4. Assessing Leaders at a Distance:
The Political Personality Profile
Jerrold M. PostThe political personality profile was developed to provide senior pol-
icymakers with a comprehensive psychological representation of the
leader in context, not only describing the life course of the leader that
shaped key attitudes but also specifying particular aspects of leader-
ship behavior especially relevant to policymakers dealing with the
leader. Thus in addition to traditional elements of clinical psycholog-
ical assessment, the elements reviewed in assessing political personal-
ity include management style, negotiating style, strategic decision
making, crisis decision making, rhetorical style, cognitive style, and
leadership style. Each of these aspects of political leadership is of
course shaped by the cultural and political context, but the core leader
personality influences each of these leadership characteristics.
The term personality connotes a systematic pattern of functioning
that is consistent over a range of behaviors and over time. In the
political personality profile, we attempt to characterize the core
political personality, identifying the deeply ingrained patterns that
are coherent and accordingly have powerful predictive implications.
But it is important to emphasize that not all political situations
engage the political personality, and an important goal of the polit-
ical personality profile is to identify which political issues and deci-
sions are especially salient for the leader's personality. Put more col-
loquially, the task is to identify which issues "hook" the leader's
political personality and differentiate them from those that do not.
To be able to specify what those issue areas are and to identify
deeply ingrained patterns that are consistent over time, it is essential
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