Assessing Leadership Style: Trait Analysis

The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders

and was further tempered by (3) needs for approval and respect. Often he
succeeded, especially when he was moving along the path to power.
When this combination aroused (4) a reaction-formation against aggres-
sion and (5) disruptive anxiety at the prospect of opposition, however,
he avoided a fight. When an issue had become emotionally charged,
however, his (6) insatiable achievement aspirations and (7) compulsive
stubbornness led to (8) denial and distorted perception. When this hap-
pened, he usually failed.

Genesis of Wilson's Personality Dynamics

The Georges trace the origins of Wilson's inner doubts and low self-

esteem to his conflicted relationship with his father, Joseph Ruggles

Wilson, a towering presence of a Presbyterian preacher, who made

perfectionist demands on those about him, including his children,

and reacted to errors with scorn and sarcasm. The Georges' thesis is

that these paternal demands created anxiety and resentment in the

young Woodrow Wilson. Furthermore, they suggest, he repressed

negative feelings and adopted his father's standards as his own, trying

to reduce anxiety by pleasing his father through high achievement.

Given the paucity of records and information about father-child

dynamics in the Wilson household, it is not surprising that the

Georges' reconstruction of the genesis of Wilson's personality has

met with some controversy from historians and Wilson biographers

(Schulte Nordholt 1991; Weinstein, Anderson, and Link 1978-79;

the scholarly debate is summarized in a series of articles in Political

Psychology introduced by Post 1983a, 1983b).

Alternative Interpretations of Wilson's Personality

Interpretation by Bullitt and Freud

The two right-hand columns of table 2.1 give brief presentations of

two alternative assessments of the dynamics behind Wilson's phe-

nomenology. Each is controversial, and each has major methodolog-

ical faults. The jointly written analysis by Sigmund Freud and

William C. Bullitt (a former U.S. diplomat), published in 1967 but

completed in the 19305, is marred by the authors' hostilities toward

their subject as well as a rather crudely mechanical style of interpre-