Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 2004, 45, 49 54

Personality traits in leadership behavior

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

HEGE KORNR1 and HILMAR NORDVIK2

1 2

Unit for Addiction Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

Kornr, H. and Nordvik, H. (2004). Personality traits in leadership behavior. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 45, 49 54. Correlational analyses of the personality traits measured by the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992) and three leadership styles, that is, Change, Production, and Employee (CPE) measured by Ekvall and Arvonens (1991) CPE questionnaire, were performed. The sample was 106 Norwegian leaders. Three common factors comprising leadership styles and personality domains were interpreted as looking for new possibilities, hard working, and dealing with people. Considering personality traits as behavior tendencies in unspecied situational contexts and leadership styles as behavioral tendencies in the leadership context, and due to the self-report nature of the data, it is argued that the factors show consistency in self-perceptions independent of context. The strongest predictors of the CPE total score were Conscientiousness and Extraversion; Openness and Agreeableness were specic predictors of Change and Employee, respectively. Key words: Personality traits, leadership, NEO PI-R, leadership behavior, leadership effectiveness, ve-factor model. Hege Kornr, Unit for Addiction Medicine, University of Oslo, Mario, Kirkevn 166, N-0407 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: hege.kornor@psykiatri.uio.no

Leadership effectiveness can be predicted by two leadership behavior dimensions, that is, task-oriented and relationsoriented behavior. Research ndings suggest that individuals scoring high on both dimensions perform better as leaders (e.g., Blake and Mouton, 1964). According to the contingency approach, proposed by Fiedler (1967), ideal leadership behavior proles vary with the characteristics of the context. Ekvall and Arvonen (1991, 1994) have suggested a third behavior dimension, that is Change/Development, nding that high scores on all three dimensions predicted high performance regardless of the situation. The relevance of a third behavior dimension was also advocated by Yukl (1998), and Adizes (1979, 1987) even proposed a four-fold conception of managerial tasks, that is, Production, Administration, Enterprising, and Integration, in which Enterprising resembles Ekvall and Aronsens Change/Development; Production and Administration seem to be two aspects of the concern for task and structure, and Integration is the relation-orientation or concern for people, that is, Employee in Ekvall and Arvonens nomenclature. Both behavior and contingency approaches propose certain behavior styles that are closely related to leadership effectiveness. Behavior styles have been elaborated into constructs, such as charismatic, transactional, transformational and visionary leadership (e.g., Nystedt, 1997). From the contingency view, leadership competence may be the ability to adapt ones behavior style according to what is required in the situation. A pertinent question then becomes to what extent such exibility is possible for normal human beings. Although people of course do adapt their behavior to the situation, we also know that individual behavioral characteristics may be recognized across situations due to personality traits. Personality traits have been dened as dimensions of individual differences in tendencies to show consistent

patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions (McCrae & Costa, 1990, p. 23). Many investigations have documented that personality traits are remarkably stable (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1990), they have a signicant hereditary component (e.g., Loehlin, 1992), and they have behavioral implications, that is, they inuence behavior in any situation and they contribute to decide which situations persons are motivated to enter and participate in (e.g., Matthews & Deary, 1998). In the last 1015 years much personality trait research has been framed within the Five-Factor Model (FFM), which is a hierarchical model of personality traits with ve big traits, called domains, on the top, that is, Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and six sub-traits, called facets, beneath each domain (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Although considerably disputed (e.g., Brown, 1988), studies back to the early part of the 20th century have evidenced that personality traits are involved in leadership competence and behavior (Stogdill, 1948; Mann, 1959; Lord, De Vader & Alliger, 1986). Among the domains in the FFM Conscientiousness and Extraversion have been shown to predict managerial performance ( Barrick & Mount, 1991; Salgado, 1997). Recently, this view has been supported by Judge & Bono (2000), who found that effective transformational leadership, which resembles Ekvall and Arvonens Change and Employee, was predicted by Extraversion and Agreeableness. The purpose of the present study was to investigate relationships between the personality traits in the FFM and scores on the CPE questionnaire developed by Ekvall and Arvonen (1991) to measure the Change/Development, Production / Task /Structure, and Employee/Relations leadership orientations. The CPE asks questions about what leaders tend to do in leadership contexts. The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992) asks questions about what the person tends to do in general,

