Life-Style Themes of Women Who Emerge as Leaders in Small Group Settings

This study investigated the effects of personality characteristics on emergent leadership in small group settings. Two instruments were used to assess personality factors: The BASIS-A and the California Personality Inventory (CPI). A sociometric tool was developed to elicit leader ranking of female group members. The BASIS-A, was used to test for Taking Charge and Wanting Recognition lifestyles in women who emerged as leaders. The CPI was used to assess female emergent leaders for Dominance and Leadership Potential. The two instruments and a sociometric form were distributed to 115 female graduate counselor-in-training students the last week of their group counseling experience. This survey resulted in 55 respondents (N=55) from eleven discussion groups. It was expected that women who had the highest averaged leader rank would demonstrate higher test scores in Dominance, Leadership Potential, Taking Charge, and Wanting Recognition than women who received a lower averaged leader rank. It was also thought that these four test factors would be highly related. If so, a case would be made to use the BASIS-A as an emergent leader assessment tool because it is consistently based in one psychological theory. No significant effect was found between the highest leader rank and three of the test measures: Dominance, Leadership Potential, and Taking Charge. Using four one-way ANOVAs, a significant effect was found between highest leader rank and Wanting Recognition. This demonstrated that individuals high in interpersonal caution, empathy, and with a need to succeed emerged as leaders. Possible explanations for this finding were discussed. Significant relationships were found using the Pearson-r correlation statistic between three of the four test variables. From the CPI, the Dominance and Leadership Potential scales were highly correlated to the BASIS-A Taking Charge life-style. The BASIS-A Wanting Recognition lifestyle was not related to either Dominance or Leadership Potential. Unexpectedly, a significant relationship was found in this population between Wanting Recognition and Taking Charge. Perhaps due to the limited inter-correlational analysis and small sample, these research results did not support using the BASIS-A as a sole emergent leader assessment. More research is needed before such a case can be made