The Role of Personality, Coaching, and Group Preference in Relation to Leadership Effectiveness

We investigate the subject’s personality in relation to leadership, leadership performance before and after coaching, and the relation of group preference to how a group ultimately selects its leader. The natural assumption is that most extroverted people are the automatic choice for a leader. Or perhaps the best choice is someone with the most leadership experience. In fact, only some leader-like people ever voluntarily elect themselves to be the leader. We observe the role of the leader to better understand how their personality affects their perceived leadership communication style (PLC) and how individual preference affects group alignment. In this study, 109 participants where they were asked to assign themselves roles in a group project. Each group has 3-4 members. Participants are asked to complete a structure with-in a given amount of time. After the first structure is complete, they are asked to complete the project a second time. Coaching conditions are set prior so that we can observe significant changes in a leader’s performance. IPIP-NEO personality tests are taken subsequent to the experiment for qualitative purposes. In addition, Transactive Memory, Leadership Communication Questionnaire, and Group Preference Questionnaire were also included. The results for the experiment are as follows. Leader communication was more effective after group coaching as opposed to individual leader coaching. Individuals that exhibited high degrees of extraversion were more likely to emerge as a leader; but this had no correlation with conscientiousness or agreeableness. A leader’s perceived communication style was shown to be more effective when leaders exhibited the traits of extraversion and agreeableness, but not conscientiousness. We have found a number of cases where a more dominant communicator takes over the lead of the project and overshadows the presence of the selected leader. To account for this, a secondary leader is recorded to see how they might influence the effectiveness of the group dynamic. Though our research primarily focuses on the selected leader and their effectiveness, future research could expand upon the implication of identifying the secondary leader and observing them in more detail. This could be done by asking them more questions, coaching them, or having them swap roles