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Openness to 0.98, for Conscientiousness. Thus, the Norwegian version of the NEO PI-R satised basic psychometric requirements.

across situations and contexts. The question that we address is whether behavioral tendencies are specic for the leadership context or are inherently related to general behavioral tendencies. Nystedt (1997) rated leadership proles derived from the CPE on personality trait dimensions. However, we do not know any previous study of how persons simultaneously assess themselves on CPE leadership styles and the NEO PI-R personality traits. Some presumptions can be made at this stage: Due to its creative and visionary aspects, Change /Development appears to have something in common with Openness to experience; Production / Task/Structure may depend on the purposeful, strong-will, and determined qualities of Conscientiousness; and the empathic and interpersonal characteristics of Agreeableness may converge with Employee/Relations.

Procedure
The inventories were handed out during lectures on various topics on leadership. Some respondents responded promptly, while others handed in their self-reports the next day. Subjects were asked orally and in written instruction to respond as honestly as possible, and not to reect extensively upon their responses. Condentiality was guaranteed. Also, participants were offered feedback on their scores. All but one respondent accepted this offer. The feedback included a leadership prole (CPE), a personality prole (NEO PI-R), and information on how to interpret these proles.

RESULTS NEO PI-R scores

METHOD Sample
The sample consisted of 106 respondents, 64 males and 41 females. Mean age was 41.9 years (SD = 7.9 years). Respondents were participants at various leadership and career development programs at the Norwegian School of Management (BI), the National Police Academy, the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH), and others. The respondents were currently holding leadership positions, mainly at a middle management level. The sample represented a wide range of work and leadership experience, educational levels, organization sizes and types, and trades.

Instruments
Two instruments were used, a Norwegian translation of Ekvall and Arvonens (1994; 1991) leadership behavior questionnaire, the CPE, and the NEO PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992), also translated into Norwegian. The leadership behavior questionnaire contains 36 items for the assessment of three leadership behavior dimensions, that is, Change/ Development, Production / Task/Structure, and Employee/Relations. For each item there was a ve-point rating scale ranging from not appropriate to completely appropriate. In the Ekvall and Arvonen (1994) study, leaders subordinates answered the leadership behavior questionnaire. In the present study, however, we changed the CPE into a self-report version; the leaders were instructed to assess their own behavior on the same items as subordinates assessed their leader in the original CPE. All the CPE items can be seen in Table 1. The NEO PI-R consists of 240 items measuring the 30 facets that dene the ve domain factors of the FFM; all the facet and domain names are reported in Table 2. The items are statements of personality tendencies accompanied by ve-point rating scales, ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. As in the CPE, some items in the NEO PI-R also ask how the respondents think they are regarded by others, as in Some people think Im selsh and egoistical and Most people I know like me. Analyses of preliminary Norwegian data (N = 216) on the NEO PI-R indicated satisfactory reliability coefcients and very similar factor structure with other countries ( Nordvik, Eriksen & Gravraakmo, 1998). Unpublished results from a larger sample (N = 824) conrmed high alpha coefcients for the facets scales, varying from 0.54 to 0.84 with a mean of 0.71. In this sample the coefcients of congruence for the ve domains with the US norm sample varied from 0.95, for 2004 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.

