The Relationship between Self-Leadership and Personality: A Comparison of Hierarchical Factor Structures

This study examined the relationship between self-leadership and personality through an analysis and comparison of hierarchical factor structures. More specifically, this study examined the relationships between the self-leadership dimensions of behavior-focused strategies, natural reward strategies, and constructive thought strategies, and the personality dimensions of extraversion, emotional stability, and conscientiousness. The results of the study provide evidence that the self-leadership dimensions are distinct from, yet related to, the specified personality traits. The hypothesis that self-leadership strategies are distinct from the selected personality traits was supported through structural equations modeling analyses examining competing models combining the hierarchical factor structures of self-leadership and personality. Model fit increased significantly through a progression of models that showed increasingly greater distinction between self-leadership dimensions and personality traits. The best fitting model in the progression, in harmony with both self-leadership and trait personality theory, consisted of a hierarchical factor structure with three first order self-leadership factors, three first order personality factors, and two correlated second order factors (i.e., self-leadership and personality). Furthermore, intercorrelations were greater within the self-leadership dimensions than between the self-leadership dimensions and the personality traits, thus providing additional evidence of differentiation. Although the evidence indicates that self-leadership skill dimensions are unique with respect to personality traits, these results also suggest that self-leadership and personality factors are nevertheless significantly related. Specifically, both extraversion and conscientiousness were significantly related to all three self-leadership dimensions, while emotional stability was significantly related only to the natural rewards strategies dimension. In summation, the results of this study suggest that self-leadership represents a distinct constellation of strategies that are significantly related to certain key personality traits. The implications of these results for future self-leadership research and practice are discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Management

Department dc:contributor.department

Management

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2000

Author dc:creator

• Houghton, Jeffery D.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Bonham, Thirwall W.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Foti, Roseanne J.
• Madigan, Robert M.
• Neck, Christopher P.
• Singh, Kusum

• personality
• hierarchical factor structure
• self-leadership

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-06062000-12260008

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/27957