Leadership style and managerial type as related to working climate, gender and personality in terms of the Spiral Aftereffect Technique (SAT)

The study considers relations in a group of 95 managers, 41 women and 54 men, between working climate of their units, their leadership styles in terms of their subordinates’ ratings of employee-centeredness, change-centeredness and production-centeredness, and their personality patterns according to the Spiral Aftereffect Technique (SAT). Eight managerial types were distinguished, based on low and high ratings on the three leadership style dimensions. Women were rated as being high on change-centeredness more often than men. The working climate of the unit of a ”vague manager” or of a ”bureaucrat” was rated as being low, that of a ”gardener”, of a ”buddy manager” and to some extent of an ”all-round manager” as being high. Managers classified as M on the SAT were frequently low or very low on employee-centeredness and change-centeredness, those classified as Mo frequently high or very high on these dimensions. Mo was typical for an ”all-round manager” and for a manager at a unit with high ratings of working climate. Low ratings of working climate were often found for managers classified as LLs or H. Interpretations of SAT personality patterns were based on the Andersson model of the mind