Comparing Institutional Level and Technical Core Leaders : How Personality and Organizational Roles Affect Leadership Choices

Conventional wisdom suggests that leaders should conform to a style best suited for one’s organization, or at least the best style for a particular role. Yet, this approach implies a unitary approach to leadership and assumes chameleon-like capabilities. (Conger 2004) Recent work on the power of authenticity (e.g., George, et al, 2007) and the persistence of personality make it seem unlikely that would-be leaders are sufficiently malleable to change his or her leadership style at will. Instead, we should expect leaders to gravitate toward the roles in which they can be most authentic. We demonstrate this expected, natural sorting by examining US military organizations using Thompson’s (1967) division of responsibility and control within organizations. In particular, we apply Yukl’s (2008) leadership dimensions and Gangestad and Snyder’s (2000) self-monitoring scale to demonstrate that technical core and institutional level leaders rely on very different leadership styles. We then show that the need for authenticity drives different personalities into very different leadership roles