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CH A PT E R

2 Personality and Leadership

Robert Hogan and Timothy Judge

Abstract

This paper examines the links between personality and leadership, with the goal of understanding
leadership effectiveness. We define personality in terms of its bright- and dark-side manifestation;
we define leadership in terms of the performance of the team, group, or organization being led; and
we then review the literature linking the two. We conclude that personality and effective leadership
are indeed linked, and the two key factors mediating the link are: (a) the leader’s socio-political
intelligence—his/her ability to understand within and between group political dynamics; and (b) the
degree to which the leader is seen as having integrity. These conclusions are empirically robust and
challenge the view that leadership is the function of “situational contingencies.”

Key Words: bright side and dark side of personality, team effectiveness, leader integrity

Personality and Leadership interaction between situations and individual char-

Personality and leadership are related in impor- acteristics, we still have the problem of defining
tant ways that may not be immediately obvious. situations. We will return to this topic later in the
Specifically, if we ask about the origins of leadership paper. The third problem concerns the fact that, as
effectiveness, then there are only two general expla- the old saying goes, “Winners win and losers lose.”
nations. Effective leadership can either be a function Horatio Nelson, the great British Admiral during
of “circumstances” (i.e., factors outside individual the Napoleonic Wars, never lost a fight; Ulysses S.
leaders) or it can be a function of “personal charac- Grant, the commander of the federal army during
teristics” (i.e., factors inside individual leaders). the American Civil War, never lost a fight. In athlet-
There are three problems with the claim that ics, winning coaches win as they move from orga-
effective leadership is a function of circumstances, nization to organization (Vincent Lombardi, Paul
or contexts, or situations. The first concerns Brown), and some CEOs prosper regardless of the
accountability—if leader performance is caused by economic climate (Collins, 2001). Yet if we define
circumstances, then it will be difficult to hold indi- leadership effectiveness as mastering one context—
vidual leaders accountable for poor performance . . . or exhibiting mastery across contexts—we have
or give them credit for success. The second problem both begged the question (what context is being
concerns the definition of contexts or situations— mastered?), and engaged in circular logic (an effec-
there is no agreed upon definition of situational tive leader is a leader who is effective).
contingencies, there is no accepted taxonomy of We do not mean to deny the significance of con-
situations, and there is no way to measure them; texts as a determinant of performance. Consider
consequently, it is hard to study, in a systematic way, the case of Chelsey B. “Sully” Sullenberger, a highly
how contexts impact leadership performance. If we competent but (then) anonymous Captain for U. S.
say that a leader’s performance is a function of the Airways. Moments after taking off from La Guardia

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Table 2.1 Dimensions of the Bright Side of Personality

Dimension Definition
1. Adjustment/Emotional Stability Self-confidence, self-esteem, stable moods
2. Sociability/Social Ascendance Extraversion, energy, status seeking
3. Agreeableness/Interpersonal Sensitivity Charm, tact, warmth, diplomacy
4. Prudence/Conscientiousness Rule following and compliant
5. Inquisitiveness/Openness Imagination, curiosity, tolerance

