Maurice Roussety

Leadership dimensions

Dr. M. Roussety MBA, MLed, PhD


Within the context of the behavioural science, more particularly organisational behaviour, Robbins et al., (2004) broadly defines organisation, which I adapt (for the express purpose of this review) to include the word financial, and now reads, a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common financial goal or a set of financial goals.


By giving the organisation a requisite financial purpose, I intentionally narrow the definition to exclude social units such as army corps, schools, political parties, sporting teams whose raison dtre materially differ to that of financial-centric organisations. This small but significant change gives contextual clarity and purpose to many of the key leadership principles being explored in this work and reflects this reviews underlying interest in occupation-related behaviour.


The above definition of the organisation clearly establishes its relational dependency on the workings of groups in an open system model. More precisely, it relies on groups of two or more people to coordinate as a social unit in order to achieve its financial goals. In effect, this principle postulates that the organisation cannot attain its goals without the workings of groups and an effective leader.


Furthermore, when investigating organisational behavioural, notably issues such as leadership effectiveness, it is important to clearly specify the level(s) of analysis at which phenomena are expected to exist (House, Rousseau and Thomas-Hunt, 1995; and Klein, Danseuse and Hall, 1994). Consequently in this review, my discussion refers generally and equally to individuals, dyads, work-groups, and departments.


To begin the conceptual classification of key leadership dimensions and sub-dimensions/factors contained in contemporary literature, the concept of Leader Capital (LC), Follower Capital (FC), and Situational Milieu (SM) is presently introduced and developed in detail later in this paper. These leadership concepts will be systematically applied to classify and compress the key leadership dimensions and sub-dimensions/factors into fixed variables that are able of being consistently and systematically applied in evaluating leadership models of differing theoretical constructs.


This task is validated by the fact that conceptual definitions of leadership components employed in empirical, theoretical, and meta-analytic studies have typically evolved independently of one another and lacking in alignment with one guiding theoretical perspective, as respective authors strive for differentiation and prominence by developing new rather than consolidating existing concepts (Schriesheim et al., 1999; and Raush, 2005).


In keeping with the rudimentary three-dimensional leadership model that contemplates the interdependence of leader, follower and situation (Mahsud et al., 2010:562), and consistent with the view that leadership theories need to embrace task structure of the job, level of situational stress, level of group support, the leaders intelligence and experience; and follower characteristics such as personality, experience, ability and motivation (Robbins et al., 2004:352).


Personality and Background Factors


Background factors can be grouped as biographical:- those that can be objectively determined such as age, gender and race (Robbins et al., 2004:40), whereas non-biographical (dynamic) factors comprise those that are not so objectively determined and largely influenced by social and environmental conditioning such as values, needs, motivations, attitudes, capabilities and skills..


Personality and Background Factor Scale (PBFS), biographical factors are what they are, and cannot be changed by human interference, however non-biographical factors are not prescribed by nature and can be manipulated to diverging levels of complexities and temporal constraints. It is generally accepted that, of the non-biographical factors, personality is stable and straddles the boundaries of biographical and dynamic factors (McCrae and Costa, 1990; and Kornor and Nordvik, 2004); and is the most complex to understand and transmute.


Background factors can be grouped as biographical:- those that can be objectively determined such as age, gender and race (Robbins et al., 2004:40), whereas non-biographical (dynamic) factors comprise those that are not so objectively determined and largely influenced by social and environmental conditioning such as values, needs, motivations, attitudes, capabilities and skills..


This phenomenon is such that researchers in leadership theory are polarised (Brown, 1988; and Barrick et al., 2001) as to how much of leader or follower behaviour is shaped by personality characteristics, but has not discouraged the research and meta-analytic efforts of prominent authors such as Lopes et al., (2003); Raja et al., (2004); McCrae and Costa (2004); Schyns and Felfe (2006); Bauer et al., (2006); Berneth et al., (2007); and Nahrgang et al., (2009) towards establishing credible correlations.


To expound this concept, I now refer to each of the non-biographical factors for a more comprehensive analysis of each of their respective roles in leadership effectiveness.


Personality:- PePersonality is the unique pattern of psychological and behavioral characteristics by which each person can be compared and contrasted with other people (Bernstein et al., 2006:540) and dimensions of individual differences in tendencies to show consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings and actions (McCrae et al., 1990:23) which are shaped by hereditary, environmental and moderated by situational factors.


