In our previous posting, we discovered that contingency theorists needed something other than IQ to test a persons potential for leadership. They began testing for emotional intelligence (EI) in order to determine an individual’s emotional quotient (EQ). There interest in measuring EQ stemmed from its measurement of the social and interpersonal aspects of intelligence, something contingency theorists judge as important in selecting someone for a leadership position.
Another measurement important in selecting the ideal leader is the individual’s personality type. In the late 1960’s research began focusing on the concept of Type A behavior. The purpose of their research was as a risk factor for coronary disease. Psychologists and management researchers also became interested in studying Type A behavior (Nahavandi, 2006). Their goal was to match the characteristics of Type A individuals with situations where these characteristics would be beneficial. Researchers isolated four characteristics.
First, researchers determined that Type A individuals exhibit the characteristic of time urgency. These individuals are constantly in a hurry. They are impatient and do not tolerate delays well. This characteristic would cause them to be prompt and obsessed with meeting deadlines (Nahavandi, 2006).
The second characteristic of Type A’s is competitiveness. This competitiveness not only exhibits itself in their careers but also in their social lives and sports situations. They measure themselves against others and track their individual performance because they are concerned with winning (Nahavandi, 2006).
The third characteristic involves polyphasic behaviors or doing several things at once. Everyone has to take on several tasks at the same time on occasion but Type A’s will multi-task even when it is not necessary. It is not uncommon for a Type A to even make a list to plan activities while on vacation (Nahavandi, 2006).
The forth characteristic is hostility. Type A’s are focused on controlling their environment and when something occurs e.g. a delay, they can become agitated and even hostile. This characteristic is the only one researchers found that contributed to a higher risk of coronary disease (Nahavandi, 2006). Now we need to determine what situations these characteristics would be valuable as a leadership quality.
According to Walter (2010) Type A individuals experience high work stress. The study broke Type A behavior into four dimensions leadership, aggression, being “hard driven and eagerness-energy. Of these behaviors, only leadership resulted in lower work stress (Walter, 2010). This fact would lead us to believe that Type A’s are natural born leaders but are they ideal in every potential situation?
The Type A person may indeed experience lower work stress when in a leadership position. This is because they are in control of their environment but followers who function better with a more hands-off style of leader may not accept their highly competitive and hurried nature. Once again, we find that selection of the ideal leader is dependent upon the situation and the culture the leader must function in. This does not mean that evaluation of a person’s personality characteristic is not important but that it is not the only metric one must use to measure potential for leadership.
A Type A leadership personality will function best in a situation requiring a hands-on leader to turn around a negative situation. In these types of situations, the acceptability of the leader by followers is not as important as the ability of the leader to turn the negative situation around. A type A’s highly competitive nature and sense of time urgency will result in things being done on time and with positive results. High Type A’s would also be respected in cultures where the hierarchy is respected due to their ability to take control of the situation.
A type A leadership personality will not function well in a situation where maintaining the status quo is needed. Placing a high Type A individual into a properly functioning organization would result in followers becoming demotivated, resulting in lowered productivity and lowered morale. In highly individualistic cultures, followers may view a high Type A individual as a threat to their individuality.
In conclusion, type A’s make good leaders when placed in a situation requiring a turnaround manager or transformational leader because the organization is under performing or on the verge of failure. However, they will have trouble when placed in a situation where the organization is already performing at an acceptable level and enjoying a level of success. If an organization is performing at an acceptable level but wishes to increase its performance the negatives of a high Type A individual may outweigh their positives and result in declining performance. In this type of situation, a leader exhibiting some Type A characteristics may be desirable as long as the individual has a high EQ and knows when to temper their Type A characteristics so as not to cause a decline in morale resulting in a decline in organizational performance.
In the next posting, we will look at the Type B personality and determine situations where this personality type is desirable.
References
Nahavandi, A. (2006). The science and art of leadership (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River NJ:
Pearson Education Inc.
Walter, L. (2010, January). Leadership: The type A characteristic that lowers work stress. EHS
Today, , . Retrieved Retrieved March 24,2010, ABI/INFORM complete (document ID:
1952095791
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