Abstract
The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the relationship between personality type and
leadership focus. Personality type is studied from the perspective of Jungian Theory and the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator instrument, and leadership focus is explored through the development
and application of a Leadership Focus Questionnaire. South African executives form the target
population for this research.
The overall research problem concerns how best to address the challenges of optimising focus and
managing risk that is inherent in strategic leadership. Both functionalist and interpretive
approaches were applied to produce a rounded understanding of what constitutes leadership
focus. The application of a functionalist approach resulted in three primary theoretical hypotheses
being derived from the literature, namely, that leadership focus is a function of (1) optimising the
balance of focus between external and internal priorities, (2) the fit between the leadership
personality type and the organisation type, and (3) the capacity to manage a multiple focus. The
interpretation of the responses from the sample of executives participating in the research study
yielded a related set of first and second order factors relating to leadership focus that revolve
around the level of comfort experienced by executives in managing focus in the leadership role.
The approach to this research was one of methodological triangulation. A survey-based
methodology was employed, containing both quantitative and qualitative questions. The results of
the quantitative analysis of the relationship between personality type and leadership focus were
contrasted and extended by a qualitative content analysis of the qualitative survey responses. The
propositions were tested on a sample of South African executives attending management
development programmes run by Wits Business School, University of Witwatersrand, in both
Johannesburg and Cape Town.
The findings show that Extraverted personality types are more comfortable with the challenges of
focus in the leadership role than are Introverted types. In addition, Extraverted, Sensing, Thinking
and Judging types experience a greater degree of fit with their organisations than do Introverted,
Intuitive, Feeling and Perceiving types. The implications are that in a business environment of
ongoing change, market innovation and increasing stakeholder expectations, organisation leaders
of all personality types need to develop a greater consciousness of their preferred and less
preferred behaviours, and a greater ability to complement their preferred leadership behaviours
with less preferred behaviours when necessary, to optimise their leadership focus over time.
Dr. Loius Carstens