Assessing Leadership Style: Trait Analysis

The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders

where a specific leader fits in a broader discussion of leadership style;
the contextualized profile suggests how that leader has individual-
ized his or her responses to manifest more unique characteristics.
With knowledge about both the general and the more individual-
ized profiles, the researcher and analyst gain a more complete por-
trait of the leader. Not only does the person become representative of
a particular type of leader, but we know when and to what degree he
or she has modulated his or her behavior to take the context into
account.

Note

I would like to thank Social Science Automation, Inc., for a grant that supported

the writing of this chapter. I am also grateful to Kent Kille, Thomas Preston,

Charles Snare, and Michael Young for comments on earlier drafts of this chapter

and for their help in refining the coding system and the theoretical underpin-

nings of this assessment-at-a-distance technique.