Leadership credibility.

1. LEADERSHIPCREDIBILITY
Popular Political Leadership Personalities in the Netherlands
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1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 3
2 SITUATIONAL FACTORS ........................................................................................ 3
2.1 Patterns of democracy ...................................................................................... 3
2.2 Shifting political culture ..................................................................................... 4
3 THE MAKING OF A CREDIBILITY INDEX OF POLITICAL LEADERSHIP .... 5
3.1 The Dutch Prototype: What makes a Dutch political leader credible? ...... 6
4 MILLON INVENTORY OF DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA .......................................... 7
4.1 The MIDC: an introduction ............................................................................... 7
4.2 Conceptual Framework ..................................................................................... 8
4.3 Data Collection ................................................................................................... 8
4.4 Scoring ................................................................................................................. 9
4.5 Interpretation .....................................................................................................10
4.6 MIDC Conceptual Basis for Scoring and Interpretation .............................10
5 THE PUBLIC PERSONALITY OF JAN PETER BALKENENDE .....................11
5.1 Introduction: Balkenende’s four terms as a Prime Minister ......................11
5.2 Source Materials ..............................................................................................11
6 RESULTS & INTERPRETATION .........................................................................12
6.1 Balkenende’s Dominant pattern ....................................................................12
6.2 Balkenende’s Dominant pattern: generalizations .......................................15
REFERENCIES ..........................................................................................................15

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1 INTRODUCTION
In this paper the following question will be answered:
Which leadership characteristics are required for high credibility leadership
expressed by executive politicians in the Netherlands in the first decade of the
second millennium?
Trying to understand leadership credibility requires an understanding of
leadership (A) and an understanding of the concept of credibility (B). Both
things will be established with empirical methods and discussed in this paper. In
this paper leadership credibility (B) is a combination of perceived
trustworthiness, perceived honesty and perceived competence. These are the
characteristics the Dutch want their leaders to display; the characteristics
politicians in the Netherlands need to show (real or fake, as long as they do it
realistically) in order to become a high credibility leader. That is in order to be
believed by the the public. And only if a leader is being believed by the public,
he or she will successfully realize political goals. After all, in order to remain
stable, a democracy requires a strong public belief in the countries leading
persons. The concept of credibility is thus defined as the three things (trust,
honesty, competence) the Dutch people find most important for good
leadership, which was measured in January 2009, July 2009 and January 2010
by means of a survey (N= approximately 5200).
Now in order to understand the concept of leadership, the fourth cabinet
Balkenende (2007-2010) offers sixteen interesting leadership cases: a Prime
Minister (Jan Peter Balkenende) and fifteen other Ministers (responsible for
different portfilio’s such as Finance, Education, Healthcare and so on).
Unfortunately it takes too many pages to show and discuss the credibility
patterns of all of the Ministers, so only the case of the Prime Minister will be
discussed here.
2 SITUATIONAL FACTORS
2.1 Patterns of democracy
The Dutch democracy strongly differs from the American, both in the way the
democracy was built and in the way the (political) culture influences what

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politicians do. What kind of democracy is the Dutch one? We can anatomize
democracy in several ways (see R. Dahl, 1989, Vanhanen, 1990). One of them
is the distinction between majoritarian patterns and consensus patterns. The
Dutch democracy is a classic example of a consensus democracy: executive
power-sharing traditions, broad coalition cabinets, proportional representation, a
multi-party system, interest group corporatism, decentralized government and
constitutional rigidity (Lijphart, 1999: 43-45). An example of the other kind is the
UK; a classic example of a majoritarian democracy (both on Lijpharts
executives-parties dimension and on the federal-unitary dimension). The
American democracy also has a high degree of majoritarian patterns, but
primarily on the exutives-parties dimension, which is an important determinant
of the legitimacy of power and the relation between citizens and public officials.
According to Arend Lijphart (1999: 301; 2008) “consensus democracies
demonstrate (…) kinder and gentler qualities in the following ways: they are
more likely to be welfare states; they have a better record with regard to the
protection of the environment; they put fewer people in prison and are less likely
to use the death penalty; and the consensus democracies in the developed
world are more generous with their economic assistance to the developing
nations”. Specific democratic qualities like women’s representation, political
equality, participation in elections, and proximity between government policy
and voter’s preferences are higher in consensus democracies (Lijphart, 2008:
99). Consensus patterns and majoritarian patterns are likely to ask for different
leadership styles. In a consensus democracy leadership is mostly not written
with a capital L. Leaders don’t stand alone, they govern together. The public in
the Netherlands is suspicious of capital L leadership, which is more of a cultural
pattern. Charisma is not neccesarily a good thing for a leader to display. Much
rather do the Dutch citizens see a leader who is trustworthy, honest and
competent. However, there seems to be a shift towards more appreciation for
PR-strategies from within the Ministries…
2.2 Shifting political culture
The Dutch cabinet invests millions of euro's branding the Ministries, the
governing leader and his or her policies. Among others3, the former Secretary-
General of the Dutch ministry of Finance noted that having a good

