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Editorial
Released on December 14, 2014 at 9:30 AM EDT
The
article initially published on
the
Journal of
Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 87, 258–279.
Important excerpts
and brief review of the article as follows.
Rate
Your Mayor: Politician personality, Machiavellianism, and political
skill as predictors of performance ratings in political roles
Personality
in politics
There
is a long history of interest in personality and political behaviour.
In the aftermath of World War II, early empirical work sought to
identify personality constructs associated with motivation to
achieve and retain power. Later studies focused on the relationship
between personality and political ideology, and political behaviour
in the workplace. More recently, there has been growing interest
amongst management scholars in the characteristics needed for
effective political leadership at work. Of
particular relevance here, however, are studies that have sought to
identify individual characteristics associated with successful
performance in political roles. Most of this work has focused on the
personality of significant public figures and relied on
‘at-a-distance’ methodologies to infer personality
characteristics from analysis of secondary source material such as
videos of political speeches or transcripts of interviews. For
example, researchers coded biographical material for 39 US
presidents to identify personality characteristics associated with
presidential performance, and Winter (1987, 1998) rated transcripts
of presidential campaign speeches and inaugural addresses to study
presidential motivation. Other researchers have asked observers to
rate personality traits of politicians using established measures.
But politicians are a notoriously difficult group for researchers to
access and only a handful of studies involve politician
self-ratings; most of which are concerned with politician
personality and political ideology.
Political
performance
Although
obtaining self-report data from politicians is difficult, a
potentially greater challenge for research lies in defining what
constitutes good and poor political performance. Electoral
performance has often been used as a proxy for political
performance, but this can depend more on how political parties are
performing nationally than the actions of individual candidates.
More importantly, electoral performance provides little insight into
the day-to-day role performance of elected representatives. Most
studies of employee performance address this criterion problem using
managers’ ratings but politicians are not managed and they do not
have pre-defined performance standards. As democratically elected
representatives, politicians have a legitimate right to define their
roles and what constitutes good and poor performance. Political
performance is also contested because it can be judged good, bad, or
both, depending on how different stakeholders believe the elected
representative should enact their role.
In
the absence of pre-defined performance constructs, our solution was
to investigate what local politicians conceptualize as good and poor
role performance. Researchers used role analysis to identify
behaviours and competencies associated with different areas of the
local politician role and develop self- and observer-rated
performance questionnaires. These questionnaires were then used to
capture and analyse large-N data sets, to investigate shared latent
mental constructs of performance and test hypothesized relationships
with politician personality.
Individual
characteristics and politician performance
Numerous
personal qualities have been theorized as important for political
roles. We narrowed our focus by drawing on research into predictors
of employee performance, and studies of political behaviour amongst
political elites and the general public, to identify five
characteristics likely to influence political performance:
Conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism, Machiavellianism, and
political skill.
Conscientiousness
Of
the Big Five personality traits, conscientiousness demonstrates the
most consistent and significant impact on job performance. More
conscientious individuals tend to be achievement oriented, reliable,
and likely to persevere in the face of set-backs. These qualities
are also likely to be important in political roles. For example,
politicians must be self-motivated and persistent to overcome
opposition and navigate complex ambiguous environments. Researchers
also argue that to be successful politicians need the strong sense
of duty often associated with conscientiousness. We therefore
hypothesized that conscientiousness would be positively associated
with self- and received performance ratings and, in particular, with
aspects of political roles requiring high levels of diligence,
reliability, and persistence
Extroversion
Extroverts
are more outgoing, sociable, persuasive, and energetic than
introverts and research on political engagement has also shown they
are more likely to participate in activities such as campaigning,
signing petitions, and political rallies Several researchers
theorize that extroversion is important for political performance,
because extroverts may find it easier to perform activities such as
meeting with constituents, speaking in public, and rallying
political support. One
of the researchers also identifies person-orientation (a construct
related to extroversion) as an important characteristic for
presidential success. We therefore hypothesized that extroversion
would be positively associated with self- and received performance
ratings, especially in those areas concerned with public engagement.
Neuroticism
Studies
of traditional work have shown a negative relationship between
neuroticism, performance, and leadership emergence and it seems
reasonable to theorize similar relationships in political roles,
particularly as these roles are characterized by high levels of
conflict, opposition, and interpersonal challenge. As individuals
with high neuroticism tend to be more anxious and less able to deal
effectively with conflict and criticism we predicted that
neuroticism would be negatively associated with self- and received
performance ratings in political roles and especially for aspects
concerned with coping with pressure and making decisions under
stress.
Political
skill
Defined
by researchers as ‘the
ability to effectively understand others at work and to use such
knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance one’s
personal and/or organizational objectives’, political skill is a
social effectiveness construct that varies from person to person as
a consequence of innate ability and practice. Political skill is
important for building networks, persuading others, and negotiating
consensus and has been found to predict performance ratings for
managers and career success. One might therefore expect it to be
important for political performance, although to date there have
been no studies of self-rated political skill amongst politicians.
We therefore hypothesized that political skill would be positively
associated with self- and received performance ratings, particularly
for role aspects involving persuasion and relationship building
Machiavellianism
Originally
defined as a personality disposition reflecting an individual’s
willingness to control or manipulate others. Machiavellian employees
are more likely to use deceit to influence others. Given popular
descriptions of politicians as Machiavellian, one might reasonably
predict a positive relationship between Machiavellianism and
political performance. Yet, studies have also shown that electoral
success depends on whether voters judge a candidate as having
integrity and being trustworthy, and a recent meta-analysis also
found a small negative correlation between Machiavellianism and
employee job performance. We therefore predict (counter to popular
conceptions of politicians) that Machiavellianism would be
negatively associated with received performance ratings for
politicians.
It
is not too early to rate your mayor
Editor
WikiLeaks Sudbury
December 14, 2014
Related Article
Politician
personality, Machiavellianism, and political skill as predictors of
performance ratings in political roles
Reference
Silvester, J., Wyatt, M., Randall, R.
(2014). Politician personality, Machiavellianism, and political
skill as predictors of performance ratings in political roles. Journal
of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 87,
258–279.
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