airport in New York City, on January 15, 2009, his Model (FFM; Wiggins, 1996—see Table 2.1). The
plane struck a flock of geese, wiping out the plane’s FFM provides the basis for developing systematic
engines. Captain Sullenberger calmly landed the measures of personality and for organizing research
crippled plane in the Hudson River, helped the pas- on the links between personality and any interest-
sengers off, and saved the lives of everyone on board. ing outcome (substance abuse, happiness, job sat-
These particular circumstances allowed Sullenberger isfaction, etc.). A moment’s reflection will indicate
to reveal to the public leadership qualities that were that all observer rating data (including 360 degree
previously known only to his colleagues. Human feedback processes) are indices of reputation—they
behavior always takes place in specific contexts, but reflect the observer’s view of an actor. The focus
economists refer to these contexts as “imponderable on reputation has been highly productive in terms
contingencies.” It is not an ideological argument of discovering empirical relationships—i.e., links
to say that, in the absence of a robust method for between reputation and important life outcomes.
classifying and measuring contexts, it makes sense The distinction between reputation and iden-
to focus on the determinants of leadership that we tity parallels the distinction between prediction
can classify and measure—personality. This chap- and explanation. We use reputation to predict what
ter reviews what we know in an empirical way people will do; we use identity to explain why they
about the links between personality and leadership do it. Thus, identity and reputation serve different
effectiveness. logical purposes in the study of personality. For
empirical research, it is useful to focus on reputa-
Defining Personality tion; for theory development, identity is an impor-
In a classic paper, MacKinnon (1948) noted that tant starting point.
German, a language that is rich in psychological It is also useful to distinguish two facets of repu-
nuance, defines personality with two terms: person- tation, which we refer to as “the bright side” and
licheit and personalitat. This distinction parallels the “the dark side.” The bright side of reputation reflects
distinction between “reputation” and “identity” in people’s behavior when they are on guard, when they
English. It is the distinction between how people are are engaged in self-monitoring—for example dur-
perceived by others (reputation) and how they per- ing an employment interview. Table 2.1 defines the
ceive themselves (identity). Historically, personality components of the bright side. As noted, these are
research has focused on identity and ignored reputa- the dimensions of the FFM. (There are, of course,
tion, but this emphasis is misplaced and we say this other personality dimensions that predict perfor-
for three reasons. First, over the past 100 years, the mance—e.g., masculinity and femininity—but for
study of identity has produced interesting insights the purposes of parsimony and generality, the FFM
and arguments but few defensible generalizations. is a useful organizing framework.) Later we will
It has not devised an agreed on taxonomy, and its review the data linking these bright-side aspects of
measurement base is underdeveloped—the empha- personality to leadership performance.
sis on identity has been empirically unproductive. The dark side refers to people’s performance
Second, the best predictor of future behavior is past when they are “just being themselves,” when they
behavior; peoples’ reputations (largely) reflect their let their guards down, when they stop self-mon-
past behavior; therefore, reputation is the best data itoring. Table 2.2 defines the dimensions of the
source we have about people’s future behavior. Third, dark side from the perspectives of Horney (1950),
we have a virtually universally accepted taxonomy Hogan and Hogan (2001), Moscosco and Salgado
of reputations; it is the well-known Five-Factor (2004), and Dotlich and Cairo (2003); the reader

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Table 2.2 Dimensions of the Dark Side

Author
Horney’s (1950) orientation Hogan & Hogan Moscosco & Salgado Dotlich & Cairo
Definition (2001) (2004) (2003)
Moving away
Trying to succeed by Excitable Ambivalent Volatile
intimidation and avoiding Skeptical Suspicious Distrust
others
Cautious Shy Excessive Caution
Reserved Lone Aloofness
Leisurely Pessimistic Passive Resistance
Moving against
Trying to succeed by charm Arrogant Egocentric Arrogant
and manipulation Mischievous Risky Mischievous
Colorful Cheerful Melodrama
Imaginative Eccentric Eccentricity
Moving toward
Trying to succeed by ingra- Diligent Reliable Perfectionism
tiating others and building Dutiful Submitted Eagerness to please
alliances

Note. Scales presented in the same row are measures of the same personality dimension.

will note that these writers largely agree about the are politicians who may or may not have talent for
structure of the dark side. Meanwhile, we believe, inspiring their subordinates. Moreover, ascending
and many writers agree, that in many cases the any hierarchy is a Darwinian process in which luck
dark side dimensions are simply extensions of the and happenstance play a major role, and this may be
bright-side dimensions past the point at which the the reason that mainstream research on leadership
behavior is fully adaptable. We also believe that effectiveness doesn’t converge—cf. Hamel, 2008,
there are positive and negative behaviors associ- Khurana, 2008, or Kramer, 2008; that is, different
ated with high and low scores on the dimensions kinds of people reach the top of different organiza-
of both the bright and dark side. In an important tions for reasons related to the peculiar context of
sense, there is no such thing as an ideal personality their organizations. In addition, the data indicate
score—scores must be interpreted in the context that the base rate for managerial failure (worldwide)
of total profiles. Later we will review data linking is 50% to 65% (cf. Hogan, Hogan, & Kaiser, in
the dark-side dimensions to managerial perfor- press); because over half the people in top positions
mance—performance mostly defined in terms of in business today will fail, it seems odd to use them
ineffectiveness and failure. as avatars.
The second question some leadership researchers
Defining Leadership try to answer concerns what it is that people who
The leadership literature can be neatly classi- build and manage successful teams and organiza-
fied in terms of the question researchers are trying tions do. The first question—who gets to the top—
to answer. Most research concerns identifying the concerns the fate of individual careers. The second
characteristics of people who are in charge of var- question concerns the fate of organizations. The two
ious organizations at a particular point in time (cf. questions are largely independent. Horatio Nelson,
Kaiser, Hogan, & Craig, 2008). However, reflect the hero of the Battle of Trafalgar, did not have a
for a moment on the kinds of people who success- particularly great career in the Royal Navy. While he
fully climb to the top of large, hierarchical, bureau- was at sea saving his country, other officers, jealous of
cratic, male-dominated organizations. Such people his accomplishments, were in London undermining

