Personality and Group Roles

One way that leaders shape the organizational, societal, or political climate of their group is through their style of communication and interaction with other group members. The effectiveness of leaders has been determined by analyzing both the dispositional qualities of leaders and the situational factors that contribute to the creation of a great leader. The tendency of most research is to underestimate the extent to which specific situations promote evaluations of exceptional leadership. Instead, much of the research focuses on what is often termed the “great person” approach, that is, analyzing whether successful leaders share any personality characteristics. Therefore, any discussion of leadership warrants a discussion of personality.

Generally, personality refers to a person's consistent temperament and interaction style, but not always. While personality is generally discussed in terms of traits (stable predispositions in behavior) there is a growing literature that discusses people's motives (contextual drives) in relation to personality. Although the history of personality assessment focuses on fixed traits, in order to describe and explain human personality accurately, it is necessary to include a discussion of situational motives for behavior also.

Why is the discussion of personality motives as important as traits? Personality research reveals that although “great” leaders share similar personal characteristics, the findings are not as powerful as the great person approach might lead one to suspect. Leaders have been found to be more intelligent, more outgoing, and more dominant than followers, but the situation the leader confronts seems to be as important as his or her personal characteristics. Favorable situations for leadership occur when the leader has [Page 1188]considerable authority and a clear-cut task while simultaneously being situated in contexts where group members communicate well both with one another and with the leader.

Leaders are assigned a particular role in groups based on the formality of the situation. Formal leadership roles (for example, CEO of a corporation) are often designated prior to any group interaction. Therefore, persons in formal leadership positions systematically maintain power and status despite fluctuations in situational demands. Situational demands are more significant for small, leaderless groups convening in more informal settings. It is in these settings that individual personality characteristics can play a role in whether certain people emerge as the group leader. People may bid for the leadership role based on whether or not they were previously group leader, or group members may assign the leadership role to a person exhibiting personality characteristics, such as flexibility or fairness, deemed suitable for an informal leader who must adapt to the ever-changing climate of small-group decision making.