Transformational leadership and its relationship with personality preferences in South African organisations.

• Main Author: Linde, Trudi
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: leadership; organizational change management; personality and occupation; South Africa
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/285

The general purpose of this study is to investigate and identify the relationship between transformational and leadership personality preferences. The aim of the study is therefore to establish an empirical link between transformational leadership and certain aspects of personality preferences in order to verify if these leaders can be distinguished from others by means of their personality preferences. The transformational leaders’ ratings as identified by use of the Multifactor questionnaire are compared with personality preferences indicated on the scales of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator®. Given the research literature an expectation exists that a statistically significant difference will be found between aspects of personality preferences of transformational and non-transformational leaders. Therefore transformational leaders will be identifiable from non-transformational leaders by their personality preferences. The research group was a convenience sample that consisted of 66 leaders chosen from two organisations in the financial and entertainment industries at the level of team leader or in a supervisory capacity. The statistical procedures utilised in the analysis of the data included analysis of frequencies, ttests and cross tabulations. Firstly, the transformational leaders in the selected organisations were identified successfully. As far as determining the personality preferences of the identified transformational leaders and establishing any possible links between the transformational leadership style and chosen personality preferences, the only significant difference was found between the introversion and extroversion preferences. A significant difference between introversion and extroversion in terms of the Intellectual Stimulation rating on the MLQ was found as well as in terms of the Average and Inspirational Motivation ratings. No other statistically significant differences or interdependencies were found between the personality preferences as identified by the MBTI® and any of the ratings on the MLQ. The third objective of determining whether personality preference can be utilised to predict transformational leadership is therefore answered. From the findings of this study it seems as if personality preferences cannot be utilised to predict transformational leadership in for instance a selection process in a company. As this research group was highly selected and not representative of the general population, it is not possible to generalise the findings of this study. Although the research group was not representative, the findings of this study matched with those of other studies, and the deduction is therefore made that if this study was to be repeated, similar results would be found. === Prof. S. Kruger