Assessing Leadership Style: Trait Analysis

The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders

heuristic value of the analysis becomes the basis for other observers of
the leader to recognize the connections between personality and
behavior without a quantitative measurement strategy.
However it is achieved, the importance of effective methods for
profiling political leadership cannot be overestimated. It has been
heightened by the unstable international climate in the post—cold
war era. The frequency of threats arising from relatively unknown
and unfamiliar sources increases the need for rapid and sophisticated
profiling of a new range of adversaries. The occasions for leadership
assessment are likely to take several forms in the twenty-first cen-
tury, including the following contingencies.

The Rise of Rogue Leaders and Outlaw Nations

The end of the cold war has been destabilizing, producing not a
"peace dividend" but an unpredictable international climate in
which rogue leaders of outlaw nations frequently have precipitated
major political crises. The relatively stable and predictable super-
power rivalry has been replaced by a series of regional conflicts often
precipitated by the actions of previously unknown or poorly under-
stood leaders. There has been a proliferation of destructive power,
with more destructive power in the hands of small, independent
leadership with hostile agendas toward the United States. The most
worrisome nations—Iran, Iraq, and North Korea—are ruled by
unpredictable dictatorships. The headlines of the past few years have
been dominated by such names as Saddam Hussein, Kim Jung-Il,
Mohammad Farah Aideed, Radovan Karadzic, Slobodan Milosevic,
and Osama bin Laden.
Several of these leaders either already have or are actively seeking
weapons of mass destruction. During the Gulf Crisis, a nuclear-
armed Saddam Hussein would have entirely changed the dynamics
of the conflict. Former U.S. secretary of defense William Perry
referred to the "nightmare scenario" of a nuclear-armed North
Korea. Should an extremist nationalist have won the presidency of
Russia—not entirely out of the question, given Yeltsin's failing
health and his tenuous hold on power—as the political and economic
instability mounted, the prospect of a Vladimir Zhirinovskiy-like
figure with his finger on the nuclear button would have been truly
terrifying.