Self-leadership and Personality and/or Individual Values - Essay Example

Alternative and contradictory propositions from various other researches related to this concept are also studied. The correlation between self-leadership and personality and/or individual values has been extensively explored, debated on and analyzed by researchers from the fields of psychology, management, sociology as well as history and political sciences. Literature produced by psychologists and management specialists will be reviewed in the present context. Individual attributes with respect to self-leadership refer to norms, beliefs, goals, affiliations, and needs; individual personality refers to attitude, behavior, traits etc.

Houghton et al (2004) conducted extensive research on the impact of personality on self-leadership, which established strong correlation between personality traits and self-leadership. This extensive study throws light on almost every conceivable aspect of self-leadership and the related practical aspects of personality traits that shape the individual’s leadership of the self. . Houghton et al (2004) quote other authors (Turner et al, 1982) that believed personality traits and self-leadership were unrelated; and that self-leadership is a unique concept.

However, this seminal work reinforced the relationship between self-leadership and personality traits. Porter and Lawler’s (1968) elaboration of Vroom’s (1964) Expectancy Theory of Motivation on individual’s behavior suggests that individual’s effort is most of the times determined to a great extent by the commensurate expectations as to whether an outcome could be attained and the overall magnitude of value that the individual’s mind places on the achievement of that outcome (Isaac, Zerbe & Pitt, 2001, p.214). This suggestion provides sufficient bases to ascertain that self-leadership and individual values and personality are related.

Keeping this notion in mind, various researches will be studied and analyzed in order to understand different perspectives that have been framed on this concept. Houghton et al’s (2004) research explored the relation between self-leadership and personality traits while differentiating between self-leadership dimensions and personality dimensions. Through their research, Houghton et al (2004) found that there exists a correlation between an individual’s self leadership tendencies and one’s personality configurations and that a person’s expressions of the varied aspects of self leadership do tend to be the actual behavioral manifestations of one’s personality traits.

However, this research also established a point to debate that the relationship between self-leadership and personality traits is positive only if the individual was never exposed to self-leadership activities; however, the same cannot be true if the