THE SCIENCE OF PERSONALITY

What is Personality?
o Disposition, Motives, Characteristic systematic ways of interacting with others
o A persons probability to do something

Human behavior is social or interpersonal. Through analysis of social systems there are
three constant characteristics:
o People have always lived in groups
o Groups always have a hierarchy with a well-defined leader
o People have to have a formal system of meaning (religion, philosophy, science)

As a consequence there are three main motives of people:

o Getting along with others (bonding, warmth, empathy)
o Getting ahead (competing with others)
o Finding meaning (key to understanding how people make decisions)

Personality determines what people do in general, some are more influential than others
due to being in positions of power. If we understand what those people are like (motives)
we will be able to predict how the group/followers behave.

Groups are an evolutionary feature for survival. Leadership evolved because some people
were able to survive better than others. Leadership is a fundamental resource for the
group (the survival and effectiveness of team)

Great Man Theory (Early Leadership Theory) Looks at commonalities among great
leaders. Assumes all good leaders have certain characteristics.

Style Leadership came along during the 1960s as a way to define leadership by how a
leader leads, had nothing to do with the personality of a leader. No such thing as a
leader just situations that create leaders.

Successful leaders know themselves and their teammates. There is a high correlation
between business success and leader personalities.
o An effective leader is somewhat who leads an effective team.
o Can also be defined as a person who for a limited time brings together a group of
people to work on a common purpose.

Personality drives leadership which drives organizational effectiveness. In other words,

who you are determines how you lead which determines how groups functions which
determines how organizations function.

Freud popularized psychology and his major contributions were that we have an
unconscious which drives our behavior (motives). Argues that everyone is neurotic and
the most important thing is to overcome our neurosis.

Two different sides of personality (1) the identity or the story we tell ourselves (2)
reputation or the you that we know (what other people think of you)

Modern leadership assessment started with the Germans during the world wars who
created the first assessment centers (Max Parsimae) who developed a four part test to
assess personality

Morton Prince brought psychology assessment to the United States by bringing the
German military assessment center to Harvard

General Donovan Mackinnon and Henry Murrey brought the Hardvard psychological
clinic to the OSS as a way to develop high level talent to find spies and the like for World
War II. Created a long list of motives and personality characteristics to create composite
pictures of candidate personalities. Brought about the big five factors of personality.

The five factor model of personality is the idea that there are five basic or core
dimensions of personality that can be used to describe normal people (Gordan Allport).
o Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness Extraversion, Neuroticism
o Started with Allport making a taxonomy out of a dictionary of words used to
describe people. A way to measure traits.

Two types of personality assessments (1) measuring traits, descriptives, which is not very
useful to predict performance (2) predicting outcomes which is the most useful approach
is personality assessments in organizations

Leaderships fail when they are unable to tone down their own personalities to fit certain
situations
o Albert Dunlap or Chainsaw Al, destroyed Sunbeam when he fired large groups of
employees

How to determine what makes a good leader (leadership assessment)?

o Best predictor of future behavior is past behavior
o Assessment is about predicting non-test performance

Dark Side Characteristics of Personality:
Dark side is a set of non-attractive characteristics that occur when
we are under stress or when our guard is down (derailers). Can
also be seen as over-used strengths such as being bold or arrogant,

intimidation, or bullying. In the short run these are effective coping

strategies but are harmful in the long run.
Bright Side of Personality:
Relates to a persons strengths or the factors that are likely to
advance ones career and aid in managing others. Our public
perspective.

Aristotle noted that knowing ourselves is the first way to achieving wisdom.

Personality remains stable across the lifespan, however, ones relationship with their
personality changes over time.