Exploring the Relationship Between Personality and Preferred Leadership

Abstract

We explore the relationship between the Big Five personality indicators of employees and their respective preferred leadership style of management. We sampled employees in a city in the Midwest USA. The results include a profile of personality traits and how those traits relate to preferred leadership styles. We borrowed the Big Five and measures of three models of leadership: Participative, Autocratic, and Laissez-Faire. The results show people who are extroverted also prefer a participative style leader, those who are open to new experience do not prefer an autocratic style leader, and female employees prefer laissez-faire leadership style.