Assessing Leadership Style: Trait Analysis

The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders

Does the motive profile presented in table 16.2 fit with Saddam
Hussein's actions? Post (1993)3) outlined an interpretation of his
personality and behavior that emphasized a general unbounded drive
for power and prestige, with more specific components of extreme nar-
cissism, exalted and extravagant rhetoric, aggression as an instru-
ment of policy, and a paranoid fear of enemies. Each of these charac-
teristics is associated with power motivation (see McClelland 1975;
Winter 1973, 1996; Winter and Stewart 1978), especially in the
absence of a sense of responsibility (Winter and Barenbaum 1985).
Saddam Hussein's high power motivation can also help us to
understand specific aspects of his behavior, such as his repeated and
rigid defiance in the face of his obvious misjudgments (see Renshon
1993). Laboratory research has demonstrated that power-motivated
people take extreme risks in the pursuit of prestige but tend to con-
fuse feelings of power and omnipotence with the reality of genuine
social power and, as a result, overestimate their chances of success.
They are vulnerable to ingratiation, such that they end up sur-
rounded by sycophants who will not tell them the truth. Success
breeds future creativity and further success, but failure drains their
reserves of creative innovation (Fodor 1990).^3 Taken together, these
behaviors add up to the ancient Greek concept of hubris, or over-
reaching ambition.
What are we to make of Saddam Hussein's above average score on
affiliation motivation? At first this seems to contradict his behavior:
can anyone point to many instances where he showed a "concern for

TABLE 16.2. MOTIVE PROFILE OF SADDAM HUSSEIN IN 1974-91

Raw Scores

(images per 1,000 words)

Material

All interviews

More "spontaneous"

interviews (N = 6)

Less "spontaneous"

interviews (N = 5)

Ach

1.60

.74

2.64

Aff

2.69

2.36

3.09

Pow

7.65

8.59

6.52

Pow

minus

Ach

+ 6.05

+ 7.85

+ 3.88

Standardized Scoresa

Ach

39

31

32

Aff

55

52

56

Pow

57

61

57

Pow

minus

Ach

+ 18

+ 30

+ 25

Source: Data from Winter 1993a.

aMean = 50, and standardization = 10, based on a comparison group of interviews from twenty-

two world leaders.