The Leadership Personality Evolution Model: Psychosocial Foundations of Leadership Orientation

Abstract

Leadership research has shown that leaders' personality is associated with effectiveness, derailment and the wellbeing of followers, yet it explains much less about how a leader's functional or dysfunctional orientation develops. This PhD paper presents the Leadership Personality Evolution Model (LPEM), a developmental framework proposing that leadership orientation is shaped by how leaders resolve six recurring leadership-domain psychosocial tensions: foresight, agency, competence, emotional regulation, decisiveness and adaptability. Drawing on Erikson's psychosocial theory, research on the bright and dark sides of leadership personality, and lifespan leader-development scholarship, the paper argues that the resolution of each tension is expressed as a leadership virtue and its non-resolution as a corresponding vice, and that these cluster into functional and dysfunctional orientations. The model is examined through a five-phase exploratory sequential mixed-methods design across organisational settings in Ghana and the United States: directed psychobiographical analysis of six historical leaders; Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with 10 to 12 Ghanaian leaders; development and pilot testing of the leader-reported Psychosocial Conflict Resolution Scale (PCRS) and the subordinate-reported Leadership Personality Orientation Scale (LPOS); a leader–subordinate dyadic survey; and joint-display integration. Structural equation modelling and multigroup analysis will test whether PCRS profiles are associated with subordinate-rated orientation and whether the measures operate comparably in the two countries. Because the empirical phases are in progress, the paper reports the results of the conceptual synthesis: six defined tensions mapped to Erikson's adult stages, a testable model in which leaders and subordinates provide separate ratings, two hypotheses and one proposition, together with the selection rationale for each research site and case. It contributes a developmental and relational explanation of leadership orientation, a design that treats the transfer of Western theory to African settings as an empirical question, and a foundation for developmental coaching, mentoring and succession planning rather than employee selection or clinical diagnosis.