Publication Date

Spring 2005

School

School of Business

Abstract

From the beginning of time, individuals have been forced to work in groups via the circumstances they were presented with. Naturally, individuals within the groups stepped forward to take roles of leadership, guiding the rest of the group. Since then, an emphasis has been placed identifying those qualities which make successful leaders. Kouzes and Posner (1995) have identified five vital qualities of a leader: challenging the process; inspiring a shared vision; enabling others to act; modeling the way; and encouraging the heart. In an effort to gain personal insight, leader or not, an emphasis on getting to know your personality and how it affects you, has recently taken root in our culture. Most commonly diagnosed via a personality test, persons are commonly defined by characteristics such as introversion and extroversion. The traits of introversion and extroversion help define who an individual is. In an attempt to combine the knowledge of who a person is with what tasks for which they are most equipped, the question has been raised of whether the personality traits of introversion and extroversion correlate with the level of leadership qualities one possesses. Forty college subjects were given the Student Leadership Practices Inventory and a Jung Typology test from Humanrnetrics.com. It was hypothesized that there would be significant, positive correlations between extroversion and leadership scores among the five subscales of leadership qualities. After analysis and data collection, it was found that there was not a significant correlation between introversion/extroversion and any of the five subscales of leadership as defined by Kouzes and Posner. Thus, the quality of either being an introvert or extrovert does not have significant bearing on the leadership quality of an individual.

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