Not to be Taken Out of Context: The Development and Validation of a Contextualized Measure of Leader Personality

Contextualization refers to the process of incorporating a relevant context into a personality questionnaire (Holtrop, Born, De Vries, & De Vries, 2014). In recent years, research has demonstrated that the contextualization of a personality measure improves its criterion validity for context-congruent criteria (Shaffer & Postlethwaite, 2012). The continued interest in the application of personality to leadership research and practice (Day & Antonakis, 2012; Hogan & Kaiser, 2005; Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka, 2009), underscores the potential utility of a personality measure contextualized to organizational leadership. Over the span of two studies and multiple samples, this dissertation sought to develop and validate a completely contextualized measure of organizational leader personality, coined the HEXACO-Lead. In brief, this research provides initial evidence for the reliability and construct validity of the newly developed HEXACO-Lead personality inventory. More specifically, findings across two independent studies support acceptable reliability, factorial validity and expected convergent/divergent correlations with generic HEXACO factor scales. The HEXACO-Lead also yields noticeably better reactions among leader respondents, compared to a generic alternative. Moreover, an examination of the measure’s ability to predict self-rated leadership criteria revealed a consistent pattern of higher predictive validity, compared to the HEXACO-60. This difference was only statistically significant for one of the four measured leadership criteria (i.e., supportive leadership), suggesting that the effects of contextualization may vary depending on the criterion of interest. Results concerning the HEXACO-Lead’s predictive validity for subordinate rated leadership criteria were somewhat inconclusive due to the small sample size available for these analyses. Overall, the results of this research are promising for the extension of personality measure contextualization to the context of organizational leadership.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Arts

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Julian, Amanda

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Lee, Kibeom

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• O'Neill, Thomas A.
• Bourdage, Joshua S.
• Hausdorf, Peter A.
• Turner, Nick

• leadership
• personality
• HEXACO

Statement dc:rights

• University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/38669

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ucalgary.scholaris.ca:1880/113144