Relation between personality traits and leadership styles

The aim of this study was to examine relation between personality traits and leadership styles. More precisely, to determine if personality traits can predict persons leadership styles.The first concept in this research was the concept personality traits, defined through HEXACO personality model. Personality traits were operationalized through short version of HEXACO-PI-R personality inventory (Ashton & Lee, 2007). This inventory measures five personality traits: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to experience. This inventory is a 5-point Likert type scale with 60 items. The second concept in this research was the concept of leadership styles. In this research behavioral approach to leadership has been used. According to the authors who developed this approach, leaders manifest two different styles, or two different types of behavior: task-oriented style and relation-oriented style (Northouse, 2001). Leadership styles were operationalized through leadership style questionnaire (Northouse, 2001) which measures two different leadership styles mentioned before, task oriented and relation oriented. This questionnaire is also a 5-point Likert type scale with 20 items. Psychometric properties for both instruments were satisfactory.The sample was convenient and it consisted of 104 respondents of both sexes (M=21; F=83), age ranged from 19 to 50 years old, with mean age of 26.09 years.The data was analyzed using program SPSS version 20. Statistical method used in this research was linear regression, whereas predictors were personality traits and criterion variables were leadership styles.Results show that both linear regression models (the one with task-oriented style and the one with relation-oriented style as criterion variables) were statistically significant. Statistically significant predictors for task-oriented leadership style were Extraversion (β=.303; p=.001), Conscientiousness (β=.2 8; p=.00 ) and Openness to experience (β=.240; p=.008). The total percentage of explained variance of task-oriented style, taking all of the predictors into account was 25.8% of the total variance of criterion variable in question. When it comes to the relation-oriented leadership style, statistically significant predictors were following Emotionality (β=.1 ; p=.040), Extraversion (β=.227; p=.022) and Agreeableness (β=.24 ; p=.014). Percentage of total variance of relation-oriented leadership style explained by all the predictors taken together was 16.5% of the total variance of the mentioned criterion variable.From the results can be concluded that personality trait indeed are statistically significant predictors for leadership styles, the fact that can be useful in practice of professional orientation and selection of employees.