Assessing Leaders at a Distanceered in constructing a political personality profile can be found at the
conclusion of this chapter.
The Leader in Context
Drawing on Brewster-Smith's elegant map of personality and poli-
tics, and as modified in Stone and Schaffner (1988), the leader is
envisaged as residing within a series of fields, the cultural, political,
and historical context of his country, the specific aspects of the
leader's background that shaped the individual, and the nature of the
current political situation (see Figs. 4.1 and 4.2). The importance of
that political and cultural context cannot be overestimated. Green-
stein (1987) has observed in his seminal discussion of action dispens-
ability that the degree to which leader personality affects political
behavior is in part a function of the nature and flexibility of the polit-
ical system. There is a profound difference in how personality will
affect political behavior between a leader functioning in a collective
leadership and a dictator functioning in a closed system. The manner
in which the culture shapes expectations of the leader also shapes the
formation and selection of the leader. The political figure who vio-
lates cultural norms will not survive long. In constructing a political
personality profile, the degree of constraint upon the political behav-
ior of the leader by his role and by the culture and nature of the polit-
ical system is regularly examined.
The psychoanalytic framework of Erik Erikson ([1950] 1963),
which relates personality development to the cultural context, is
extremely helpful as a model. It emphasizes the intimate dynamic
relationship between the developing personality and the environ-
ment and undergirds Brewster-Smith's emphasis on the cultural,
political, and historical context in which the leader develops. Leader
personality does not exist in vacuo; it is the leader in context that is
our focus, the context that shaped the leader's development, the con-
temporary context that continues to shape and influence leader
behavior and decision making. Before even considering the particu-
lar circumstances surrounding the development of the future leader,
however, one must understand thoroughly the culture, especially the
political culture, in which the leader's family was embedded. In
these regards, the works of Pye (2000) and Kellerman (1991) are
especially instructive.