Personality traits of a successful Maverick Leader

There’s something mysterious and alluring about the concept of personality that often draws us into self-reflection and wonderment. It is our hopeful search for enlightenment that draws millions of people to take personality tests, and what they find, they swear by it or swear off it.

Personality tests have always been polarising,?especially when we consider that we will still assess and act upon someone’s perceived ‘personality’, even when we don’t know their detailed personality test results. Thankfully, there are other ways of looking at personality, that don’t require personality tests.?

After all?Dictionary.com?gives us no less than 9 definitions of personality and only one definition refers to the traits that are partially discovered by personality tests. This is the psychology definition:

• the sum total of the physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual.
• the organised pattern of behavioural characteristics of the individual

Like most people I have been fascinated by the concept of ‘personality’, in particular the study of Maverick personality, which considers ‘personality’ in its?broadest definition, not just the personality traits that are captured by test results, and how it relates to leadership. (Check out my book?The Maverick Paradox: The Secret Power Behind Successful Leaders?for further information).

The big five?personality traits

Personality traits reflect people’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Trait theory in psychology rests on the idea that people differ from one another based on the strength and intensity of basic trait dimensions. There are three criteria that characterise personality traits: (1) consistency, (2) stability, and (3) individual differences.(Maricopa Community Colleges).

The most popular personality theory is the ‘Big 5 Personality traits’ (Wikipedia):

1. Openness to experience?(inventive/curious vs consistent/cautious)
2. Conscientiousness?(efficient/organised vs easy-going/careless)
3. Extraversion?(outgoing/energetic vs solitary/reserved)
4. Agreeableness?(friendly/compassionate vs analytical/detached)
5. Emotional stability?(secure/confident vs sensitive/nervous)

If there are no strong preferences in all of the five dimensions, then an individual’s personality can be viewed in one of two ways:

1. Adaptable, moderate, reasonable
2. Unprincipled, inscrutable, calculating

Successful Maverick Leaders tend to have strong preferences, although on tests?their personality (which is more than personality traits) may be masked due to the modifying way they apply??Maverick Leadership principles. Their personality is more than their behavioural traits.

The Big 5 Personality Traits theory is the most scientifically validated and reliable model to measure personality traits.

Therefore, I will use its categories to explain the personality traits of Maverick Leaders. When considering the Maverick Leader’s personality traits, we can see that Maverick Leaders score highly in the ‘openness to experience’ trait. This usually demonstrates that Maverick Leaders are likely to be?more creative, curious, and aware of their feelings than other people.

They are more likely to hold?unconventional beliefs or ideas and prefer novelty over routine.?Maverick Leaders dislike any routine determined by others and are always searching for new challenges. If unchallenged at work, a Maverick Leader will disengage with their organisation, withdraw their effort, and look for challenges elsewhere. Eventually the unchallenged and bored Maverick Leader will leave the organisation.

However, the Maverick Leader’s insistence in forever pushing past their comfort zone and those that they lead, can have surprising and fruitful consequences for their organisation and should be embraced and encouraged amongst the workforce.

The personality trait ‘conscientiousness’ in this context relates to the tendency to?strive for achievement, to be self-disciplined, organised and determined.?It is worth noting that the Maverick Leader will always measure themselves against their own measures and standards and no one else’s.

They are internally motivated and as such the ‘carrot and stick’ approach will garner disrespect and disengagement. With more Maverick Leaders entering the workplace, understanding how to lead them will be critical to an organisation’s success.

Successful Maverick Leaders are highly determined to get their own way, and will consider other’s feelings, wants and desires and do their best to accommodate them whilst ensuring that their own goals are met.?Maverick Leaders will value getting along with others and cooperating rather than competing, although on the ‘agreeableness’ scale this could be misread as ‘eager to please’ which would be a fallacy. Their preference is to cooperate rather than compete, rather than a desire to concede to avoid conflict.

Maverick Leaders can be highly competitive, but will hide this competitive streak if it means that it makes it easier for others to cooperate with them and be more easily influenced. One of the peculiarities of the British people is that they do not like to see and are?indeed suspicious of overt competitiveness.

British Maverick Leaders have therefore?learnt to adapt?and often hide their competitive nature to increase their level of success and influence, another example of masking that might skew personality test scores.

Maverick Leaders tend to have high ‘Emotional Stability’, which in this context means that they tend to be?calm in tense situations and rarely lose confidence in their own ability or control of the situation.?Maverick Leaders tend to be carefree and optimistic and have a high tolerance for stress.

There’s something mysterious and alluring about the concept of personality that often draws us into self-reflection and wonderment. It is our hopeful search for enlightenment in ourselves and others that can fuel improved leadership capability.?

As aspiring and influential Maverick Leaders we need to have a healthy understanding of what personality is, how it is formed and demonstrated, as well as its malleability. Only then will we be able to utilise it to become more effective Maverick Leaders.

Footnote

This article includes extracts from?– The Maverick Paradox: The Secret Power Behind Successful Leaders

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Judith Germain?is the founder and principal consultant of?The Maverick Paradox,?a leadership consultancy that utilises Maverick Leadership principles to enable business owners, leaders, the C-Suite, and organisations, thrive in complex, constantly changing environments by improving their diversity of thought, impact, influence and leadership capability.?

She is the leading authority on Maverick Leadership, an author, C-Suite and CEO Mentor, consultant, trainer, and speaker. Judith is a Brainz 500 Global honouree, recognised as one of 500 Companies and Influential Leaders who are recognised for their entrepreneurial success, achievements, and dedication to helping others.

Full bio and enquiries on how to hire Judith at?maverickparadox.co.uk