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communications director may nowadays be more important than having a good
Secretary-General, because 'image is everything' and 'appearance rules over
substance'. To Americans, this is so obvious that nobody will write about it in
these basic terms anymore. But until recently in the Netherlands (see image 1)
the significance of political image was relatively small. To decide who to vote
for, other things mattered more, like party preference, ideology and religion.
Politicians were expected to be intelligent rather than popular, experienced
rather than physically attractive, a good governor rather than a good speaker.
The average politician in the Netherlands does not have a particular talent to
speech and looks not at all attractive. Until recently, nobody really cared about
‘the outside’, as long as they did their job: govern the country properly.
3 THE MAKING OF A CREDIBILITY INDEX OF POLITICAL LEADERSHIP
Discovering more detailed patterns of likeability and believability of leaders
requires additional research. Political psychology offers a great deal of findings
on the leadership-followership relationship the Prime Minister and his citizenry
undertake. Late seventies research by Kinder, Peters, Abelson, and Fiske
(1980) showed that citizens assess leaders on the basis of earlier shaped
prototypes, which are images of what good leadership is and therefore what a
good leader should be and do. Aldrich, Gronke & Grynaviski (1999: 3) state that
“Prototypes are evaluative rulers against which presidential candidates and
presidents are measured” (see also De Vries & De Landtsheer, 2004).
Factor analysis research on presidential candidate traits shows a variety of
characteristics that play a role in candidate evaluations. Opposing Kinder et. al
(1979), Sullivan, Aldrich, Borgida and Rahn (1990) identify their own set of
personality assessment characteristics. They found three basic dimensions of
personality assessment on which candidates are evaluated: altruism versus
selfishness, strength of will versus lack of will power, and trustworthiness versus
untrustworthiness. Yet a third set of dimensions along which presidential
candidates are evaluated was found by Miller, Wattenberg and Malunchpuk
(1986): competence, integrity, reliability, charisma and personal attributes. In
the nineties researchers continue using factor analysis on existing data on voter
behavior in the U.S. They found traits like dominance and empathy (empathy
containing extraversion and charisma) (Pierce, 1993), competence and

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leadership (Rahn, Aldrich, Borgida and Sullivan, 1990; Caprara, Barbaranelli &
Zimbardo, 2002), being extravert and outgoing (Immelman, 1998, '99, 2002,
2003) and being a Teflon-personality to whom 'nothing sticks' and ‘ from whom
all hurts fall of’ (Newman, 1999). Contrary to Teflon-personalities, Velcron-
personalities never get away with a mistake. Their public missteps keep
affecting their image long after the event. These more recently found variables
are considered “logically linked to leadership suitability” according to De Vries &
De Landtsheer (2009; 6-11). They summarize their 'suitability traits' as being
outgoing versus retiring, dominant versus aggrieved, ambitious versus reticent,
accommodating versus contentious and dauntless versus conscientious. This
shows which characteristics determine voter behavior and candidate appraisal,
not what people look for in their leaders. The latter is our field of interest,
because we want to define what makes a leader credible.
The only researchers who directly measured the characteristics people admire
in a leader (a prototype), are James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. They
wrote The Leadership Challenge (2007) and High Credibility Leadership: how
leaders gain and lose it, why people demand it (1993 and 2003). They convince
their readers of the importance of credibility within any leadership relationship.
To every public figure, being credible is key considering we live in a television-
and image-dominated society. People will only give another human being
'credit' if they trust the person to do the right thing with their mandate and to
take into account the credit-giver's interest.
Credibility is about how leaders earn the trust and confidence of their
constituents. It's about what people demand of their leaders as a prerequisite to
willingly contribute to their hearts, minds, bodies and souls. It's about the
actions leaders must take in order to intensify their constituents' commitment to
a cause (Kouzes & Posner, 2003: introduction).
Following their example we decided to ask Dutch citizens directly what the
prototype of a good Dutch executive leader would be. What is it that makes the
leader credible according to Dutch citizens?
3.1 The Dutch Prototype: What makes a Dutch political leader credible?
A panel (N=5200) of Dutch citizens was asked which characteristics they
consider to be key for good leadership executed by a cabinet Minister. Twenty

