Leadership Tests in Personnel Selection

Leadership is an interesting construct that has become very popular in the last 20 years.

As the industry grows, questions like "Who is a good leader?" and "How to recognize a person with leadership skills?" are becoming more and more common in the community.

Researchers from different fields, such as psychology, sociology, and political science, have tried to explain the characteristics of leadership and predict the behavior of a good leader.

These approaches have encompassed leader traits and skills, leader behaviors and activities, leader power and influence, situational determinants of leader behavior, and leadership as an attributional process (e.g., Bass, 1985, 1990; Conger, 1999; Dansereau, Graen, & Haga, 1975; Fiedler, 1978; House, 1971, 1999; Kouzes & Posner, 2002; Stogdill, 1948, 1974; Yukl, 1989).

Despite the large number of studies conducted on leadership, it remains an interesting topic for research.

Given that communication is growing in strategic importance for all types of organizations worldwide, the managerial function of public relations has brought the importance of leadership to the forefront of professional development. In addition, a better understanding of the qualities and dimensions of leadership in public relations may help strengthen the development of leaders in the field and increase the profession's value to organizations (Meng, J., Berger, B. K., Gower, K. K., & Heyman, W. C. (2012)).

The trait approach

During the first half of the twentieth century, the most popular approach was the "trait approach." This approach is based on studying a person's personality, motives, values, and skills that could make them a good leader.

The origin of this method lies in the Psychology of personality.

Followers of this technique compared the traits of people who are considered to have leadership skills in a higher percentage than average (such as presidents and CEOs) with the traits exhibited by nonleaders.

Although the trait approach has been an important stream in leadership research, it has inherent weaknesses. For example, the massive research effort in the trait approach has failed to locate any traits that would guarantee effective leadership and succession. It has also largely neglected the relevance of traits and situations. Another major criticism is that the trait approach did not recognize the importance of followers in the leadership process. (Meng, J., Berger, B. K., Gower, K. K., & Heyman, W. C. (2012).) Factors such as followers' personality traits, their learning processes in the workplace, and their behavior in workgroups affect the leadership process and its outcomes (e.g., Dansereau et al., 1975; Graen, 1976). Therefore, although traits are still considered important, attention in leadership research has shifted to the interaction of traits, situations, and the impact of followers' behaviors on leadership.

Behavioral approach

The focus of this approach is the belief that the leader is made by their actions (in a workplace, school, community) and that their actions result in the number of followers.

Although some behavioral theorists have used diverse terms to classify leadership styles, two main types of behaviors are most often studied: task-oriented behaviors and relationship-oriented behaviors (Bratton et al., 2005).

The task-oriented leader is concerned with discovering what activities are typical of managerial work and of the process of managerial decision making and problem-solving (e.g., McCall & Kaplan, 1985; Yukl, 1989).

The relationship-oriented behavioral approach focuses more on leader-follower relationships while carrying out the task process, such as showing respect and support for followers (e.g., Kotter, 1982; Mintzberg, 1973, 1979).

Although the authors of this approach gave a wider and more detailed picture of a leader, it still has its shortcomings.

It helped us understand what types of leaders we have, but we still could not find a universal answer to what type of traits and behavior a leader has to exhibit.

Personality traits of a leader

There are several common traditional leader traits and skills (Katz & Kahn, 1978; Stogdill, 1974; Yukl, 1971, 1998) that are believed to be part of most leaders.

Modern personality tests focused on measuring leadership skills include questions related to assertiveness, determination, cooperativeness, self-confidence, and emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence

One of the controversial topics in psychology and other sciences is emotional intelligence. Research has shown that emotional intelligence can be one of the important characteristics of a leader.

Mayer et al. (2000) proposed that a high level of emotional intelligence might enable a leader to be better able to monitor how workgroup members are feeling and take the appropriate action (Kerr, R., Garvin, J., Heaton, N., & Boyle, E.., 2006).

Surprisingly, given the popularity of the concept, most of the published research investigating EI and performance outcomes has been conducted in laboratory conditions, using student sample populations (Lopes et al., 2004), or has adopted a mixed model of EI within its research methodology. The studies that have applied the ability model within organizational contexts have found mixed results. Weinberger's (2002) investigation of the relationship between EI and transformational leadership, using the MSCEIT and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass and Avolio, 1995), found no significant correlations within a sample group of 138 managers. Rosete and Ciarrochi (2005) studied 41 Australian public service managers to explore the relationship between ability-based emotional intelligence (MSCEIT), personality (16PF), cognitive intelligence (WASI), and leadership effectiveness. They found that higher emotional intelligence scores were associated with higher leadership effectiveness.

Assertiveness

Assertiveness is viewed as a dimension describing people's tendency to speak up for, defend, and act in the interest of themselves and their own values, preferences, and goals (cf. Costa & McCrae, 1992; Wilson & Gallois, 1993).

Highly assertive people often get their way, at least in terms of short-run instrumental benefits. In organizations, assertive people tend to be seen by others as more powerful than passive employees, and they tend to adopt more structurally advantageous positions in social networks (Daniel R. Ames and Francis J. Flynn, 2012).

Some research has shown that certain behaviors occupy various points on an assertiveness continuum ranging from passivity and submissiveness to aggressiveness and hostility (e.g., Wilson & Gallois, 1993).

One study explored how a certain term appears in general use. The everyday use of the term "assertive" has labels attached to a wide range of behavioral levels. Thus, low assertiveness may refer to showing unwarranted deference, high assertiveness may refer to belligerently pursuing goals, and moderate assertiveness may refer to defending against imposition and actively making legitimate claims. We adopt this dimensional view in the present article (Daniel R. Ames and Francis J. Flynn, 2012).

Leadership is an interesting topic, and it will probably remain so for quite some time. The models we use now can definitely help us understand parts of the personality traits that are characteristic of a leader, and if what you need is a test to evaluate candidates with leadership skills, you can use the Evalart Leadership Test, which evaluates the factors mentioned in this article.