RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERSONALITY AND LEADERSHIP
Introduction
Transformational leadership is considered as a critical leadership style with positive effects on employee satisfaction, loyalty, and commitment (Bass & Riggio 2006), organizational and employee performance (Garcia-Morales et al., 2008) and employee motivation (Bono & Judge, 2003). This study will examine the relationship between transformational leadership and personality from the perspective of followers.
Objective
Examining the relationship between personality and transformational leadership
Literature review
Bass and Riggio (2006) posit that transformational leadership is characterized by the leader engaging with the follower to ensure that the latter is highly motivated to achieve a shared goal. It has four dimensions including individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and idealized influence. The personality traits associated with transformational leadership are neuroticism, agreeableness, extraversion, and openness to experience (Hautala 2006). Agreeableness deals with social responsiveness and supportiveness of a leader, while extraversion is associated with the leader’s capability in articulating and communicating his or her vision (Nana, Jackson & Burch 2010). Openness to experience enables a leader to create and cope with change while neuroticism describes the leader’s self-confidence and self-esteem.
Bono and Judge (2004) examined the relationship between transformational leadership and neuroticism and discovered that this personality trait was associated with this leadership style through charisma characterized by inspirational motivation and idealized influence. It was also established that neuroticism was negatively associated with individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation dimensions of transformational leadership.
Hetland and Sandal (2003) established that agreeableness was strongly correlated with transformational leadership. The same findings were supported in another study where the researchers reported that this personality trait was associated with individual consideration (Judge & Bono 2000). Similarly, other researchers confirmed that agreeableness predicted transformational leadership based on the view that transformational leaders demonstrate more interpersonal sensitivity as compared to transactional leaders (Rubin, Munz & Bommer 2005).
Lim and Ployhart (2004) found that extraversion was significantly correlated with transformational leadership. Leaders exhibiting this personality trait are persuasive, communicative and have the ability of rallying others to perform, which reflect the characteristics of transformational leadership. Indeed, researchers established that extraversion is associated with charisma among transformational leaders (Bono & Judge 2004). Interestingly, other researchers discovered that extraversion was not associated with transformational leadership (De Hoogh, Den Hartog & Koopman 2005).
Judge and Bono (2000) discovered that a significant correlation exists between transformational leadership and openness to experience. This positive association was further confirmed in another study based on the ratings of supervisors but not those of subordinates and it is associated with the transformational leadership characteristic of intellectual stimulation (Hetland & Sandal 2003).
Evidently, there are mixed findings on the relationship between personality and transformational leadership that highlights the importance of further research.
Research philosophy, approach and strategy
In order to meet the study objective, this study relies on pragmatism that combines both the positivism and phenomenological and positivism philosophies (Leech et al., 2010). The positivism philosophy is associated with collecting objective data that indicates quantitative methods. However, the phenomenological philosophy deals with an understanding of reality based on the subjective views of individuals. Therefore, using the pragmatism philosophy entails combining both quantitative and qualitative research techniques in the same study (Creswell & Plano Clark 2011). This philosophy is applicable in this study because achievement of the study objective requires a deeper insight into the effect of personality on transformational leadership from the perspectives of followers using both quantitative and qualitative data.
Based on this philosophy, the study combines both the inductive and deductive approaches. The inductive approach ensures that qualitative data is collected (Lodico et al., 2010), while the deductive approach involves collecting quantitative data to meet the research objective (Wilson, 2010). In this regard, the deductive approach allows objective data to be collected on the effect of personality on transformational leadership from the perspective of the followers. This assists in generating quantitative results for the research. On the other hand, inductive approach allows subjective data about the research issue to be gathered to discover the meanings followers attach to the association between transformational leadership and personality.
The strategy adopted is a questionnaire that consists of close-ended and open-ended questions that will be used in gathering quantitative and qualitative data, respectively from the followers on the research issue.
Ethical implications
The study is carried out only after receiving permission from the teacher. In addition, the study is conducted after getting consent from the study participants. The participants are provided with details about the study in terms of the objective and how the data collected is used. In this regard, the participants are informed that the data they provide will assist in meeting the study objective. This study will not pose any risks to the participants because the researcher collects only their objective and subjective views on the research issue. Finally, the researcher will protect the identity of the study’s participants.
