Links between personalities and leadership perceptions in problem-solving groups

Abstract

Leadership emergence and related variables in leaderless group problem-solving situations were examined in improvised problem-solving groups. Participants were randomly organized into 56 four-person groups and asked to evaluate themselves and others in each group by the Round Robin method. Evaluations were based on the “Big Five” personality traits, physical appearance, and two types of leadership. Generally, self-effacing bias rather than self-enhancing bias was dominant, and self-enhancing bias was not shown in two types of leadership evaluations. Relative variances of the perceiver, the target, and the relationship effects were 26.7, 9.5, and 28.8%, respectively. That the target effect was the lowest in several aspects of evaluations including leadership suggests low consensus among members in leadership evaluations. Also, older participants received higher credits in task leadership while no gender effects of target were evidenced. Finally, members’ evaluations on target were substantially accurate in most evaluation dimensions, contrary to expectations. The evaluation was particularly more accurate on task-leadership than that on relation-leadership.