The study of personality has to date been voluminously covered from an empirical and theoretical perspective as personality traits are deemed valid predictors of behaviour (Hough et al., 1990; Barrick and Mount, 1993:111; and Kornor and Nordvik, 2004:49) and more broadly by Cooper and McClenaghan (2008:1:2) when they stated that organisational behaviour presupposes that human behaviour in an organisational context is substantively predictable.


The accuracy of predicting behaviour is enhanced by the empirical observation that human behaviour, especially in the workplace, is relatively consistent across situations and time. That is, human behaviour is driven by a persons personality, which is most resistant to change. To that end, various models have been developed to try, to the extent possible, to make an objective assessment of otherwise subjective traits of human personality, i.e., Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.


However, the MBTI has not been clinically proven to be a valid measure (Robbins et al., 2004:103), unlike Allport and Cattells Five-Factor-Model (FFM) which Costa and McCrae (1992) subsequently revised into a hierarchical taxonomy comprising, extraversion (e.g., sociable, talkative and assertive), agreeableness (e.g., good-natured, cooperative, and trusting), Conscientiousness (e.g., responsible, dependable, persistent and achievement oriented), emotional stability (viewed from the negative pole;


Although disagreement abounds amongst academics as to the theoretical validity of FFM (Block, 1995) in predicting leadership style and recently confirmed by Bono and Judge (2004:908) in summary, results of the present study provide the first meta-analytic evidence on the relationship between personality and transformational and transactional leadership. Results indicate generally modest validities overall


It is worth noting that even though personality as an active meta-moderator of leadership behaviour has been the subject of leadership research since the early 1970s, not much work had been done on the five distinct domains of FFM (Murphy and Ensher, 1999:562) until Berneths research. This point is further reinforced by my analysis of work undertaken by Schriesheim et al., (1999:63-113) where the authors chronicled the evolution of LMX theory with an analytical focus on the theoretical definitions (57 identified) and Sub-Domains (164 identified) embedded in 147 LMX studies (10 theoretical and 137 empirical) from 1972 to 1998.


My analysis entails a qualitative and quantitative decomposition of these definitions and domains to enable the attribution of each of the 164 Sub-Domains to one of the non-biographical factors of greater contextual congruence and I found that personality was the most (66%) considered dimension in 147 LMX studies. Similar research by Bono and Judge (2004) found that out 15,000 studies on leadership since 1990, 12% considered the personality dimension, which I suspect would be significantly higher had they adopted the attribution approach of my analysis rather than search for the keywords personality and leadership.


The FFM is by far been the dominating force in contemporary research in personality (Bernstein et al., 2006:555) across different cultures (Barrick and Mount, 1993:111) and as a consequence has substantively contributed to our ability to predict behaviour. However, as Bernstein et al., (2006:555) caution, even if the big-five model is correct and universal, its factors are not all-powerful, because situations also affect behaviour. To put it in context of leadership theory, this suggests that leader or follower behaviour is not moderated by personality alone, but is instead positively or negatively correlated to other factors


Accepting the above, it is reasonable to assert that personality is remarkably stable (Kornor and Nordvik, 2004:45; and Robbins et al., 2004:101), is genetically wired (Tellegen et al., 1998), therefore complex and resistant to change, influences non-biographical factors of leaders/followers (Nahrgang et al., 2008:258) and has implications in leadership behaviour (De Vader and Alliger, 1986; Matthews and Dreary, 1988; and Barrick et al., 2001).


Values:- VValues comprise our feelings of what's right or wrong, are shaped from our formative years by environmental factors. They are generally stable, and enduring, thereby often impede objectivity and rationality. They assist in shaping our attitudes and general behaviour (Rokeach et al., 1989:775-84); or as Ravlin and Meglino (1987:667) put it: - values influence the selection and interpretation of external stimuli, thereby affecting the organisation of behavioral choices or the formulation of alternative courses of action.


Mahsud et al., (2010) narrow it down to ethical leadership which they maintain includes altruism, honesty, empowerment, fairness, and justice, and these values are a core aspect of several theories that have been prominent in the leadership literature in recent years, including servant leadership (Russell and Stone, 2002; and Smith et al., 2004), spiritual leadership (Fry, 2003); and authentic leadership (Gardner et al., 2005).


As indicated on the high-low continuum in Fig. 1, values are the most resistant to change out of the six dynamic factors (values, needs, motivations, attitudes, capabilities, and skills) that are driven by personality. It has been successfully argued that values of individuals in an organisational setting vary according to their occupational cohorts (Munson and Posner, 1980; and Frederick and Preston, 1990).


