A Psychobiography of Martin Luther King, jr.

This psychobiography focuses on the leadership style of Martin Luther King, Jr., a leader in the United States civil rights movement. King fought against racism, imperialism, poverty and political disenfranchisement, preached a philosophy of non-violence, and aimed to bring about reconciliation among classes, races, and nations. Transformational leaders stimulate and inspire followers to both achieve remarkable outcomes and, in the process, develop their own leadership capacity. This study makes use of a qualitative research method and is a longitudinal psychobiographical case study. The study aimed to explore, describe, and interpret the leadership style demonstrated by King according to the four leadership dimensions in transformational leadership theory. This psychobiographical study is exploratory-descriptive in nature. King was chosen as a research subject via purposive non- random sampling based on the interest value and significance of his life. Data on King’s leadership style was collected from both primary and secondary sources. Data was analysed according to Alexander’s (1988) method and Miles and Huberman’s (1994) approach. To ensure a trustworthy study, the four criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability and conformability were considered. The research did not cause any “distress or harm” to the subject. The subject is long deceased, and a large amount of psychobiographical research was based on “archival” information which was publicly available. Thus reporting such information posed minimal risk of criminal or civil liability being brought against the subject. King was found to demonstrate leadership style associated with idealized influence and inspirational motivation to a much higher extent than individualized consideration or intellectual stimulation. This finding contributes to a more specific understanding of the style of leadership King displayed. The insights gained from this study can be used to guide improvements in leadership practice, in terms of the development of leaders in industry