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his organizational career and promoting their own. To evaluate the links between the bright side of
Ascending to the top of any organization is a politi- personality and leadership, one needs scores for indi-
cal game. Building a winning organization is a lead- vidual leaders on the FFM, and quantitative indices
ership game. of performance in leadership roles. The more of this
We approach the second question from the per- sort of data we can find, the better we can make the
spective of biology, evolutionary theory, and the evaluation. Judge, Bono, Ilies, and Gerhardt (2002)
study of human origins (cf. Van Vugt, Hogan, & aggregated the results of 222 correlations contained
Kaiser, 2008)—because this ensures that the anal- in 73 studies of personality and leadership perfor-
ysis will be grounded in functionality rather than mance. Their sample contained more than 25,000
changing fads in psychology or business. People managers from every level in organizations across
evolved as group-living animals, the groups were every industry sector. They report that four of the
in more or less constant conflict (a principle factor five dimensions of the FFM were significantly cor-
driving human evolution was warfare—cf. Bowles, related with leadership emergence and effective-
2009; Keegan, 1994; Wade, 2006), and the groups ness (see Table 2.3), with adjustment/emotional
that lost these conflicts disappeared from the gene stability as the best predictor, and agreeableness/
pool. There was evolutionary pressure within groups interpersonal sensitivity the weakest predictor. In
(which promoted intragroup rivalry), and evolu- this study, conscientiousness/prudence, extraver-
tionary pressure between groups (which promoted sion, and openness each had significant correlations
intragroup cooperation). In this context, leadership with leadership (0.29, 0.27, and 0.21, respectively),
would have been a resource for group survival— and the multiple correlation between personality
people are naturally selfish and need to be encour- and leadership was 0.53. For people who believe
aged to cooperate and work together in the face of in data, this study definitively seals the argument:
an external threat. These considerations lead to at Personality (from the bright side) predicts leader-
least four conclusions. ship performance across all organizational levels and
First, leadership should be defined in terms of industry sectors, and does so more powerfully than
the ability to build and maintain a team, group, or any known alternative.
organization. Second, from a functional perspective, Regarding the links between the dark side of per-
leadership is primarily a resource for the group, and sonality and managerial performance, the connec-
only secondarily a source of privilege for the leader. tions are primarily with failure. Bentz (1967; 1985)
Third, leadership should be evaluated in terms of pioneered the research on managerial derailment.
the performance of the team in competition with Using data from a 30-year study of failed managers
other teams or groups. And fourth, people proba- at a large retail chain, Bentz noted that the organiza-
bly have prewired cognitive schema that they use tion hired managers who were uniformly bright and
to evaluate the leadership potential of possible can- socially skilled. However, over half of them failed,
didates; this turns into implicit leadership theory and they failed because they: (a) lacked business
(discussed below). skills; (b) were slow to learn; (c) were unable to deal
If leadership is defined in terms of the ability with complexity; (d) were reactive and tactical; (e)
to build and maintain effective teams, and if this were unable to delegate; (f ) were unable to build a
definition is used to review the literature, then the team; (g) were unable to maintain a network of rela-
research findings begin to converge and certain fea- tionships; (h) let emotions cloud their judgment;
tures of leadership effectiveness begin to emerge. and (i) had an “overriding personality defect.”
We will review these findings next. Subsequent research on managerial derailment
has refined but not altered these conclusions. For
The Links between Personality and example, McCall and Lombardo (1983) inter-
Leadership viewed 20 senior executives about “successful” and
The links between personality and leadership can “derailed” executives that they knew. Both groups
be evaluated in three ways, in descending order of were seen as bright, hard working, ambitious, and
empirical rigor and robustness. The first concerns willing to sacrifice. The derailed executives failed
the links between the bright side and leadership; the for ten reasons: (a) specific business problems; (b)
second concerns the links between the dark side of insensitivity; (c) arrogance; (d) betrayal of trust; (e)
personality and leadership; and the third concerns inability to delegate; (f ) too ambitious; (g) inabil-
the links between personality and leadership using ity to build a team; (h); inability to think strategi-
data based on implicit leadership theory. cally; (i) inability to adapt to a new boss; and (j) too