Research methodology
The data for this study is primary that is collected using a questionnaire to establish the relationship between transformational leadership and personality. The questionnaire contains five close ended questions and one open ended question based on the information obtained in the review of literature. The close-ended questions are used in collecting quantitative data from a sample of ten employees in company X. Regarding this, the participants are provided with closed questions with answers that they to select. This restricts the participants to the presented choices when offering their opinions on the study issue. Therefore, the participants respond to five closed questions with responses ranging from strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), agree (3) and strongly agree (4). The closed-ended questions will ask the participants to provide their opinions on whether their immediate supervisor exhibits specific personality traits including extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, and neuroticism.
In addition, close-ended question will determine whether the immediate supervisor exercises transformational leadership. Specifically, the question on transformational leadership is necessary for showing that this leadership style is practiced by the immediate supervisor as the objective of this study is to bring out the effect of personality on transformational leadership. Another important question is related to the personality traits to establish whether the transformational leader possesses this characteristic to meet the study’s objective.
On the other hand, an open-ended question is utilized for gathering qualitative data. In this context, the participants provide their responses by writing of text or words on the questions to enable the researcher in gathering new information on the research topic. The open ended question allows the participants to provide detailed information on the study topic.The quantitative data is analyzed descriptively to provide quantitative results on the study topic. On the other hand, the qualitative data is analyzed in terms of themes to gain qualitative results.
Findings and analysis
The quantitative results indicated that the majority of the participants (60%) strongly agreed that their immediate supervisor uses the transformational leadership style. This shows that the leader is practicing the leadership characteristics promoted close engagement with his subordinates and improved the followers’ motivation to achieve organizational goals (Bass & Riggio 2006).
Another finding indicated that the leader demonstrated agreeableness as most of the participants strongly agreed (50%) and 30% agreed that their immediate supervisor was responsive and supportive to them as shown in the pie chart below. This confirms past literature findings that agreeableness was strongly associated with transformational leadership (Hetland & Sandal 2003). Therefore, transformational leadership is associated with the personality trait of agreeableness.
The pie chart presents findings on the extraversion where 40% of the respondents agreed, and 30% of them strongly agreed that their immediate supervisor adequately articulates and communicates his vision as shown below. Thus, this finding meets the objective of the study that transformational leadership is associated with personality. This finding supports Lim and Ployhart’s (2004) finding that extraversion is significantly associated with transformational leadership. However, this result contradicts the De Hoogh et al’s (2005) finding that extraversion was not related to transformational leadership.
Concerning openness to experiences, most of the participants (50%) agreed that their immediate supervisor was open to experiences. This finding indicates the study objective has been met as a relationship has been found between transformational leadership and the personality trait of openness to experiences. It has been established by past researchers that a relationship exists between openness to experience and transformational leadership (Judge & Bono 2000).
On the issue of neuroticism, it was discovered that most participants (45%) disagreed that their immediate supervisor has high self-confidence and esteem while only 27% agreed with this statement. This supports Bono and Judge’s (2004) finding that neuroticism is negatively related to transformational leadership in terms of intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration.
Qualitative results
The qualitative results revealed that the participants viewed that the personality traits of their immediate supervisor enhances their effectiveness. For instance, one participant stated that, “my immediate supervisor utilizes effective strategies in communicating and motivating us to do our work’’ (participant 2). This is an indication of extraversion that is linked with charismatic behavior among transformational leaders (Bono & Judge 2004).
Another participant stated that, “my immediate supervisor personally considers my training needs and provides the necessary learning opportunities’’ (participant 1). This reveals agreeableness that is related with individual consideration as an element of transformational leadership (Rubin et al., 2005).
Finally, another participant stated that, “my supervisor encourages me to be innovative when finding solutions to issues’’ (participant 5). This reveals that the leaders is open to experiences and intellectually stimulates the subordinates (Hetland & Sandal 2003).
Overall, both qualitative and quantitative results indicate that personality traits of openness to experience, extraversion and agreeableness have a positive effect on transformational leadership in organizations. Therefore, the findings indicate that the study objective has been met as a relationship is found between various personality traits and transformational leadership.
Reliability and validity of the research
Validity of the research was achieved because the measuring instrument measures what was intended. Specifically, the questions for measuring personality were adequately defined to ensure that the participants provided accurate responses. On the issue of the reliability of this study, the findings obtained here can be replicated to other study settings examining the association between transformational leadership and personality from the perspective of followers in other organizations.
