RES -811
April 22, 2015
Leadership Paper This paper will create a dialogue concerning the following articles and synthesis them to generate a discussion of the common themes that run throughout them, as well as understanding the conclusion of all three articles when taken as one entity.
Article 1: Fearless Dominance and the U.S. Presidency: Implications of PsychopathicPersonality Traits for Successful and Unsuccessful Political Leadership by S.O. Lilienfeld, I.D. Waldman, K. Landfield, A.L. Watts, S. Rubenzer and T. Faschinbauer.
Article 2: Impact of personal growth projects on leadership identity development by J. Williams.
Article 3: Leadership Styles and AssociatedPersonality Traits: Support for the Conceptualisation of Transactional and Transformational Leadership by R. Van Eeden, F. Cilliers, and V. Van Deventer. The authors of article 1 discuss research that was conducted regarding maladaptive and adaptive behaviors associated to psychopathy. Psychopathic traits include (but not limited to) poor impulse control, dishonesty, guiltlessness, egocentricity, fearlessness and interpersonal dominance. The focus group was 42 United States presidents starting with George Washington up to George W. Bush. The data used was taken from personality profiles compiled by historical experts and surveys which focus on presidential leadership; as well as key elements from each president’s leadership performance. The author’s introduce the concept of Fearless Dominance, which is the idea of boldness that is associated with psychopathy, which when the two are paired seems to result in better performances in leadership and presidential roles. The basis of the study was to look at certain qualities associated with psychopathy that advance individuals in leadership roles. The authors discovered there are multiple domains of psychopathy, and boldness is an important attribute of one domain. The research determined that boldness is a valid
References: Lilienfeld, S. O., Waldman, I. D., Landfield, K., Watts, A. L., Rubenzer, S., & Faschingbauer, T. R. (2012). Fearless Dominance and the U.S. Presidency: Implications Of Psychopathic Personality Traits for Successful and Unsuccessful Political Leadership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(3), 489-5 Odom, S. F., Boyd, B. L., & Williams, J. (2012). Impact of personal growth projects on Leadership Identity dFevelopment. Journal of Leadership Education, 11(1), 49-63. Van Eeden, R., Cilliers, F., & van Deventer, V. (2008). Leadership Styles and Associated Personality Traits: Support for the Conceptualisation of Transactional and Transformational leadership. South African Journal of Psychology, 38(2), 253-267.