TITLE:
Personality and Management Level: Traits That Differentiate Leadership Levels
AUTHORS:
Adrian Furnham, John Crump
KEYWORDS:
Personality, Management, NEO-FFI, Myers Briggs, FIRO-B
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.6 No.5,
April
8,
2015
ABSTRACT: Over 5000
senior managers attending a structured assessment centre completed three tests (Revised
NEO Personality Inventory, NEO-FFI; the Myers Briggs Type Indicators, MBTI; the
Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation, FIRO-B). Given their rank and
responsibilities they were categorised as Non-Managers or specialists, Middle
Managers and Senior Managers (Manager of Managers or Leaders). Results showed
the more Senior Managers tended to be less Neurotic and Agreeable, but more Extraverted
and Conscientious. They also had less Wanted Inclusion and more Expressed
Control scores on the FIRO-B and tended to be higher on MBTI Intuition and on
Thinking (vs Feeling). The results of the discriminant analysis showed two
FIRO-B factors (Expressed Control and Wanted Control) and two Big Five (Neuroticism
and Extraversion) were best discriminators of managerial seniority. Leaders
tended to score high on Expressed Control and Extraversion and low on Wanted
Inclusion and Neuroticism. Implications for selection and promotion, as well as
limitations of the study are considered.