Assessing Leadership Style: Trait Analysis

TABLE 2.1. FOREIGN POLICY BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS ("PHENOMENOLOGY")

OF WOODROW WILSON, AS EXPLAINED BY DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS

George and George Freud and Bullitt Weinstein

Visionary

oratory

Refusal to

compromise

Refusal to fight

Rhetorical

counterattack

Turning against
supporters
Little satisfaction

Need to dominate, as a result

of low self-esteem

Compulsiveness

Insatiable achievement aspirations

Need for approval and respect; anxiety

at prospect of opposition

Reaction-formation against aggression

Irritability

Identification with father and Jesus,

resulting in a refusal to fight

Passivity toward father

Repressed aggression toward father,

displaced onto symbolic "younger

brothers"

Protection of threatened self-esteem

Denial and distorted perception

Overconfidence

Stubbornness

Suspiciousness

Identification with mother

Source: Data from Freud and Bullitt 1967; George 1971; George and George 1956, chap. 7 and 317—22; and Weinstein 1970; 1981.