Rokeachs Value Survey identified that executives, union members, and activists had diverse value sets, which he grouped as terminal and instrumental. For the executive cohorts terminal values included self-respect, family security, freedom, sense of accomplishment, and happiness whereas instrumental values consisted of honest, responsible, capable, ambitious, and independent.


Reverting to the connection that Ravlin and Meglino (1987); Rokeach et al., (1989); Ayman et al., (1995); Varma et al., (2005); and Mahsud et al., (2010:565) make between values and behaviour, and more particularly the composition of terminal and instrumental values; it is hard not to expect a leaders style and his ultimate effectiveness to be influenced by his values.


As Frederick and Weber (1990:132) rightly state when discussing the way different cohorts behave in organisations:- when critical stakeholder groups within organisations interact over economic and social issues, built-in differences in personal value preferences will most likely be manifested:- even in those with leadership roles, thereby engendering predictable behaviour patterns. The consequential impact of values on a leaders style is insightfully expressed by Mahsud et al., (2010:565)


Ethical values are likely to encourage leaders to use more relations-oriented behaviours with subordinates when they are appropriate for the situation. A leader who values altruism is more likely to be supportive and helpful to subordinates. A leader who values empowerment is more likely to use delegation. A leader who values personal growth and fairness is more likely to develop subordinates and provide equal opportunities for career advancement.


A leader who values humility and fairness is more likely to provide recognition to subordinates who make important contributions to the mission rather than claiming credit for them. Leaders with strong ethical values will not deceive or exploit subordinates, and they will not be abusive or unkind in their behaviour towards subordinates.


Needs: NA need is a biological requirement for well-being (Bernstein et al., 2006:401), which captures the essence of Maslow (1943)s hierarchy of physiological, safety, belongingness and love, esteem and self-actualisation needs and when considered in an organisational context can be condensed to the need for affiliation, power and achievement (Levinson, 1994; McClelland, 1961; and Stahi, 1986).


However those basic needs are influenced by personality along with values and vary in form and motive from one individual to another. As researched by Sheldon et al., (2001), a group of college students cited the need for autonomy, relatedness to others, competence, and self-esteem to prevail over the need for luxury or self-actualisation.


Further to this, Baumeister and Leary (1995); and Oishi et al., (1999) make the point that needs associated with basic survival and security generally take precedence over those relating to self-enhancement or personal growth. That being said, it is reasonable to draw the inference that human behaviour in an organisational setting is most likely to exhibit motives for affiliation, power, and achievement. To that end, research has established a strong relationship between needs and job performance


Motivations:- MMotivation is the process that account for an individual's intensity, direction, and persistence of effort towards attaining a goal (Mitchell, 1997), it is the interaction of the individual and the situation (Robbins et al., 2004:164); it is the force, either internal or external to a person that arouses enthusiasm and persistence to pursue a certain course of action. The individual is constrained by his personality and to an extent, the situation is moderated by that individuals values and needs.


Accepting that intensity relates to how hard the work effort is and that the direction of that effort either accrues to the individual or the organisation, then given the situation, the goal may not be attained unless there is a degree of persistence:- duration of effort. Building on Daft and Pirola-Merlo (2009:230) who posit that people have basic needs, such as the needs for food, recognition or monetary gain, that translate into internal tension that motivates specific behaviour to fulfil those needs


it will be the intimate fusing of personality, values and needs of the individual that will lead the effort: - behaviour required for intensity, direction and persistence. It must also be said that motivation is fluid and dynamic, so much so that it must be kept in check to ensure that it is justified in context of the structure, goals, and visions of the organisation.


Attitudes:- AtAttitudes comprise cognitive, affective, or behavioral elements that reflect our likes as well as dislikes and is evaluative in intent (Olson et al., 1993) which is consistent with the thinking of Bernstein et al., (2006:70) except that they go further to say that attitudes are derivatives of values, which is further reinforced by Ayman et al., (1995:152) by writing that values assist in shaping attitudes as well as general behaviour, to which Robbins et al., (2004:70) add:- attitudes are less stable and complex than values, which is consistent with where they respectively situate on the PBFS continuum.


As Brooke et al., (1988) reason, attitudes are manifested in a broad triad of organisational dimensions: - job satisfaction, job involvement, and organisational involvement. Job satisfaction refers to the individuals own evaluation of whether or not he/she is gratified by the job at hand and more or less reflects his/her present and future needs. Depending on those needs, the resultant behaviour may be counter-productive to personal and/or organisational goals.