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dependent on a mentor. According to Morrison, scores on excitablity bring energy and enthusiasm to
White, and Van Velsor (1987), every failed manager new projects—but they are easily discouraged and
in this sample had problems maintaining relation- lack persistence. People with high scores on skepti-
ships (for a detailed review, see Hogan, Hogan, & cism are astute about organizational politics—but
Kaiser, in press). they are too mistrustful. People with high scores
Hogan and Hogan (2001) reviewed this litera- on reservation easily handle pressure and criti-
ture and concluded that the core cause of manage- cisms—but they are indifferent to morale issues and
rial derailment is overriding “personality defects.” communicate poorly. People with high scores on
They developed the Hogan Development Survey boldness are willing to take on seemingly impossible
(HDS; Hogan & Hogan, 1997) as a way to assess tasks—but they won’t accept responsibility for their
these personality issues (see Table 2.2). To illustrate mistakes. People with high scores on dutifulness are
how dark-side personality dimensions are related intensely loyal to their bosses—but they won’t sup-
to managerial performance, consider the following port their subordinates. These dimensions are asso-
correlates of the HDS scales: ciated with short-term career wins and long-term
Managers with high scores on the Excitable career losses.
scale are described as moody (0.37), easily stressed Second, the reason these dark-side dimensions
(0.33), temperamental (0.30), self-defeating (0.46), are associated with managerial failure is that they
overreacting (0.39), and quick to anger (0.32). all concern behaviors that alienate subordinates and
Managers with high scores on the Skeptical scale prevent managers from being able to build a team—
are described as unforgiving (0.33), unkind (0.32), the defining feature of leadership.
and quarrelsome (0.25). Managers with high Regarding the links between personality and
scores on the Cautious scale are described as eas- implicit leadership theory, we would note first that
ily embarrassed (0.50), avoids taking risks (0.39), implicit leadership theory assumes that people have
easily hurt by criticism (0.39), and cautious and shared cognitive prototypes bout the characteristics
worried (0.47). Managers with high scores on the of effective leaders (cf. Lord, DeVader, & Alliger,
Reserved scale are described as detached (0.48), 1986). Specifically, Hogan and Kaiser (2005) point
cold and aloof (0.27), kills enthusiasm (0.42), and out that, if people are asked to list the attributes of
unkind (0.30). Managers with high scores on the the best and worst bosses they have known, the attri-
Leisurely scale are described as mistrustful (0.23), butes fall into four reliable categories, as follows.
uncooperative (0.11), inconsiderate (0.12), and The first and most important category is integrity.
resentful (0.15). Managers with high scores on the People need to know that they can trust their lead-
Bold scale are described as very confident (0.31), ers not to lie to them, exploit them, betray them, or
arrogant (0.36), direct and assertive (0.33), and behave foolishly. The data also suggest that followers
self-promoting (0.25). Managers with high scores on are often disappointed here. The second category is
the Mischievous scale are described as smooth talker decisiveness, the ability to make sound, defensible
(0.32), bends the rules (0.41), enjoys the fast lane decisions in a timely way. This is crucial because the
(0.68), does not follow through (0.21). Managers history of any business is the sum of the decisions
with high scores on the Colorful scale are described that managers make over time (March & Simon,
as careless (0.26), testing the limits (0.27), craving 1958; Mintzberg, 1973), and some decisions (e.g.,
recognition (0.33), and the life of the party (0.52). to invade Russia in the winter) are worse than oth-
Managers with high scores on the Imaginative scale ers. The third category is competence—leaders need
are described as imaginative (0.29), careless (0.15), to be a resource for their groups, and the respect
dislikes routine work (0.25), and unreliable workers a leader enjoys depends on his/her demonstrated
(0.15). Managers with high scores on the Diligent expertise (French & Raven, 1959). Von Boeselager
scale are described as organized (0.57), good with (2009) reports, for example, that senior officers in
details (0.40), overly conscientious (0.42), and per- the German army began planning to assassinate
fectionistic (0.32). Managers with high scores on the Adolph Hitler in 1938, even though he was at the
Dutiful scale are described as unimaginative (0.28), height of his diplomatic success and domestic polit-
shallow thinker (0.23), followers (0.15), and gets ical popularity. The reason: the senior officers had
nervous easily (0.24) (cf. Hogan & Hogan, 2009). lost confidence in Hitler’s competence as a mili-
It is worth remembering two final points about tary strategist and were gravely worried about the
these dark-side dimensions. First, each dimension future of their army. Finally, good leaders project a
has positive features. For example, people with high vision that gives people confidence in the future and