NEO PI-R scores are T-scores, with norm means of 50 and SD = 10. Therefore, the sample means and SDs show how the sample deviates from the general norms. The lowest mean was in the Neuroticism facet Anxiety (46.3), and the highest in the Extraversion facets Assertiveness and Activity (both 54.5). The highest domain score was in Conscientiousness (52.5) and the lowest in Neurotocism (46.7). The mean scores on Extraversion, Openness, and Agreeableness were 50.8, 49.7, and 51.0 respectively. In none of the NEO PI-R variables did the deviation from the population norm reach what Cohen (1992) species as a medium effect size, namely one half of the estimated population SD. The SDs in the sample varied from 8.00 to 10.0. Thus, the sample was slightly more homogeneous in personality trait scores than a random sample from the population, but this effect was not great enough to substantially attenuate correlations because of range restriction. The CPE dimensions In order to investigate whether the CPE measures three independent dimensions, as maintained by Ekvall and Arvonen, we rst factor analyzed the 36 items of the CPE, applying Principal component extraction and Varimax rotation. Three factors had eigenvalues greater than 1. Table 1 shows the rotated factors together with the corresponding factors reported by Ekvall and Arvonen (1994). The coefcients of congruence (Gorsuch, 1983) between the two analyses were 0.83 for factor 1, 0.74 for factor 2 and 0.86 for factor 3, indicating that the CPE dimensions were fairly replicated in the present study, and that our self-report version of the CPE measure about the same factors as the original subordinate-report version. According to the item loadings the factors correspond to Employee, Change, and Production, respectively. The three factors in our study explained 34.7% of the variance, which strongly contrasts the claim from Ekvall and Arvonen (1994) that the corresponding factors in their study explained 97% of the total variance. Judging from the Ekvall and Arvonen factor loadings, however, their claim cannot be

Scand J Psychol 45 (2004) Table 1. Varimax rotated factor matrix for the CPE items Factors Present study Item no. As 19 34 7 16 1 22 2 4 32 28 25 6 10 13 23 8 20 35 11 14 26 5 17 31 29 36 30 21 33 27 18 24 3 12 9 15 a leader, I . . . am considerate show regard for the subordinates as individuals have an open and honest style show appreciation for good work am friendly stand up for my subordinate listen to ideas and suggestions rely on my subordinates am exible and ready to rethink my point of view am just in treating subordinates create an atmosphere free of conict am very clear about who is responsible for what criticize in a constructive way create trust in other people experiment with new ways of doing things encourage thinking along new lines initiate new projects offer ideas about new and different ways of doing things like to discuss new ideas give thoughts and plans about the future see possibilities rather than problems am willing to take risks in decisions push for growth allow my subordinates to decide make quick decisions when necessary analyze and think through before deciding plan carefully am very exacting about plans being followed give clear instructions dene and explain the work requirements clearly set clear goals am controlling in my supervision of the work create order make a point of following rules and principles am consistent give information about the results of the units 1 2

Personality traits in leadership behavior 51

Ekvall/Arvonen 3 1 2 3

0.65 0.59 0.59 0.55 0.55 0.55 0.52 0.51 0.45 0.45 0.43 0.43 0.42 0.35 0.04 0.28 0.09 0.15 0.18 0.03 0.27 0.04 0.05 0.21 0.06 0.32 0.09 0.12 0.07 0.12 0.05 0.33 0.04 0.11 0.15 0.26 4.26 11.8

0.07 0.09 0.06 0.09 0.25 0.18 0.00 0.09 0.17 0.08 0.07 0.12 0.20 0.16 0.75 0.72 0.69 0.67 0.64 0.61 0.47 0.33 0.37 0.30 0.18 0.20 0.04 0.13 0.04 0.15 0.44 0.05 0.23 0.28 0.20 0.01 4.17 11.6

0.20 0.05 0.05 0.09 0.24 0.02 0.03 0.34 0.08 0.32 0.27 0.18 0.04 0.34 0.10 0.02 0.13 0.15 0.19 0.13 0.16 0.08 0.34 0.08 0.04 0.30 0.70 0.68 0.68 0.67 0.57 0.56 0.51 0.50 0.38 0.32 4.08 11.3

0.62 0.73 0.52 0.44 0.52 0.56 0.58 0.53 0.59 0.64 0.59 0.24 0.44 0.55 0.16 0.45 0.08 0.24 0.44 0.30 0.39 0.20 0.28 0.55 0.27 0.32 0.17 0.03 0.21 0.21 0.20 0.07 0.17 0.04 0.40 0.24 5.98 16.6

0.02 0.14 0.35 0.37 0.17 0.24 0.30 0.20 0.31 0.17 0.19 0.37 0.33 0.29 0.65 0.56 0.67 0.71 0.54 0.56 0.52 0.52 0.69 0.20 0.52 0.11 0.21 0.12 0.28 0.33 0.46 0.15 0.22 0.11 0.21 0.39 5.36 14.9

0.20 0.19 0.25 0.22 0.01 0.21 0.12 0.03 0.03 0.34 0.27 0.53 0.32 0.38 0.10 0.12 0.17 0.17 0.07 0.22 0.15 0.24 0.26 0.03 0.18 0.49 0.69 0.63 0.61 0.60 0.54 0.57 0.57 0.56 0.51 0.32 4.74 13.2

Eigenvalues Percent explained variance

Note: Ekvall and Arvonens results are reproduced by kind permission from Blackwell Publishers.

correct. According to our calculation from their results the explained variance should be 44.7% rather than 97%.

