
correlate with success in the different roles.
• Operational Role:
 Role closest to traditional, vertically-oriented
management role.
Executive has direct control over people and
resources to accomplish results.
Leader focused on results.
Tend to be assertive.
Typically analytical and knowledgeable but able to
translate knowledge into a vision for others.

• Collaborative Role:
 Horizontal role e.g. a matrix organization.
Typically don’t have strong position power.
Use personal power for influencing others.
Need excellent people skills in order to network, build
relationships, and obtain agreement through personal
influence.
Highly proactive and tenacious.
Extreme flexibility to cope with ambiguity &
uncertainty associated with the role.
• Advisory Role:
Leaders in this role provide guidance and support to
other people and departments.
Responsible for developing broad organizational
capabilities as opposed to accomplishing them.
Need people skills.
Ability to influence through personal power.
Need high levels of honesty & integrity to build trust
and keep the organization on solid ethical grounds.

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Chapter 4 The Leader As An Individual

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Chapter 4

The Leader as an Individual

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• Two specific personality attributes that have a

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• By perception we mean the process people use

• Perceptual distortion - errors in judgment that

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• Stereotyping is the tendency to assign an

• Halo Effect is an overall impression of an

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• Projection is the tendency of perceivers to see

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• Perceptual defense is the tendency of

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• Brain has two distinct hemispheres.

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