Personality and transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analysis.

This study was a meta-analysis of the relationship between personality and ratings of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors. Using the 5-factor model of personality as an organizing framework, the authors accumulated 384 correlations from 26 independent studies. Personality traits were related to 3 dimensions of transformational leadership—idealized influence–inspirational motivation (charisma), intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration—and 3 dimensions of transactional leadership— contingent reward, management by exception–active, and passive leadership. Extraversion was the strongest and most consistent correlate of transformational leadership. Although results provided some support for the dispositional basis of transformational leadership— especially with respect to the charisma dimension— generally, weak associations suggested the importance of future research to focus on both narrower personality traits and nondispositional determinants of transformational and transactional leadership. A recent PsycINFO search revealed that 1,738 of the 15,000 articles (12%) published since 1990 on the topic of leadership included the keywords personality and leadership. Clearly, scholars have a strong and continuing interest in the dispositional bases of leadership behavior. Indeed, a meta-analysis by Lord, DeVader, and Alliger (1986) reported some associations between personality traits and perceptions of leadership. A more recent meta-analysis (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002) further advanced this literature, providing evidence that some traits were consistently associated with leadership emergence and effectiveness. Although these meta-analyses made an important contribution to our knowledge of the link between personality and leadership, they do not address the relationship between personality and transformational, transactional, and charismatic leadership. Given the volume of recent research attention focused on these types of leadership, it is important to understand the dispositional bases of transformational and transactional leadership. The purpose of this article was to extend what is known about the association between personality and leadership by focusing directly on the relationship between personality and the eight dimensions of transformational and transactional leadership. These leadership dimensions have been found to be valid predictors of follower job performance and satisfaction (see Fuller, Patterson, Hester, & Stringer, 1996; Lowe, Kroeck, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996). Thus, understanding the personality traits associated with transformational and charismatic leadership has important implications for the selection, training, and development of such leaders. For example, if charisma is linked to stable traits of the individual, organizations may wish to select leaders with these traits. Barling, Weber, and Kelloway (1996) demonstrated that some transformational leadership behaviors can be trained. Thus, an understanding of the role of personality can aid in determining which individuals might gain the most from such training and how training approaches might differ on the basis of trainee personality (i.e., aptitude by treatment interaction).