Relationships between personality traits and leadership dimensions Correlations. Having obtained evidence for the existence of the leadership factors in the CPE data; we computed scores for the three factors in Table 1 by the SPSS regression command and proceeded to investigate correlations between these dimensions and the NEO PI-R dimensions.
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Table 2 shows the correlation coefcients between the traits measured by the NEO PI-R and the CPI factors interpreted as the leadership dimensions of Change, Production, and Employee. At the domain level Extraversion and Openness were positively correlated, and Neuroticism negatively correlated, with Change, that is, r = 0.34, 0.32, and 0.31, respectively, and these directions of correlations apply to every facet in these domains. The highest correlation for the domains was between Agreeableness and Employee (r = 0.43). Extraversion and Conscientiousness were positively correlated with all the leadership dimensions.

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Table 2. Correlations between NEO PI-R personality scores and CPE leadership style scores Change Development Neuroticism N1: Anxiety N2: Angry hostility N3: Depression N4: Self-consciousness N5: Impulsiveness N6: Vulnerability Extraversion E1: Warmth E2: Gregariousness E3: Assertiveness E4: Activity E5: Excitement seeking E6: Positive emotions Openness to experience O1: Fantasy O2: Aesthetics O3: Feelings O4: Actions O5: Ideas O6: Values Agreeableness A1: Trust A2: Straightforwardness A3: Altruism A4: Compliance A5: Modesty A6: Tender-mindedness Conscientiousness C1: Competence C2: Order C3: Dutifulness C4: Achievement striving C5: Self-Discipline C6: Deliberation Note: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01. 0.31** 0.30** 0.05 0.28** 0.37** 0.01 0.26** 0.34** 0.22* 0.29** 0.39** 0.31** 0.25* 0.06 0.32** 0.17 0.16 0.24* 0.35** 0.24* 0.19* 0.06 0.14 0.20* 0.05 0.07 0.09 0.01 0.12 0.18 0.04 0.08 0.26** 0.27** 0.03 Production Task 0.15 0.16 0.18 0.15 0.13 0.08 0.09 0.08 0.11 0.07 0.04 0.15 0.01 0.08 0.28** 0.21* 0.09 0.15 0.18 0.19* 0.38** 0.15 0.24* 0.14 0.03 0.06 0.13 0.12 0.38** 0.03 0.46** 0.31** 0.31** 0.22* 0.27** Employee Relations 0.22* 0.12 0.32** 0.09 0.17 0.02 0.32** 0.26** 0.48** 0.07 0.02 0.19* 0.02 0.38** 0.26** 0.12 0.27** 0.28** 0.06 0.22* 0.12 0.43** 0.39** 0.10 0.51** 0.32** 0.09 0.44** 0.25* 0.25* 0.08 0.23* 0.13 0.18 0.18 CPE Total 0.22* 0.15 0.11 0.12 0.23* 0.04 0.28** 0.39** 0.47** 0.25* 0.21* 0.38** 0.14 0.30** 0.18 0.05 0.20* 0.22* 0.13 0.16 0.04 0.13 0.16 0.14 0.31** 0.18 0.08 0.19* 0.44** 0.24* 0.29** 0.27** 0.41** 0.39** 0.25*

