ROLE OF PERSONALITY IN LEADERSHIP

&
STUDY OF THREE INDIAN LEADERS

Submitted by group:2
Amrita Ganguly (2)
Ashwet Mrinal (8)
Rohit Mehta (14)
Prasanna D. (20)
Rahul Salian (26)
Sandeep Nayak (32)
Shishir (38)
Sougata Biswas (44)
Tanishtha Basu (50)
Vandana (56)

What is personality?
Personality is a complex, multidimensional construct that is beyond simple
definition or description. However, we may examine personality in terms of a set
of relatively stable characteristics and tendencies, determining our thoughts,
feelings and behavior and having some continuity and consistency over a period of
time. We can also see personality as having a core(characteristics common to most
of us) and a periphery(those that have become a part of us because of what we
have learnt from our environment).

Maddi(1980) defines personality as a stable set of characteristics and tendencies

that determines those commonalities and differences in the psychological behavior
of people, have continuity in time, and may not be easily understood as the sole
result of the social and biological pressures of the moment.

The above definition indicates that people have some traits in common with others,
and are also different from others in certain other respects. That is why managers
cannot follow a uniform pattern of rewards or motivational techniques to influence
every employee’s behavior.

Psychoanalytic theory
The entire psychoanalytic theory is based on only two types of observation made
by Sigmund Freud. He studied deviant or irrational behavior of a very small
number of his own medical patients. He also drew observations from everyday life
such as expressions of humor and slips of tongue.

There are two major elements underlying all of Freud’s theory. One of these is
concept of conscious-unconscious dimension. He suggested that the mind has three
subsystems. The conscious involves thoughts of which you are aware. The pre-
conscious involves thoughts of which you are not immediately aware. The
unconscious involves the largest source of influences on your overt, conscious
behavior.

The second concept is of the id, ego and the super ego. The id has to do with our
most basic desires, and it cannot tolerate tension. The ego develops to monitor the
id and to direct its impulsive desires. It stresses rationality and an awareness of the
realities. The super-ego is thought to be composed of one’s conscience and to
involve an ego-ideal.
 Freud’s mind

What is Leadership?
Mullins(1996) defines leadership as a relationship through which one person
influences the behavior of other people. Leaders must not only be able to define
departmental, unit or organizational missions, but they must be able to coordinate
activities of others and motivate them to meet mission requirements.

A recent definitive meta-analysis (Harter, Schmidt & Hayes, 2002) shows 5

important things-

1. The personalities of managers directly influence employee satisfaction.

2. When employee satisfaction is high, positive business outcomes results.

3. When employee satisfaction is low, negative business outcomes results.

 4. The link between leadership and unit performance is mediated by staff
morale.

5. People don’t quit organizations, they quit their boss.

Bad managers alienate employees and create negative business outcomes. What is
the base rate of bad managers in business today? It is estimated to be 50% to 75%.

There are various dimensions of managerial incompetence, such as- risk

averse(cautious), skeptical, poor communicator(reserved), passive-aggressive,
over-controlling(diligent), careless about commitments(mischievous), etc.

Hence, we can say that good leadership is function of personality and even bad
leadership is a function of personality.

Personality and Leadership

There are dozens of personal traits that can affect leadership and some, namely
integrity and character that are absolute. But in my years of experience, I have
observed that the ways leaders develop and deploy the eight know-how’s are
especially influenced by a handful of them: ambition, drive and tenacity, self-
confidence, psychological openness, realism and an insatiable appetite for learning.

These personal traits come out in many different ways. Do you stew over a
decision alone or bring in trusted advisors for candid discussions? Do you allow
yourself to be influenced by other people, changing your position in light of better
analysis by a subordinate? Are you a procrastinator who wants more and more data
-- more certainty -- before making a decision? Or are you impulsive, making a snap
decision based on your gut instincts? Do you like to be liked? Your personality and
psychology play an important role in how you interact with your business, whether
you impose your will on the organization or seek a productive consensus that
aligns the entire business with your goals.

Ambition: A desire to achieve something visible and noteworthy propels

individual leaders and their companies to strive to reach their potential. Leaders
need a healthy dose of it to push themselves and others. But ambition can be blind.
That’s when you see leaders making flashy acquisitions that are financially
unsound or setting attention-getting goals or taking on more priorities than the
organization can handle out of a desire to do everything. Over-ambitiousness,
combined with a lack of integrity, can lead to undesirable behavior and even
corruption.
Drive and Tenacity: Some leaders have an inner motor that pushes them to get to
the heart of an issue and find solutions. They drill for specific answers and don’t
give up until they get them. Their high energy is infectious. They consistently drive
their priorities through the organization. They search tenaciously for information
they’re missing and keep tweaking their mental models until they arrive at a
positioning that works. But drive and tenacity can cause a leader to stick to a plan
that isn’t working or to outdated assumptions or an investment that is no longer
promising.

Self-Confidence: You have to be able to listen to your own inner voice and endure
the lonely moments when an important decision falls on your shoulders. You have
to be able to speak your mind and act decisively, knowing that you can withstand
the consequences. Underlying fears and insecurities can be just as detrimental to
your know-how’s as can excessive self-confidence in the form of narcissism or
arrogance.

Some leaders have a need to be liked. They therefore tend to go easy on people.
They have an especially hard time dismissing people who have been loyal to them.
Such leaders often find their own progress slowed, because they promote people
for the wrong reasons, tolerate nonperformers and allow the social system to
corrode.

A fear of response is also common. Such leaders tend to avoid conflicts and find it
hard to challenge people on their performance or point of view.. Leaders with a
fear of failure are often indecisive, defensive and less likely to spot opportunities
because they’re risk averse. They find it hard to select goals for fear of choosing
the wrong ones and wait too long to connect the dots in the external environment
or to reposition the business.

Self-confidence also affects your use or abuse of power. An excessive fear of

failure or fear of response can make a leader uncomfortable using power, and not
using power appropriately actually erodes it. Failure to deal with a recalcitrant
direct report, for instance, diminishes the leader’s power. On the other hand,
narcissistic leaders tend to abuse power, using it irrationally or against the interests
of the organization.

Psychological Openness: The willingness to allow yourself to be influenced by

other people and to share your ideas openly enhances the know-how’s, while being
psychologically closed can cause problems. Leaders who are psychologically open
seek diverse opinions, so they see and hear more and factor a wider range of
information into their decisions. Their openness permeates the social system,
enhancing candor and communication. Those who are psychologically closed are
secretive and afraid to test their ideas, often cloaking that fear under the guise of
confidentiality..

Realism: Realism is the mid-point between optimism and pessimism, and the

degree to which you tend toward one or the other has a particularly powerful effect
on your use of the know-how’s. Optimism can lead, for example, to ambitious
goals that outstrip the company’s ability to accomplish them or can compromise
your judgments of people: “I know his ego has no bounds, but I can coach him to
become a team player.” But pessimists don’t want to hear ambitious plans or bold
initiatives and can find all the flaws and risks in pursuing them when they do. A
realist is open to whatever hand reality deals him. He spends time interacting with
customers, employees and suppliers, getting information and a “feel” from those
constituencies about their thinking.

Appetite for Learning: Know-how’s improve with exposure to diverse situations

with increasing levels of complexity, so an eagerness for new challenges is
essential. Leaders who seek out new experiences and learn from them will build
their know-how’s faster than those who don’t.