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four characteristics make a list of prototypical leadership qualities drawn from
the international leadership literature. There is a strong resemblance to the
Characteristics of an Admired Leader (CAL, Kouzes and Posner 2007). We
used nineteen of twenty characteristics of Kouzes and Posner’s CAL. Five
characteristics were added because hypothetically they might of special
importance in the Dutch leadership case: trustworthy (which is an important
concept within the work of Kouzes and Posner but not one of the qualities of the
CAL); integrity (which tuns out to be the fifth quality of the Dutch leadership
prototype, Within Kouzes and Posner’s CAL it is part of the trait ‘honesty’);
dedicated (because this trait was part of the only survey question about
qualities people admire in political leaders that has been measured in the
Netherlands, by the SCP, 2005); and sympathy (because this trait is part of the
National Election Studies (NKO) in the Netherlands and might be of explanatory
value to high credibility leadership because it is often linked to
charismatic/empathic leadership). The survey panel was asked to cross five
characteristics out of the list of twenty-four. The prototype of a good Dutch
executive leader turned out to be mainly concentrated around three
characteristics: the people think Ministers need to be, above all, trustworthy,
honest and competent (see appendix 1, table 1.). We call this three-scale index
the Credbility Index of political Leadership (CIL).
4 MILLON INVENTORY OF DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA
4.1 The MIDC: an introduction
The personality of a leader as defined by Theodore Millon (1996) is thought to
influence leadership style and performance (Immelman, 1998). The question
here is: does it influence the extent to which leaders are credible (perceived
trustworthy, honest and competent), too? The Millon Inventory of Diagnostic
Criteria (MIDC), a framework with which a politician’s public personality can be
investigated, could offer deeper insight when it comes to leadership leadership
credibility.
Personality was defined by Millon (1996: 4) as “a complex pattern of deeply
embedded psychological characteristics that are largely non-conscious and not
easily altered, expressing themselves automatically in almost every facet of
functioning. Intrinsic and pervasive, these traits emerge from a complicated

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matrix of biological dispositions and experiential learning, and ultimately
comprise the individual’s distinctive pattern of perceiving, feeling, thinking,
coping, and behaving.”
4.2 Conceptual Framework
Immelman (1998, '99, 2002, 2003) and Steinberg (1999) compiled the Millon
Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), based on the DSM III and DSM IV7.
The work of Theodore Millon “provides a sound foundation for conceptualizing
and assessing political personality, classifying political personality types, and
predicting political behavior” (Immelman, 2004: 1-2). Millon’s work can be found
in many publications about personality research and personality prototypes:
Millon, 1990, 1986a, 1986b, 1991, 1994a, 1994b, 1996, 2003; Millon and Davis,
1998, 2000; Millon, Davis and Millon, 1996; Millon & Everly, 1885). Aubrey
Immelman adapted Millon’s method (1969, 1986b, 1990, 1994a, 1996; Millon &
Everly, 1985) and developed an instrument to study personality patterns of
political leaders.
The conceptual framework of the MIDC has twelve scales. Each scale has three
(scales 1A through 8) or two (scale 9 and 0) gradations, ranging from normal to
maladaptive (Immelman, 2004). In table 7 the personality patterns (scale 1A,
1B, 2, 3, 4, 5A, 5B, 6, 7, 8 and 9 and 0) and gradations (a, b, c, d and e) are
displayed. The maladaptive gradations refer to personality disorders from the
DSM-III and DSM-IV.
4.3 Data Collection
Investigating leadership personality is not easy when face-to-face methods to
diagnose one’s behavioral patterns and characteristics are not available. This is
the case when it comes to diagnosing historical figures and present day
politicians for research within the field of political psychology. Aubrey Immelman
(1993c, 1999) started looking into the possibilities of using Millon’s personality
patterns to diagnose leaders from a distance and/or from hindsight. He
developed the MIDC. This is a sophisticated method applied by means of meta
analysis (Immelman, 2004) or ‘semi-qualitative content analysis’ (De
Landtsheer et al. 2004: 81). The researcher creates an ‘assessment at a
distance’, by analyzing content written by others. Source materials can be