Among the facets, the highest correlation was between A3: Altruism and Employee (r = 0.51), between E1: Warmth and Employee (r = 0.48), and between C2: Order and Production (r = 0.46). Regression analysis. Table 3 shows the results of regression analyses with the ve personality domains as independent and the leadership styles as dependent variables. The highest multiple correlation, R = 0.61, was found for Production, which means that about 37% of the variance in this variable could be predicted from the personality variables. Conscientiousness was the strongest predictor of Production, but also Neuroticism; Extraversion, and Openness (negative beta) contributed signicantly to Production. Only Agreeableness had a signicant regression coefcient on Employee, whereas Openness and Neuroticism (negative beta) were statistically signicant on Change. The strongest and only signicant predictors of the total CPE score among the personality
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Table 3. Standardized regression coefcients () with personality domains as predictors of leadership styles CPE Change Production Employee total Neuroticism 0.24* 0.38** Extraversion 0.13 0.28** Openness 0.27** 0.34** Agreeableness 0.18 0.13 Conscientiousness 0.04 0.47** Multiple correlation (R) 0.47** 0.61** Note: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.010. 0.04 0.11 0.14 0.35** 0.14 0.51** 0.05 0.28** 0.05 0.02 0.37** 0.52**

traits were Extraversion and Conscientiousness with beta coefcients of 0.28 and 0.37, respectively. Factor analysis. We also performed a common factor analysis of the personality domains and the leadership style dimensions,

Scand J Psychol 45 (2004) Table 4. Rotated orthogonal factor matrix of personality and leadership variables Factor 1 Personality Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Agreeableness Conscientiousness Leadership Employee/Relations Change/Development Production/Task Factor 2 Factor 3

Personality traits in leadership behavior 53 A main argument for the self-report method is that we are interested in behavioral tendencies, such as personality traits and leadership styles. To disclose tendencies from behavior, observations would have to be aggregated across a wide range of situations. People have a unique opportunity to aggregate observations of themselves because they are always there when they behave and participate in any situation. In addition, the persons themselves know the feelings, thoughts and intentions that accompany their own behavior. Thus, there are reasons why self-report may give valid data. However, it remains that self-report data can be interpreted at two levels. First, and most immediately, the data show the structure of the persons perceptions and notions about themselves; that is, the item responses are interpreted as indices of latent dimensions of perceived human characteristics. The NEO PI-R gives self-reports on general behavioral tendencies without reference to contexts or situational settings. On the contrary, the CPE asks for self-reported behavioral tendencies specic in the leadership context. Therefore, the common factors of the self-reported personality and leadership variables indicate consistencies in the subjects self-conceptions across the context free and the leadership domain (e.g., Nordvik & Brovold, 1998). Persons who generally view themselves as highly Agreeable report that they are concerned about Employees, those who view themselves as Extraverted and Open for experience are enthusiastic for Change, and those who look upon themselves as Conscientious report focus on Production, that is, to get things done. These results from the factor analysis indicate that people tend to be consistent, regardless of whether they think of context free personality characteristics or specic leadership assets. Second, if we accept scores derived from self-reported data as measures of variables, we may investigate hypothesized directional effects between the variables. Personality traits have been thought of as basic tendencies in individuals biological constitution (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1995). Accordingly, personality variables are often conceived as predictors of leadership variables, as we did in our regression analyses. If we accept the CPE total score as a measure of general leadership prociency, as proposed by Ekvall and Arvonen (1991, 1994), Extraversion and Conscientiousness are the most valid selection criteria for such prociency. However, to select candidates for Change, Openness and Neuroticism (negative weight) should be used, and Agreeableness is the strongest predictor of Employee. Due to the low scores on Neuroticism in the sample, the effect of this variable comes from variance in the middle and low score level. Within this score range those who score highest on Neuroticism tend to prefer the Production style, whereas low-scorers tend towards Change and Employee. This may indicate that Change and Employee requires a more relaxed, self-condent, and easygoing personal styles than Production. Apparent discrepancies in the results from the two analyses are due to how the methods treat common variance. In

0.62 0.77 0.59 0.01 0.31 0.17 0.77 0.06

0.13 0.11 0.45 0.09 0.72 0.07 0.02 0.85

0.27 0.17 0.25 0.83 0.33 0.78 0.25 0.15

using Principal component extraction and Varimax rotation. Three factors with eigenvalues greater than 1 emerged and the orthogonally rotated solution is shown in Table 4. Each of the three leadership dimensions came out with distinct loadings on only one factor, and each factor showed a distinct loading pattern also for the personality domains. Factor 1 seems to be a looking for new possibilities, change and development factor comprising Change/Development, Extraversion, Openness, and Neuroticism (negative loading). Factor 2 seems to be a duty and work hard on prescribed tasks factor involving Production / Task /Structure and the personality domains Conscientiousness and Openness in opposite directions. Factor 3 clearly is a dealing with people factor, which comprises Agreeableness and Employee/ Relations.