The use of a hybrid philosophy allowed both objective and subjective results to be obtained on the effect of personality traits on transformational leadership from the viewpoints of employees. However, there are various issues that have to be considered when generalizing these results. Particularly, the study relied only a small sample of ten employees from company X that requires the interpretation of the results in the context of this sample size. Another limitation is that while a hybrid philosophy was incorporated in this study, only a single question was utilized for collecting the qualitative data. It is believed that deeper insights would have been obtained if this study had used more questions for collecting qualitative data. In this regard, the questions would have separately examined the effects of the different personality traits on leadership effectiveness.
Conclusion
This pilot study has demonstrated the effect of personality on transformational leadership based on the views of employees. This study has enhanced knowledge on this issue and the approach for conducting an empirical study to achieve valid and reliable outcomes.
References
Bass, B., & Riggio, R. Transformational leadership. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum associates, inc., 2006
Bono, J., & Judge, T. `Personality and transformational and transactional leadership: a Meta-analysis’, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol.89, no.5 (2004): 901-10
Bono, J., & Judge, T. `Self concordance at work: toward understanding the motivational effects of transformational leaders’, Academy Of Management Journal, vol. 46, no.5 (2003):554-71
Creswell, J., & Plano Clark, V. Designing and conducting mixed methods research, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, Inc., 2011
De Hoogh, A., Den Hartog, D., & Koopman, P. `Linking the big five factors of personality to charismatic and transactional leadership: perceived dynamic work environment as a moderator’, Journal of Organizational Behavior, vol.26, no.7 (2005): 839-65
Garcia-Morales, V., Matias-Reche, F., & Hurtado-Torres, N. `Influence of transformational leadership on organizational innovation and performance depending on the level of organizational learning in the pharmaceutical sector’, Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol.21, no.2 (2008):188-212
Hautala, T. `The relationship between personality and transformational leadership’, Journal of Management Development, vol.25 (2006):777-94
Hetland, H., & Sandal, G. `Transformational leadership in Norway: outcomes and personality correlates’, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, vol.12, no.2 (2003):147-70
Judge, T., & Bono, J. `Five-factor model of personality and transformational leadership’, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol.85, no.5 (2000): 751-65
Leech, N., Delinger, A., Brannagan, K., & Tanaka, H. `Evaluating mixed research studies: a mixed methods approach’, Journal of Mixed Methods Research, vol.4 (2010):17-31
Lim, B., & Ployhart, R. `Transformational leadership: relationships to the five-factor model and team performance in typical and maximum contexts’, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol.89, no.4 (2004): 610-21
Lodico, M., Spaulding, D., & Voegtle, K. Methods in educational research: from theory to practice. San Fransisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2010
Nana, E., Jackson, B., & Burch, G. `Attributing leadership personality and effectiveness from the leader’s face: an exploratory study’, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol.31 (2010):720-42
Rubin, R., Munz, D., & Bommer, W. `Leading from within: the effects of emotion recognition and personality on transformational leadership behavior’, Academy of Management Journal, vol.48, no.5 (2005): 845-58
Wilson, J. Essentials of business research: a guide to doing your research project. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Ltd, 2010
Appendix
Research Questionnaire
Question 1
Please tick your response to the statements below
Statement Strongly disagree(1) Disagree(2) Agree(3) Strongly agree (4)
My immediate supervisor uses the transformational leadership style
My immediate supervisor is supportive and responsiveness to my needs
My immediate supervisor adequately articulates and communicates his vision
My immediate supervisor is open to experiences
My immediate supervisor has high self-confidence and esteem
Question 2
Please write down your response to the question below:
Does the personality of your immediate supervisor make him an effective leader?
Raw data
Statement Strongly disagree(1) Disagree(2) Agree(3) Strongly agree (4)
My immediate supervisor uses the transformational leadership style
4 6
My immediate supervisor is supportive and responsiveness to my needs
1 1 3 5
My immediate supervisor adequately articulates and communicates his vision
1 2 4 3
My immediate supervisor is open to experiences
1 1 5 3
My immediate supervisor has high self-confidence and esteem 1 4 3 2
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