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facilitates team performance by clarifying roles and following themes emerged. Successful and/or effec-
goals (House, 1971). tive CEOs received higher ratings for: (a) integrity,
To summarize, implicit leadership theory main- maintaining commitments, and being accountable,
tains that good leaders are seen as having integrity, which is clearly related to integrity; (b) being smart
good judgment, competence, and vision, and bad and open to criticism, which might be related to
leaders are perceived as lacking these attributes. This making good decisions; (c) being efficient, persistent,
generalization raises further two questions. First, proactive, attentive to details, working hard, and hav-
what is the relationship between the components ing high standards, which might be related to com-
of implicit leadership theory and the FFM, both petence; and (d) being creative and persuasive, which
of which are taxonomies of reputation? Second, do might be related to vision.
good leaders in fact have the attributes that people It is also important to note that there is some
ascribe to them? controversy about the degree to which charisma and
The FFM concerns the reputations of people in social skill predict effective leadership. We would
general. It concerns what we would like to know summarize the controversy in terms of three points.
about anyone before we meet that person;is the per- First, the evidence indicates that leaders who seem
son neurotic, approachable, charming, dependable, transformational and charismatic are also rated as
and imaginative or interesting? Implicit leadership more effective (Judge & Piccolo, 2004). However, in
theory is a special case of this, it concerns the repu- most of these studies, effective leadership was defined
tations of leaders, it concerns what we would like to using subjective evaluations provided by followers.
know about any candidate for a leadership position In many cases, leaders are probably described as
before we meet that person—is the person honest, charismatic because they are seen as effective rather
decisive, competent, and strategic/visionary? than the other way around. Second, some writers
As for the empirical links between implicit lead- (e.g., Collins, 2001) argue that charm, charisma,
ership theory and the FFM, the question has not and social skill—the essential attributes of political
been dealt with explicitly in the research literature. actors—are not characteristics that typify effective
We suspect that seeming honest (integrity) is a func- CEOs; the myth of the charismatic CEO is just
tion of the FFM dimensions of adjustment/emo- that—a myth. Third, research on ethical (Brown &
tional stability, prudence/conscientiousness, and Treviño, 2006) and authentic (Walumbwa, Avolio,
agreeableness (Hogan & Brinkmeyer, 1997; Ones, Gardner, Wernsing, & Peterson, 2008) leadership
Viswesvaran, & Dilchert, 2005; Ones, Viswesvaran, (of which there are several hundred examples in the
& Schmidt, 1993). Seeming decisive (decisiveness) past two years) implicitly recognize that charisma
is likely to be a function of adjustment/emotional and charm are often used for illegitimate purposes:
stability and inquisitiveness/openness. Seeming to achieve selfish goals at the expense of the organi-
competent (competence) will be most closely related zation’s or group’s goals; to lure a collective toward
to experience and IQ or cognitive ability. Finally, unstable, destructive, or delusionary ends; and to
seeming visionary (vision) is probably related to accumulate power or scarce resources for one’s per-
sociability/social ascendance and inquisitiveness/ sonal purposes. We do not deny that, put to proper
openness. However, these are speculations that use (the good of the group—what one might call
remain to be evaluated. “socialized charisma” versus the selfish ends of the
As for the question of whether effective lead- leader—what Bass called “pseudo transformational
ers are also seen as honest, decisive, competent, and leadership”), charisma can and does lead to effec-
visionary, the empirical literature contains little data tiveness. Our point is that charisma is a gift for per-
to answer the question explicitly, but the following suasion and influence, and the effect of this gift can
findings are relevant. Integrity is important in leaders be used for good or for ill.
because it engenders trust. Dirks and Ferrin (2002)
show that being able to trust one’s manager is asso- Leadership and Team Performance
ciated with a range of positive leadership outcomes, Understanding how leadership affects team per-
including enhanced job performance, job satisfaction, formance raises the earlier question of how situa-
and organizational commitment. Kaplan, Klebanov, tions affect leader performance—because teams are
and Sorenson (2008) studied the characteristics of key situations with which leaders must deal. We
302 CEO candidates for two types of financial firms think that the impact that leaders have on their
and compared those characteristics with various indi- teams is mediated by how followers react to a leader’s
ces of performance. From their large set of results, the performance. This point requires some additional