DISCUSSION The extensive use of self-report in personality and leadership research testies that researchers in these areas have moved far away from the behaviorist doctrine that only objective observations of behavior are acceptable data for psychology. The CPE dimensions do not appear to have been examined for discrepancies between subordinates descriptions of their supervisors and leaders self-ratings. However, the phenomenon has been studied in comparable settings. According to Kim and Yukl (1995), subordinate ratings of supervisors behaviour are more closely related to leadership effectiveness than self-reports. On the other hand, research ndings also show that leaders self-reports are not necessarily biased in a socially desirable direction, nor divergent from subordinate ratings (Fleenor, McCauley & Brutus, 1996). In the eld of personality assessment, the issue of response distortion has been thoroughly discussed. Research ndings show that response distortion tends to occur more frequently among job applicants than among job incumbents (Rosse, Stecher, Miller & Levin, 1998), but also that social desirability does not function as a moderator of personality-performance relations (Ones & Viswesvaran, 1998). The validity of selfreports has also been supported by documentation of agreement with rating by others (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1992).
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Gorsuch, R. L. (1983). Factor analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Judge, T. A. & Bono, J. E. (2000). Five-Factor Model of Personality and Transformational Leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85 (5), 751765. Kim, H. & Yukl, G. (1995). Relationships of managerial effectiveness and advancement to self-reported and subordinate-reported leadership behaviors from the multiple-linkage model. Leadership Quarterly, 6, 361377. Loehlin, J. C. (1992). Genes and environment in personality development. Newbury Park, CA: SagePublications. Lord, R. G., De Vader, C. L. & Alliger, G. M. (1986). A metaanalysis of the relation between personality traits and leadership perceptions: an application of validity generalization procedures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 402 410. Mann, R. D. (1959). A review of the relationships between personality and performance in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 54, 241270. Matthews, G. & Deary, I. J. (1998). Personality traits. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCrae, R. R. & Costa, P. T. (1990). Personality in adulthood. New York: Guildford. McCrae, R. R. & Costa, P. T. (1995). Trait explanation in personality psychology. European Journal of Personality, 9, 231252. Nordvik, H. & Brovold, H. (1998). Personality and leadership tasks. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 39, 61 64. Nordvik, H., Eriksen, L. & Gravraakmo, A. (1998). NEO PI-R in Norway. On the universality of the Five Factor Model. Poster presentation, 9th European Conference on Personality, Surrey. Nystedt, L. (1997). Who should rule? Does personality matter? European Journal of Personality, 11, 114. Ones, D. S. & Viswesvaran, C. (1998). The effects of social desirability and faking on personality and integrity assessment for personnel selection. Human performance, 11, 245269. Rosse, J. G., Stecher, M. D., Miller, J. L. & Levin, R. A. (1998). The impact of response distortion on preemployment personality testing and hiring decisions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 634 644. Salgado, J. F. (1997). The ve factor model of personality and job performance in the European Community. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 30 43. Stogdill, R. M. (1948). Personal factors associated with leadership: A survey of the literature. The Journal of Psychology, 25, 35 71. Yukl, G. (1998). Leadership in organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Received 18 April 2002, accepted 25 September 2002

Factor 1 in Table 4 the highest loadings are for Extraversion and Change (both 0.77), whereas Table 3 shows that the regression coefcient of Extraversion on Change is only 0.13. Although Extraversion and Change have substantial common variance, the unique contribution of Extraversion to Change is relatively small because Extraversion has different common variance components with Neuroticism and Openness, which are also shared by Change. Our main conclusion is that people tend to be consistent in their self-report regardless of context and that leadership styles are related to personality traits. In an applied setting, this nding supports the view that personality inventories, such as the NEO PI-R, would be useful in managerial selection for assessing a wide range of leadership qualities related to effectiveness.

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