Political Leadership Characteristics

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The study of political leaders ' personalities encompasses sundry involutions that shape both the results of the research and the method of conducting the research itself. Two varying intents behind the assessment leader 's personalities are presented in opening chapters of, Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders, by Jerrold M. Post. The varied psychology based studies are rooted in psychobiographic foundations however, they were developed with the intent of resolving different problem sets. The first intent serves to discuss the understanding of significant political decision-making and leadership events in history; while the other attempts to understand the personality characteristics that shape and might aid in predicting, political …show more content…
As previously mentioned, the conclusions of these studies are not of interest to only political and diplomatic players. National and international public audiences instinctively develop opinions and expectations of world leaders largely based on the personality traits they exhibit in speech and behavior, and how the public audiences predict that personality factors may influence support to policy and decision making throughout a leader 's term of service. Perceptions of influence from the general observations of personality are arguably major contributions to voters ' electoral …show more content…
circumstance on political leader decision making (Hermann, Preston, Korany, and Shaw 2001) Excerpts from various studies describe a concept of a leader 's decision-making process based on two contrasting self-perceptions. The first leader type lies in the static self-perception. These type of leaders "interprets the environment through a lens that is structured by their beliefs, attitudes, motives, and passions." (Hermann et. al 2001, 86-87) This concept indicates a significant dependence on personality shaping the perception of the circumstance and therefore having more influence, compared to the circumstance itself, on decision making. The second leader type identifies leaders who carefully filters their functional roles, and exhibition of personality traits, dependent on the circumstances presented (Hermann et. al 2001, 87). Essentially, this flexibility of response is a personality influence itself, therefore again highlighting that personality is the primary, underlying factor in decision making, not

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