The Psychological Assessment of Political Leadersbeliefs. Second, there is a set of examples that illustrate how to ana-
lyze a leader's operational code and estimate likely behavior at dif-
ferent levels of decision.
What Is Operational Code Analysis?Operational code analysis is an approach to the study of political lead-
ers that may focus narrowly on a set of political beliefs or more
broadly on a set of beliefs embedded in the personality of a leader or
originating from the cultural matrix of a society. Leites (1953)
employed the broader view of operational code analysis that incorpo-
rated cognition, character, and culture, but his approach was modified
in later applications. George (1969) argued that a leader's operational
code should be identified simply as a political belief system in which
some elements (philosophical beliefs) guide the leader's diagnosis of
the context for action and others (instrumental beliefs) prescribe the
most effective strategy and tactics in achieving goals.
While George recommended that political scientists limit their
efforts to the study of beliefs, which "can be inferred or postulated by
the investigator on the basis of the kinds of data, observational
opportunities, and methods generally available to political scien-
tists," he clearly anticipated studies that would link cognition and
character.
[I]t is one of the attractive features of the operational code con-
struct for behaviorally-inclined political scientists that it can
serve as a useful "bridge" or "link" to psychodynamic interpre-
tations of unconscious dimensions of belief systems and their
role in behavior under different conditions.... Thus, once an
actor's approach to political calculation has been formulated by
the researcher, he can proceed—if he so wishes and is able to do
so—to relate some of the beliefs in question to other motiva-
tional variables of a psychodynamic character. (George 1969,
195-96)
How Has Operational Code Analysis Evolved
as a Leadership Assessment Tool?
The subsequent evolution of operational code analysis has followed
the course anticipated by George, focusing initially on beliefs and