The Psychological Assessment of Political Leadersdistrustful of others' intentions, skillfully used scapegoating to
enhance the nationalistic fervor of their constituencies, was highly
Machiavellian in dealing with the superpowers of the day, and
appeared to the world to know where he was going and to be in
charge of getting there. Pressure from the outside world only
increased the challenge and raised the competitive stakes for these
leaders—made the game of politics more fun and potentially more
deadly. Engaging in the give-and-take of face-to-face bargaining or
expressing willingness to grant them a momentary place on the
major power stage appears to have been more successful in reigning
in their behavior than threats. However, whenever they gave in, or
were forced to accede, these leaders always pronounced themselves
the winners to their people.
Leadership Profile in Context
An important question with any leadership profile centers around
the stability of the traits. Do Hussein's scores remain basically the
same across his tenure in office, when he is being interviewed by the
domestic and foreign press, and when he is discussing different sub-
stantive topics? We can be assured that we are assessing what the
leader is like if there is little change in the scores as the context
changes; at the least, we know that he does not seem to be respond-
ing to the situation. It is easier to suggest what a leader is likely to
do politically when the trait scores are more stable; with changes in
scores, the researcher or analyst must consider contextual factors in
deciding both how to influence the leader and what he or she is likely
to do.
A statistical procedure (analysis of variance) indicated that gener-
ally Hussein's scores were stable across time, audience, and topic.
Only five out of twenty-one (24 percent) possible changes (seven
traits times three contextual factors) were statistically significant.
Overall, the leadership profile described previously for leaders like
Hussein is applicable for him in most circumstances. The statisti-
cally significant differences, however, do amplify the portrait of Hus-
sein as leader and, thus, will be discussed in some detail. Table 17.2
presents the traits where there were significant differences across the
various types of context.
The differences in Hussein's scores on conceptual complexity