Personality and Leadership Style Relationship

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Table of Contents

Different Ways of Defining a Personality Type
A Basic Paradigm
Hans Eysenck’s Theory
Different Types of Leadership and Their Connection with the Personality Types
Jobs’ Apple and Cook’s Apple: What is the Difference?
References

Leadership is definitely the most difficult part of organizational behavior. It depends on many factors: individual, psychological, and organizational. In this regard, skills, experiences, attitudes, age, and even sex have an influence. For example, the study conducted by Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, and Engen (2003) shows that men are more likely than women to use the laissez-faire style. However, personality is the most influential. The relationship between personality and leadership reminds of something like a chicken and egg problem: does our personality affect the leadership style or vice versa? Even though I tend to believe that the first alternative is right, the order, in fact, does not have much value. Regardless of what enters the game first, these two issues are intimately connected, and knowing the personality type of a leader, we can tell a lot about his or her leadership behavior. This paper considers four possible personality types and examines their impact on leadership; additionally, to prove the point, the experiences of two high-profile senior executives are discussed.

Different Ways of Defining a Personality Type

Personality is a complex and difficult concept and its charm lies in the fact that it can not be defined unambiguously. Consequently, there are many different ways to do it. The theorists have developed both single-trait theories, which can make conclusions about a person knowing only one personality trait, and multi-trait theories that need several of those for the same purpose.

A Basic Paradigm

To start with, there is a fundamental paradigm – Jacob Goldsmith’s theory invented in the 1500s (Ledlow & Coppola, 2010, p. 30). It says that there are only two types of people: impulsive and tempered Type A and easy-going Type B. The first one is characterized by the high levels of competitiveness, ambitions, impatience, inquisitiveness, and sometimes even aggressiveness. Such leaders as Carly Fiorina (a politician) and Jack Welch (a retired business executive) can be referred to this category. The second includes people who are radically different. Those are stable, calm, patient, and slow at doing things; they also can maintain focus and relax easily. The representatives of this type are Ricardo Semler (the CEO of Semco Partners) and Andrea Jung (a Canadian-American executive). Additionally, there are also some people who unite both of the types, and a prime example here is Richard Branson (an English businessman). Admittedly, such kind of differentiation is quite weak, and the huge drawback here is a significant generalization. Just as the world will never be black and white, people can not be divided into only two categories.

Hans Eysenck’s Theory

Probably, one of the most widespread theories of personality types is the one suggested by Hans Eysenck. His approach is an example of multi-traits theories, since it considers both how stable a person is and whether he or she is an extrovert or an introvert. Hence, there are four possible outcomes: stable and introverted, stable and extroverted, unstable and introverted, unstable and extroverted (Eysenck Type Personality Test, n.d.). What is even more surprising, Eysenck connected his own theory with four well-known temperaments proposed by the Greeks (Eysenck Type Personality Test, n.d.). According to his approach and tests, stable and introverted people are phlegmatic, stable and extroverted are sanguine, unstable and introverted are melancholic, and unstable and extroverted are choleric.

Different Types of Leadership and Their Connection with the Personality Types

Phlegmatic is the first type mentioned above, and it is characterized by stability and introversion. What can those traits bring? Such kind of a person is steady and reserved, peaceful and passive, calm and careful. Evidently, those characteristics are needed for a leader but in smaller amounts than a phlegmatic person usually has. Besides, they should be supported by other traits, such as sociability, ability to motivate, creative thinking, and so on. These people just lack the skills necessary to become influential leaders. They are not active enough, and that is why they often use the laissez-faire style. It is also called a nonstyle or “a hands-off style” (Wart, 2014, p. 36). According to it, leaders do not care about any strategies and let their subordinates make the decisions.

Some people mistakenly assume that such leaders are not leaders at all. However, Ricketts and Ricketts (2011) describe a situation, which argues the opposite. They tell about the coach of the Olympic basketball team. That was “the first-ever dream team” with the players, whose “talent and ability were second only to their experience and knowledge of the game” (Ricketts & Ricketts, 2011, p. 34). So, the coach was only delegating – he was there when the team needed him. Delegating is a style with low structuring and low developing, and it should be applied only when followers have achieved the highest level of readiness and are capable of making decisions independently (Obolensky, 2010, p. 138). Some teams just do not need any leader, and in that case, phlegmatic individuals turn out to be the best fit.

