Personality, Political Leadership, and Decision Making: A Global Perspective

This psychological study dissects the characteristics of 20 world leaders―both men and women―profiling the factors that formed their personalities and revealing how certain traits have shaped their political decisions.

Many wonder what it takes to be a leader. Is it a natural or learned set of skills? This book examines the personalities of a selected group of political leaders, analyzes the forces that formed their nature―most notably their leadership tendencies―and then demonstrates how character has shaped important political decisions made during their regime. The authors profile 20 different leaders from across five continents, deriving shared personality traits and defining specific leadership styles based on characteristics and circumstances.

The work begins by introducing the field of political psychology and explaining the theoretical framework used in studying the leadership personalities covered in the book. An analysis of leadership across the world considers several types of regimes: authoritarian leaders in non-democratic and democratic societies, authoritarian mixed types, flexible and pragmatic types, and those who combine flexibility with delegation. The text concludes by comparing leaders across time and location, discussing interaction between specific heads of state. Leaders profiled include Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, Saddam Hussein, Václav Havel, Angela Merkel, and Emperor Hirohito, among others.

Jean Krasno is a tenured member of the faculty in the department of political science at the City College of New York (CCNY) and a lecturer and associate research scientist at Yale University.

Sean LaPides is a researcher and writer with the Research Foundation-CUNY. Formerly, he was research coordinator for the Kofi Annan papers project.