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discussion. First, Judge, et al. (2002) show that the areas of operations, performance management,
the FFM predicts leader performance rather well; and talent management. They replicated these find-
this suggests that it would be possible to create an ings using an additional 3,268 firms, including a
FFM-based composite index (regression equation) large sample from Asia, and three of their conclu-
of leadership potential. Hogan and Hogan (2002) sions are worth noting. First, there are, in fact, some
suggest this composite index is “socio-political intel- well established principles of management. Second,
ligence,” defined as the ability to read other people’s the companies that use these principles are more
reactions accurately. profitable than those who do not. Third, senior
Hogan and Hogan (2002) developed a measure leadership decides whether to use effective manage-
of socio-political intelligence based on the Hogan ment practices, so this is one sense in which leader-
Personality Inventory, a version of the FFM, and ship is linked to firm performance.
show that it is a robust predictor of leadership per- Lieberson and O’Connor (1972), using a data
formance. This supports the notion that the ability base of 167 companies, argue that “industry effects”
to read social cues characterizes successful lead- account for about 30% of the variance in corporate
ers and is a link between them and their teams. profits, “company effects” account for about 23% of
When managers are assigned responsibility for the the variance, and “CEO effects” explain 14.5% of
performance of a new team, their success depends the variance. Joyce, Nohria, and Roberson (2003)
on solving two problems. On the one hand, they also report that CEOs account for about 14 % of
need to be able to read the new team and quickly the variance in firm performance. Other studies
determine who their allies, competitors, critics, or estimate the effect to be as high as 20% to 45%
detractors might be. An entire on-boarding indus- depending on the measure of firm performance
try has sprung up designed to help new managers (Day & Lord, 1988; Thomas, 1988). Wasserman,
make this transition. On the other hand, as people Nohria, and Anand (2009) suggest asking not
rise in organizations, the demands of their jobs whether but when CEOs are important. In a study
change, and those who are unable to detect how of 531 companies in 42 industries, they conclude
the demands have changed will experience real dif- that leadership matters least in regulated industries
ficulties (Kaiser, Craig, Overfield, & Yarborough, in and matters most in industries in which the CEO
press). Socio-political intelligence is the key to mak- has a great deal of discretion. They also caution that,
ing these transitions. when leaders have a lot of discretion, their influence
These generalizations prompt two further obser- can easily take a company in the wrong direction
vations. First, the members of a manager’s team and (cf. Kaiser & Hogan, 2006).
his/her colleagues and superiors—the people with We believe the data support the notion that lead-
whom a manager must interact—and the demands ers (CEOs) make a difference (for good or ill) in
of the job are key elements of “the situation” to which firm performance. The next question concerns how,
managers must respond if they are to be successful. what are the mechanisms involved? Because leader-
Second, successful responding depends on being ship concerns getting results through other people,
able to read the cues in “the situation”; being able the essence of leadership is creating an effective team.
to read the cues is an individual-differences variable Hackman (2002), using data from a wide variety
(socio-political perceptiveness, empathy, or intelli- of teams, argues that leaders influence their teams’
gence) that can be measured and that in fact predicts success or failure by establishing the conditions that
leadership effectiveness. Regardless of whether one allow the team to function and collaborate. This
agrees with this argument, it is a more specific way of involves setting clear goals, providing resources and
defining how situations influence performance than feedback, and delegating appropriately. Hackman
is typically found in the research literature. makes the important point that the ideal team size
Another way to evaluate leadership effectiveness is about six people; as team size increases above that,
is in terms of financial impact. Some of the best the influence of the leader becomes quickly attenu-
research on this topic has been done by economists. ated. The problem of span of control rarely comes
For example, Bloom and Van Reenen (2007) stud- up in the leadership literature; some writers even
ied the performance of 732 manufacturing firms suggest that it is irrelevant, but Hackman’s data sug-
in the United States, Great Britain, France, and gest it is crucial, and we agree.
Germany and found that a firm’s financial perfor- The topics of leader/manager ROI and team
mance was a function of the degree to which it fol- performance come together in an important paper
lowed “well-established management practices” in by Harter, Schmidt, and Hayes (2002). They argue