The next type to consider is choleric. These people are unstable and extroverted at the same time. They are active, optimistic, ambitious, and restless. They can also be impulsive, changeable and even aggressive. What is even more important, they are dominant and focused on the result, not people. That is why the most common approach choleric people choose is authoritarian one, or the theory X (Ricketts & Ricketts, 2011, p. 26). These leaders are on their own. They do not devote their followers to their thoughts or plans and only tell them what to do (in the language of leadership styles it is called telling). Those leaders are sure that nobody can come up with an idea better than their own, which is why they rarely ask for advice or show interest in the opinions of others. An example of a choleric leader will be presented below.

The third personality type to discuss is sanguine. People who refer to this type are easy-going, lively, sociable, and outgoing. At the same time, they are responsible, reliable, and influential. They are extroverted and care about people, which is why their choice usually falls on the democratic leadership approach or as it is also called the theory Y (Ricketts & Ricketts, 2011, p. 26). The theory implies friendly and relaxed atmosphere in the workplace, rewards for the subordinates (instead of only punishments), encouragement of the self-development and learning, high motivation, and so on. As a result, the followers show strong performance and high levels of readiness. Then a leader is free to use either selling style when both “structuring behavior” and “developing behavior” are needed or consulting style, which implies the relative freedom given to followers, as well as asking for their opinions and suggestions (Obolensky, 2010, p. 138). An example of such kind of a leader will be discussed later in the paper.

Finally, the last type mentioned above is melancholic, an introverted and unstable person. These leaders are always cautious. They change their leadership styles according to the situation, every time choosing between telling, selling, consulting, and delegating. Admittedly, such kind of approach is one of the best. However, melancholic people can often be pessimistic, anxious, unsociable, and moody, which is why their personal feelings affect the decisions they make. That is fraught with taking risks and making mistakes that are not always justified. Still, if a melancholic leader abstracts from personal and uses the caution to which he is prone reasonably he can actually make a good leader. Ricketts and Ricketts (2011) say about the case when the leader worried that “the members of his group seemed to have a different amount of enthusiasm for the assignment” and used different leadership styles to each of them (p. 35). In many situations, the situational approach is rather beneficial; it just should be applied reasonably and correctly.

It is interesting, which of the fore mentioned types of personality (and leadership styles) is the most common. Searching for the answer to this question, Judge, Bono, Ilies, and Gerhard (2002) conducted the research. They set a goal to estimate the number of people in leadership positions who had particular traits. The study showed that extroverts prevailed among the respondents, and the number of people prone to neuroticism was the second largest (Judge, Bono, Ilies, and Gerhard, 2002). With this in mind, it is not hard to conclude that choleric leaders seem to predominate over others.

Jobs’ Apple and Cook’s Apple: What is the Difference?

Apple is one of the richest and the most valuable organizations in the world. Its evolution started in 1976 with Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne, and Steve Wozniak, hanging out in Jobs’ parents’ garage. Instead of creating a rock band (which other trios would possibly do in that circumstances) they made their Apple I. Later, Ronald Wayne sold his part of “newly created Apple” for 800$, and Steve Wozniak left Apple as well, what made Steve Jobs the only leader (The Apple Revolution, 2015, para. 1).

First of all, Steve Jobs was a genius. He was ambitious, very creative, and hardworking. However, as Marks (2011) claimed, he also had “an extra little something going on that further separated him from his peers” (par. 3). Many former and current Apple employees describe him as an unpredictable, spitfire, and even aggressive person. As Ryan Tate said about him, “Jobs exercised censorship and authoritarianism” (Marks, 2011, par. 5). It was not rare for him to be rude while meetings and during his interviews, to his employees and partners. Besides, he was extremely demanding. As an anonymous interviewee said, he just “worked his employees to the bone” (Epstein, 2015, par. 1). While being the CEO, Jobs was the one who made all the calls – everything just had to pass through him. He did not approve when something was done not in the way he said, and could even blame people for his own mistakes. He wanted to gather a strong and talented team (and succeed at that) but he was not actually very interested in his employees. He usually focused on the result and achieving the goal. Considering all of this, it can be concluded that Jobs was choleric and tended to use authoritarian methods.

