Assessing Leaders at a Distanceily in the Holocaust, leading him to vow "Never Again," a psycho-
logical pledge that was to shape his oppositional political style.
Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez of Spain recounted the impact on
him as a boy of living in the shadow of a political prison in the
Franco years.
Psychologically Salient Issues
Referring again to figure 4.1, it is important to distinguish between
those political behaviors that derive from the leader's role and those
that engage his political personality. Discriminating which issues
can be considered objectively and which strike deep psychological
chords is crucial. Chiang Ching-kuo, president of the Republic of
China, was judicious and objective in his considerations of economic
policy for Taiwan, selecting world-class economists as his advisers
and helping create the economic miracle of Taiwan. His primary
political mentor, however, was his father, Chiang Kai-shek, which
meant that the issue of relationships with mainland China could
never be considered with the same rational objectivity and that
progress toward ameliorating that conflictual relationship would
have to await his death. As this example illustrates, it is important to
identify which issues are salient for the leader's political psychology.
However intense the family influences, the leader is exposed to the
vicissitudes of the political environment to which he must react and
adapt. The leader who cannot adapt to external realities because he
rigidly adheres to an internally programmed life script has, in
Laswellian terms, displaced his private needs upon the state and has
rationalized it in the public good. Inevitably the gap between the
private needs and the public needs becomes the source of ineffective
and/or conflicted leadership.
The Political Personality Study
In the cross-sectional analysis, the political personality study, the
goal is to identify and characterize the nature of the subject's person-
ality, with particular reference to the political personality. Personal-
ity implies a patterned relationship among cognition, affect, and inter-
personal relationships. Accordingly, the organizing concept of personality
implies a linkage among belief systems, value systems, attitudes, leadership
style, and other personality features. Put differently, the nature of person-