Assessing Leadership Style: Trait Analysis

The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders

spent money (rather than time) on the crucial New Hampshire pri-
mary, and stayed in the race only as long as their chances of success
were moderate. All of these results are consistent with the laboratory
studies summarized in table 7.2, which portray achievement-moti-
vated people as efficient entrepreneurs who take moderate risks. In
contrast, power-motivated candidates took more extreme ideological
positions, concentrated on small donors (perhaps as a means of mobi-
lizing grassroots support), spent considerable time (rather than only
money) in New Hampshire before that state's critical primary elec-
tion, and stayed in the race longer overall.
While these results may be specific to the 1976 campaign and
national political environment, Adkins (1994) studied the 1992
presidential candidates and found similar relationships between can-
didates' achievement and power motives and the level of risk of their
campaign strategy.
The relationship between candidates' motive imagery profile and
their electoral success is somewhat more complicated. Winter
(1987a) found that the greater congruence between a president's
motive imagery profile and the profile of American society at that
time (measured through content analysis of popular literature), the
higher the percentage of popular vote received, the greater the mar-
gin of victory, and the more likely the president was to be reelected.
In other words, electoral success—though not necessarily rated success in

TABLE 7.5. MOTIVE IMAGERY SCORES AND CAMPAIGN BEHAVIOR IN THE

1976 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

Campaign Variable

Extreme ideological position

Fund-raising:

Via small contributions (< $100)

Via large contributions (> $500)

Via own funds

Time spent in New Hampshire during

14 months before primary

Persistence at low probability of

success

Achievement

-.48

-.70**

.70**

.08

-.52

-.80**

Affiliation

.20

-.26

.38

.59*

-.30

.08

Power

.53 +

.58*

-.72**

.22

.71 +

.49

Source: Data from Winter 1982 (tables 3-5), which should be consulted for complete definitions

of dependent variables.

*p < .05 **p < .01.