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that how employees view their supervisors (implicit much more frequently than objective measures of
leadership theory) determines their overall level of group or organization performance. Leadership
engagement and job satisfaction. In a study using research would benefit from comparisons of both
198,514 employees from 7,939 business units sets of measures, something rarely found in the
from all industry sectors, they show that employee literature.
engagement and satisfaction at the business-unit Third, research on implicit leadership theory
level correlate 0.37 and 0.38, respectively, with a shows very clearly that people expect leaders or
composite index of business-unit performance that leader candidates to seem honest, decisive, com-
included turnover, customer loyalty, and financial petent, and visionary, but we don’t know whether
performance. They have replicated these findings these expectations are actually valid. Is it the case
in subsequent research published in nonacademic that effective leaders are indeed trustworthy, have
sources. good judgment and the relevant skills, and can
think strategically? We would hope so, but, again,
Future Directions we don’t know.
Our reading of the literature suggests six themes Fourth, critics of personality psychology since
as candidates for future research. First, the basic Boas (the founder of cultural anthropology) have
research paradigm of leadership research is chang- argued that culture shapes human action much
ing, and the Harter, Schmidt, and Hayes (2002) more strongly than personal characteristics. In the
paper is an exemplar. In traditional research (e.g., age of global business ventures, it is important to
Bentz, 1985), a group of candidates or managers in determine how this argument impacts leadership. Is
a single organization are tested or evaluated. Then it the case that all leadership is local, or as we sus-
performance data is gathered, the two data sets are pect, is effective leadership a cross-cultural universal
compared, and conclusions are drawn regarding the (Hogan & Benson, 2009)?
nature of leadership. However, different characteris- Fifth, leadership research should pay more
tics are needed for success in different organizations attention to contextual factors. Nonetheless, prior
(Goldman Sachs versus the U.S. Marine Corps), research on contextual factors often used measures
so that comparisons of leaders across organizations that offer minimal insights across situations. For
tend not to converge, which leads to the present example, if we develop a profile of a good leader’s
state of the art (Khurana, 2007; Kramer, 2008). behavior, and show how this behavior led to effec-
But if leadership is defined as the ability to build tiveness in a particular situation, we are faced with
an effective team and is evaluated in terms of the a paradox. If we “cherry pick” a single, narrow con-
performance of the team, then leadership research textual factor, then that factor will be unlikely to
should be conducted at the business-unit level generalize across situations. On the other hand, if
(Bloom & Van Reenen, 2007), not the individual we provide a comprehensive account of the con-
level. Finally, when this is done, the results begin text, such a context is unlikely to apply to other
to converge. leaders, and the more comprehensive the descrip-
Second, one can distinguish between subjective tion, the more likely that is to be true. Our advice:
evaluations of a leader’s performance and objective Select broad contextual elements, and show that
outcomes (the performance of the group for which they apply across different types of organizations
a leader is responsible). In this paper, we argue for and leadership levels.
the importance of the latter. However, measures Sixth and finally, there is the anomaly of what
of group performance (“hard” outcomes) have might be called “the Apple Effect.” According
problems of their own. Team performance—like to accounts in the popular press, the leaders of
survival—is not always the direct result of the lead- many successful organizations (Apple, the New
er’s actions. Many extraneous factors contaminate England Patriots, Hewlitt-Packard) are cold, crit-
objective measures. Moreover, the seeming chaos of ical, demanding, and even abusive. How can this
our natural environment often presents paradoxes: be? Our hypothesis is that the leaders of these
Behaviors that work well in one place at one time organizations are so obviously competent that
may be, in another place and time, the undoing of followers are willing to tolerate abuse in order to
the group and its leader. Consequently, it would be on a winning team. This then points to the
be a mistake to abandon subjective appraisals of importance of the poorly understood topic of the
leaders’ performance. Because subjective apprais- psychology of followership and implicit leader-
als of leadership are easy to collect, they are used ship theory.

44 personalit y and leadership

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