Assessing Leadership Style: Trait Analysis

475 Pages·2003·3.93 MB·English

"Post is a pioneer in the field of political-personality profiling."
—Jane Mayer, The New Yorker
THE P S Y C H O L O G I C AL A S S E S S M E NT
OF P O L I T I C AL L E A D E RS
With Profiles of
Saddam Bill
Hussein Clinton
Edited by Jerrold M. Post, M.D.
THE
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT
OF POLITICAL LEADERS
With Profiles of
SADDAM HUSSEIN AND BILL CLINTON
Edited by Jerrold M. Post, MD
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS
Ann Arbor
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2003
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America by
The University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
© Printed on acid-free paper
2006 2005 2004 2003 4 3 21
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or
otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
A OP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The psychological assessment of political leaders : with profiles
of Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton / edited byjerrold M. Post.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-472-09838-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
i. Political leadership—Psychological aspects.
2. Politicians—Psychology. 3. Heads of state—Psychology.
4. Hussein, Saddam, 1937—Psychology. 5. Clinton, Bill, 1946—
Psychology. I. Post, Jerrold M.
JC330.3 .P79 2003
32o'.oi'9—dc2i 2002153616
To Alexander George, a dear friend
and admired mentor, whose gentle wisdom
and clarity of vision have illuminated
the path for so many.

Contents
Preface Jerrold M. Post xi
1. Profiling Political Leaders: An Introduction
Jerrold M. Post, Stephen G. Walker,
and David G. Winter i
Part I. Leader Personality Assessment in Government
and Academia
2. Assessing Leaders' Personalities: A Historical Survey
of Academic Research Studies David G. Winter 11
3. Leader Personality Assessments in Support of
Government Policy Jerrold M. Post 39
Part II. Methods for Assessing Leader Personalities:
An Introduction
The Search for Causal Mechanisms
Stephen G. Walker and Jerrold M. Post 63
A. Integrated Personality Study
4. Assessing Leaders at a Distance: The Political
Personality Profile Jerrold M. Post 69
5. Psychoanalytic Assessments of Character and
Performance in Presidents and Candidates: Some
Observations on Theory and Method
Stanley A. Renshon 105
Contents
B. Trait Analyses
6. Verbal Behavior and Personality Assessment
Walter Weintraub 137
7. Measuring the Motives of Political Actors
at a Distance David G. Winter 153
8. Assessing Leadership Style: Trait Analysis
Margaret G. Hermann 178
C. Cognitive Analyses
9. Profiling the Operational Codes of Political Leaders
Stephen G. Walker, Mark Schafer,
and Michael D. Young 215
10. Assessing Integrative Complexity at a Distance:
Archival Analyses of Thinking and Decision Making
Peter Suedfeld, Karen Guttieri, and Philip E. Tetlock 246
Part III. Applications: William Jefferson Clinton and
Saddam Hussein—An Introduction
The Construction of Causal Stories about Political Leaders
jerrold M. Post and Stephen G. Walker 271
A. William Jefferson Clinton
11. William Jefferson Clinton's Psychology
Stanley A. Renshon 277
12. William Jefferson Clinton: Personality Traits and
Motivational Biases 303
General Personality Traits and Ego Defense
Walter Weintraub 303
Motivations and Mediation of Self-Other
Relationships David G. Winter 306
13. William Jefferson Clinton's Leadership Style
Margaret G. Hermann 313
Contents
14. William Jefferson Clinton: Beliefs and
Integrative Complexity 324
Operational Code Beliefs and Object Appraisal
Stephen G. Walker, Mark Schafer,
and Michael D. Young 324
President Clinton: Cognitive Manager in Trouble
Peter Suedfeld and Philip E. Tetlock 328
B. Saddam Hussein
15. Saddam Hussein of Iraq: A Political
Psychology Profile Jerrold M. Post 335
16. Saddam Hussein: Personality Traits and
Motivational Biases 367
General Personality Traits and Ego Defenses
Walter Weintraub 367
Motivations and Mediation of Self-Other Relationships
David G. Winter 370
17. Saddam Hussein's Leadership Style
Margaret G. Hermann 375
18. Saddam Hussein: Beliefs and Integrative Complexity 387
Operational Code Beliefs and Object Appraisal
Stephen G. Walker, Mark Schafer,
and Michael D. Young 387
Saddam Hussein's Integrative Complexity under Stress
Peter Suedfeld 391
Part IV. Conclusion
19. Assessing Political Leaders in Theory and in Practice
Jerrold M. Post and Stephen G. Walker 399
References 413
Contributors 443
Index 447

Preface
Jerrold M. Post
With the wisdom of hindsight, many of life's most consequential
decisions are often a matter of happenstance. In the spring of 1965,1
was in Washington, DC, completing my second year as a Clinical
Associate of the National Institute of Mental Health before I was to
return to Boston for a planned career in academic psychiatry, when a
friend from medical school approached me to discuss "an unusual job
opportunity." Despite having secured a position on the faculty of
Harvard Medical School, I could not resist this provocative invita-
tion. We met for lunch, and he offered me the opportunity to
develop a pilot program for assessing at a distance the personality
and political behavior of foreign leaders for senior U.S. government
officials. A service of common concern, the unit would be adminis-
tratively based in the Central Intelligence Agency. I thought it
would be an interesting divertissement and decided to delay for two
years my entering the groves of academe.
In what was to be a marvelous intellectual odyssey, the planned
two-year diversion lasted twenty-one years. On assuming my posi-
tion at the Central Intelligence Agency, it was immediately clear
that my training in clinical psychiatry, while useful, was clearly
insufficient for the complex and daunting requirements of the chal-
lenging task ahead. The clinical case study was designed to establish
a diagnosis in a patient suffering with mental illness, but the large
majority of political leaders are psychologically normal. Indeed,
severe mental illness would be incompatible with sustained leader-
ship. Yet political leaders from different political cultures differ pro-
foundly, and understanding those differences would be of ines-