TITLE:
You Have What? Personality! Traits That Predict Leadership Styles for Elementary Principals
AUTHORS:
Melinda Garcia, Phyllis Duncan, Meghan Carmody-Bubb, Malcom James Ree
KEYWORDS:
Follower Perceptions; Personality; Leadership; Extraversion; The Big Five Personality Traits; Transformation Leadership; Transactional Leadership; Passive Avoidant Leadership
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.5 No.3,
March
26,
2014
ABSTRACT: This
study of 242 teachers and paraprofessionals explored relationships between the
followers’ perceptions of the elementary principal’s Big Five Personality
Traits and the followers’ perceptions of the elementary principal’s Full Range
Leadership Model for one school district in South Texas that included 8
elementary schools that participated in the research. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire 5X Short (MLQ) (Bass & Avolio, 2004), The International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) (Goldberg, 1999), and a demographic survey created
by the researcher, was used to collect data. This sample of convenience used a
multiple regression to find correlations. Partial correlations and t-tests were used for further analyses.
This particular study was based on followers’ perceptions and did not support
previous research that Extraversion is a predictor of leadership style. The
study found relationships between perceived personality traits and leadership
styles for four out of the five personality traits. Open, Agreeable, and
Emotionally Stable principals were perceived to be Transformational Leaders.
Open and Emotionally Stable principals were also perceived as Transactional
Leaders. When principals were rated as Conscientious and Emotionally Unstable,
they were perceived as Passive-Avoidant Leaders. The personality and leadership
style that the principal’s project does impact the followers’ perceptions. Most
studies in the literature review include self-ratings of personality and
leadership while the present study used followers’ ratings of the leader’s
personality and leadership. Perception is reality. Surprisingly, the followers’ ratings for principals’ leadership styles
and Extraversion were non-significant.