On the other hand job involvement is more of a psychological concept. It is the extent that the individual connects and identifies with the job together with the effort required for reward and a measure of self-worth (Blau and Boal, 1987:290). This psychological condition appears to be driven more by motivations, which in turn are driven by the combined workings of personality, values, and needs.


It is a form of self-efficacy which Bandura (1977) defines as the conviction that one can successfully execute the behaviour required to produce the outcomes and similarly Schyns and Von Collani (2002: 227) describe occupational self-efficacy as ones belief in ones own ability and competence to perform successfully and effectively in situations and across different tasks in a job.


Organisational commitment is the last of Brookes attitudinal dimensions and manifests much the same emotions as does job commitment except that, Blau and Boal (1987) point out, it is centered on the organisation and its goals rather the job, and defined by Mowday et al. (1982:27) as relative strength of an individuals identification with, and involvement in, a particular organisation.


Meyer and Allen (1991:67) went further to break down this commitment into three dimensions: - affective, continuance, and normative. They explained that affective commitment refers to the employees emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organisation, whereas continuance commitment refers to an awareness of the cost associated with leaving the organisation, and normative commitment reflects a feeling of obligation to continue employment.


To that end Mael and Ashforth (1992); and Dutton et al., (1994) reveal that most people desire to belong to and identify with an organisation that is believed to have socially valued characteristics. Regardless of whether their opinion is accurate, such internal employees own assessments can influence how they interact with and within the organisation (Clardy, 2005; and Mignonac et al., 2006).


This phenomenon is often referred to as perceived external prestige (Mael and Ashforth, 1992), or construed external image (Dutton et al., 1994) and is of increasing interest to researchers and practitioners for the reason that it has broad implications for attitudes and behaviours in organisations (Herrbach and Mignonac, 2004).



Capabilities:- CCapabilitiesrefer to the ability that is present or can be developed which is necessary to achieve, consisting of intellectual and physical abilities (Robbins et al., 2004:44-45). To follow, Dunnette (1976) argues that intellectual ability can be multi-dimensionally classified as number aptitude, verbal comprehension, perceptual speed, inductive and deductive reasoning, spatial visualisation, and memory. Conversely, Fleishman (1979) tags physical abilities with strength, flexibility and other factors such as body coordination, balance, and stamina.






Based on the above, capabilities are vital links in the chain of goal achievement. In a dynamic organisational setting, individuals are not always assigned jobs meritoriously. There are times when job appointments are politically motivated or are just circumstantially inherited. This, according to Robbins et al., (2004:46) can be problematic as sometimes jobs make different demands on people and that people differ in the abilities they possess which may obstruct the likelihood of achieving personal and organisational goal. Conversely, at times individuals are posted to roles for which they are overly qualified to do, which can cause frustration, dampen motivation.


Irrespective of personality, values, needs, motivations and attitudes; efforts to achieve a goal better or worse that another can and will to a large extent depend on capacity. Saying that, if the capacity to do exists and the individuals needs, motivations and attitude are where they ought to be, then learning and training can bridge the gap between what one individual can do well and another do better. This obviously hits a chord with Daft and Pirola-Merlo (2009:60) who write that the differences in task readiness (affected by training, ability, skills etc.) call for a certain type of leadership style that differs for members with a high level of task readiness and training can change leadership behaviour and attitudes


Similarly, a study of MBA graduates by Cheng and Ho (2001) showed that, since individuals with high commitment to their careers have the intention of improving skills and performance in their jobs, they are likely to exert considerable effort towards learning the training content. As a result, research has been exploring the underlying attributes and behaviours of leaders who successfully perform these contemporary leadership roles in order to identify leadership selection and training criteria for the recruitment and development of effective leaders (Church and Waclawski, 1998).


Skills:- SkSkills means the competence to achieve which is gained through experience and training. They can be either emotional or physical and feature at the polar end to personality on the PBFS indicating that they can be the most responsive to change over a relatively small time period when compared to the other non-biographical factors discussed above..


Competence can be considered in terms of technical, general business, and interpersonal skills (Gabarro, 1987; Butler, 1991; and Mishra's, 1994) all of which are needed in nearly all roles, but individually in some more so than others. At the end of it all, the individual who travels well along the PBFS continuum but falters before acquiring the necessary skills may become inextricably failure-bound.


Dr. Maurice Roussety is an Executive Consultant at DST Advisory and Lecturer in Small Business, Franchising and Entrepreneurship at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. Maurice holds a PhD from the Griffith University in Intellectual Property and Franchise Goodwill Valuation. He also holds a Masters degree in Leadership and a Master of Business Administration.

Maurice Roussety

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