Personality Types in Leadership

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PERSONALITY TYPES IN LEADERSHIP

STRAYER UNIVERSITY

TO

PROFESSOR NEWMAN

BY

FREDERIC WILLIAM KREBS

FREDERICKSBURG, VA

December 14, 2008

The most critical factor of the fall and rise of businesses, schools, religious groups, non-profit, and military organizations are effectiveness of the organizations leaders. Since 1900, there have been thousands of books and articles written on leadership. The studies have discovered that human personality play a vital role in the effectiveness of the leader and what occupation the leader represents (Parker, D. 2001). Religious leaders would have a different personality than a surgeon leading a medical team or a Mayor making zoning decisions for a community. Even the religious leaders differ in personalities. Moses lead the ancient Israelites out of Egypt and was a person that did not do a lot of public speaking compared to Jack Van Nippy who is trying to preach the end of time on TV and Radio and raise money for his cause. Peter, The disciple of Christ also spoked publicly on the behalf of the other disciples’ on the Day of Pentecost. Researchers show that the early beliefs where that a small percentage of individuals are natural leaders and “followers” and the rest of the people doing the work (Treybig, 2008). In The Republic, Plato described the leaders as “Gold” and artisans as men of “Bronze.” In the last fifty years the philosophies have changed to the belief that leadership personalities and skills can be developed. This belief was the beginning of “Modern Leadership” and currently many scholars are researching trait analyses of personalities in relation to leadership. Empirical research suggests that person’s personality characteristics can affect the ability on how the person can be a leader (Parker, 2001).

Currently there is a way to test for the personality characteristics and determine if the individual has the required characteristics or if certain characteristics need to be developed for the...