Assessing Leadership Style: Trait Analysis

The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders

table 9.1 for Rusk's 1961 speech before the American Historical
Association.

Based on his philosophical beliefs, Dean Rusk will have a

propensity to diagnose the political universe as somewhat hos-

tile, be somewhat pessimistic regarding the realization of polit-

ical values, view the predictability of the political future as very

low, believe that he has a medium level of control over histori-

cal development, and attribute a very high role to chance.

Based on his instrumental beliefs, Dean Rusk will have a

propensity to choose a definitely cooperative strategy in the

political universe and implement it with somewhat cooperative

tactics. He will be very low in his orientation toward accepting

risk and will manage risk by being moderately flexible in his

propensity to shift between conflict and cooperation and between

words and deeds in executing his strategy and tactics. He has a

very high propensity to choose appeals and support statements, a

high propensity to choose rewards, a medium propensity to

choose promises or expressions of opposition or resistance, and a

low propensity to choose threats and punishments.

Level 2. Complex Assessments of Comparative Cases

It is possible to compare the operational codes of one or more leaders

over time and to predict corresponding similarities or differences in

behavior. We have demonstrated these possibilities first with the

comparative analysis of President Jimmy Carter's general operational

code profile in table 9.2. Scanning this table, it is easy to identify sta-

tistically significant changes in the philosophical and instrumental

elements of his operational code that forecast changes in his diagnos-

tic, choice, and shift propensities. These changes can then be formu-

lated as a narrative text in the future tense, as illustrated previously

in the case of Dean Rusk, to make forecasts about changes in his

behavior. Or they may take the format of statistical comparisons, as

in table 9.2 for Carter. The same logic can be applied to two leaders

in the same time period and also for each one over time.

Level 3. General Typological Comparisons

It is possible to use the VICS scores for the summary indices of a

leader's philosophical and instrumental beliefs and make assessments