Tim Cook, who has succeeded Jobs, is a different person, and a lot of his decisions Jobs would probably have never made. Cook has even been criticized for that by many people. However, that is not surprising since Cook has succeeded one of the world’s greatest businessmen. The first thing that should be said about Cook is that he is neither a genius nor an innovative person – he is much more a manager or a leader (Yarow, 2014, para. 5). As for the personality types, he seems to be sanguine. He is social, open to people and takes every effort to make the company more collaborative and democratic. To tell the truth, he has made huge changes. Firstly, since Tim Cook is not actually “a product guy”, he has made a wise decision to let people who are better than him in this matter to do their job (Yarow, 2014, para. 5). The prime example of that is Jony Ive’s promotion. Jony Ive had a vision for the products, which consumers would love, so Tim decided to make him a person who would make the “the final call on products” (Yarow, 2014, para. 5).

Secondly, Tim Cook encouraged collaboration, and that led to sweeping changes in the organizational structure and the teamwork. The company is no longer as centralized as it used to be. It is “no longer a one-man show” (Yarow, 2014, para. 10). In 2013, for example, Tim Cook appeared on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek with Jony Ive and Craig Federighi, the software developer (Yarow, 2014, para. 10). When Steve Jobs was the CEO, only he got all of the magazine’s covers, interviews, and speeches at the conferences. Thirdly, Tim added female characters to “a white-male-dominated executive team” (Bradshaw & Waters, 2014, par. 13). Finally, he started something that Apple had never done with Steve Jobs in charge. Apple contributed to charity.

That was one of Cook’s first moves as the CEO, and it was definitely the right one. Since 2012, Apple donated 50 million dollars to Stanford hospitals and the same amount of money to Project Red (Yarow, 2014, para. 5). Then the company gave 500,000 dollars to SF Gives (Yarow, 2014, para. 5). Tim Cook even took the Ice Bucket Challenge (Reschke, 2014). That was indeed a smart move since Steve Jobs had been criticized many times because of his disinterest of charity and philanthropy. The list of the changes that Tim Cook has implemented can be extended, and it characterizes both his personality and his leadership style very well. He has many qualities that describe sanguine. He also applies democratic methods in management and leadership (consults with the employees, lets them take the decisions, encourages the teamwork, and so on). As for Jacob Goldsmith’s theory, Cook is definitely the Type B while Jobs is the Type A.

To conclude, both persons chosen for the research support the theory described in the paper. The personality types do have an influence on leadership behavior, and each of those has their own effects. Phlegmatic people usually choose the laissez-faire style, choleric and sanguine are the two opposites who apply authoritarian and democratic methods respectively, and a melancholic person tends to change the leadership style according to the situation, which can actually be a very good tactic.

References

Bradshaw, T., & Waters, R. (2014). Person of the Year: Tim Cook of Apple. Web.

Eagly, A. H., Johannesen-Schmidt, M. C., & Engen, M. L. (2003). Transformational, Transactional, and Laissez-Faire Leadership Styles: A Meta-Analysis Comparing Women and Men. Psychological Bulletin, 129(4), 569-591.

Epstein, Z. (2015). Ex-Apple Employee: Working for ‘Giant Jerk’ Steve Jobs was a Nightmare. Web.

Eysenck Type Personality Test. (n.d.). Web.

Judge, T. A., Bono, J. E., Ilies, R., & Gerhard, M. W. (2002). Personality and Leadership: A Qualitative and Quantitative Review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 765-780.

Ledlow, G., & Coppola, N. (2010). Leadership for Health Professionals: Theory, Skills, and Applications. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Marks, G. (2011). Steve Jobs Was A Jerk. Good For Him. Web.

Obolensky, N. (2010). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty. Farnham, England: Gower Publishing Limited.

Ricketts, C., & Ricketts, J. (2011). Leadership: Personal Development and Career Success (3rd ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning.

Wart, M. V. (2014). Leadership in Public Organizations: An Introduction (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Yarow, J. (2014). How Tim Cook Has Changed Apple. Web.

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