Preferred leadership behaviours by different personalities

The purpose of this study is to examine the degree to which different personalities prefer different kinds of leadership. Finnish participants (n = 360) completed a leadership questionnaire compiled with reference to Bass's MLQ, Kouzes and Posner's LPI, and leadership literature overall. The subjects also had their personality type determined with the Myers-Briggs type indicator. Several results were found; there were statistically significant results in all preference pairs. For example, people with extraverted, intuitive and feeling preferences wanted to see transformational behaviours even more so than the people with opposite preference pairs. All personality preferences would rather have a transactional or authoritative leader than a non-leader. Rewarding behaviours are important across the board, but not as important as transformational behaviours. Sensing followers were more inclined to have an authoritative or transactional leader than intuitive ones, and introverted followers were slightly more comfortable with laissez-faire style behaviours than their extraverted counterparts were. These findings provide a good opening for research considering individuals' expectations of their leader, and they should be considered in human resource development, leadership training and relationship conflicts. Leaders' and followers' relationships are crucial and organisations would be wise to forestall any unnecessary clashes within them.