Trump’s Personality Pattern and Its Implications for Leadership
A paper published one month before the 2016 presidential election described the “political personality” of Donald Trump. Aubrey Immelman had previously developed similar papers on Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, George W. Bush and many other national and foreign leaders. I thought it would be interesting to see how well the paper on Trump fared three-plus years into his presidency.
Immelman prepared the paper using publicly available materials to develop a personality profile using the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria. Theodore Millon (1928-2014) was a renowned American psychologist who studied personality.
Briefly, Millon identifies 10 scales. A personality pattern consists of multiple scales.… Read the rest
Empathy, the Coronavirus, and Political Polarization
The recent controversy over when or whether to restart the economy considering the coronavirus epidemic prompted me to examine the role of empathy in political polarization. Trump apparently prompted by arguments made by some business and investor interests publicly articulated his view that social or physical distancing, with some exceptions, should end by Easter to restart the American economy. Public health officials and related scientists suggest that such a move could endanger the health of many Americans, making the epidemic much worse.
These differing viewpoints often reflect the political polarization in our country. Republicans, with some exceptions, tend to support the restart view, especially as developed via the Fox news network.… Read the rest
Caring Leadership 3A
This is the first of several posts on caring leaders. It follows the previous post that centered on caring management. The literature on caring leaders seems more limited than the even relatively small literature on caring management. At the same time, the literature on caring leaders seems broader, less focused than that of caring management.
I have divided the post into two parts. Part A deals with caring leadership as expressed by Yiannis Gabriel. Part B covers my attempt to use Gabriel’s paper to determine how Trump’s followers may view him as a caring leader.
Care and leaders
To an extent, the issue of a caring leader connects with the issue of a moral leader.… Read the rest
Trump as a Caring Leader? (3B)
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted me to delve deeper into care ethics. I wanted to understand the extent to which our society was a caring society and if we as a nation could become a more caring country. Consequently, I started this series of blog posts. More basic, I started this blog to help me determine how and why Donald Trump was elected president. Also, I wanted to understand how he would perform as a leader, how he would govern our country. I now turn to this point by asking how Gabriel’s paper may be applicable to Trump.
It is impossible for me to see Trump as a caring leader.… Read the rest
Leadership and the ethics of care – a philosophical analysis (4A)
This two-part post continues the series of posts on caring leadership by focusing on a paper by Tomkins and Simpson titled “Caring Leadership: A Heideggerian Perspective.” A philosophical perspective requires leadership studies to examine what happens “when there is no functionalist blueprint, no clear sense to be made, no comfort in transparency.”
The authors suggest that caring leadership is largely practiced in one or the other of two modes of intervention. One mode is a “leaping-in” intervention and the other is “leaping-ahead” intervention. Overall, the authors posit that much of the care ethics literature provides “too tempting a recipe to follow.”
The first part of this post discusses the paper.… Read the rest
Examining Context in Leadership Studies
Leadership theories and concepts often identify context as a significant leadership variable. The examination of context often focuses on the micro-level. This focus involves relationships among people, within work teams, or within a formal organization. To what extent do leadership studies (LS) relate to context more generally? Does the larger societal or cultural milieu significantly affect how we approach and understand LS? And if it does affect LS, to what extent or how is this context recognized and dealt with? This and the next two posts address these topics.
The significant changes of leadership related terms
When I was a graduate student in the late 1960s the Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ) was arguably the premier journal dealing with administrative, management, and leadership topics.… Read the rest
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