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biographical works, interviews with the leader or with people who have known
the leader well, either personally or professionally. Information can be found
within books, newspaper articles and –in theory– other sources too, such as the
internet, television interviews or radio performances (although Immelman does
not seem to include the non-written sources).
4.4 Scoring
The researcher diagnoses leaders (‘target persons’, Immelman: 2004) indirectly
using relevant content from biographical source materials or other data
produced by biographers, journalists, historians and political analysts
(Immelman, Manual-II-Revisited, 2004). During the coding process, in which the
researcher codes the relevant pieces of text from the biographical and other
sources, the so-called attributes are the first to be distinguished (table 8). Every
relevant quote fits attribute A, B, C, D or E: it refers to the target person’s
expressive behavior, interpersonal conduct, cognitive style, mood/temperament
or self-image.
The second step of the coding process is to distinguish one of the scales from
table X. If the quote says something about the target person’s expressive
behavior (attribute A) and refers to the target person’s respectful behavior, the
researcher might decide to code the quote as an attribute A, Scale 6
(conscientious-respectful pattern) quote.
The third step of the coding process, is the determination of the intensity with
which the leader shows to be a scale-6 leader. In other words, after determining
the attribute and the scale, the researcher needs to decide to which gradation
the pattern is present. All personality patterns “occur on a continuum ranging
from normal to maladaptive”, a being normal, b being exaggerated and c being
maladaptive. Gradation a gets one point, gradation b two points and gradation
c, being maladaptive, three points. Scale 9 and 0 are maladaptive scales from
nature. As a result, gradations a, b and c do not exist within these scales. Only
gradations d and e can be labeled on scale 9 and 0. Gradations d and e will get
4 and 5 points.
So the third and last step is to decide which gradation the quote refers to:
gradation a, b or c (or in case of scales 9 and 0, gradation d or e). After making
these three decisions, the quote can be coded as an attribute A, Scale 6,

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gradation b quote. The researcher labels the quote consequently as an A6b
quote. So quotes can be labeled A1Ba (attribute A, Scale 1B, gradation a),
B5Ac (attribute B, Scale 5A, gradation c), E4b (attribute E, Scale 4, gradation b)
and so on. In total, there are 170 combinations, referred to by Immelman as
alphanumerical codes or ‘Diagnostic Criteria’. Within his manual, Immelman
(2004) provides 170 different words to typify the diagnostic criteria. See for an
example of a score sheet the one of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende in
table 12.
4.5 Interpretation
After data collection, scoring and a double check executed by an experience
psychologist, it is time to start interpreting the outcome. Which scales get the
highest scores and what is the gradation of the target person’s scores? Some
patterns will be present in gradation a (‘present’), some in gradation b
(‘prominent’), c (‘mildly dysfunctional’), d or e (disturbed).
4.6 MIDC Conceptual Basis for Scoring and Interpretation
Findings showing up from the source materials are considered “logically linked
to leadership suitability” according to De Vries & De Landtsheer (2009; 6-11).
Immelman (Manual-II-Revisited, 2004: 1) refers to Simonton, who states that
this method in which researchers abstract personality traits from pieces of text
about the leader written by others, is valid: “secondary sources can offer the
basis for personality assessments as well” (Simonton, 1986: 150, see also
1988). Etheridge (1978) and Simonton (1986, 1988) offered a foundation for
Immelman’s work by proving that by extracting personality traits from biographic
data can offer insight concerning the relationship between leadership
personality and (the success of/ quality of) political leadership.
After data collection, scoring and interpreting the results, the researcher
explores the implications of a leader’s personality on his or her leadership style,
political decision-making, cooperation with others, a leader’s success and even
future behavior.
In this paper the focus is on the implications of a leader’s personality on his or
her public credibility. Immelman (2004) and others have shown that personality
explains presidential style, performance and policy preferences. Millon (1994a,

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1996; Millon & Davis, 2000), Oldham and Morris (1995), and Strack (1997)
provided theoretically grounded narrative descriptions of personality patterns
which can be helpful for the interpretation of the data. Other researchers (e.g.,
Barber, 1992; Etheredge, 1978; Hermann, 1987; Renshon, 1996b; Simonton,
1988) show more concrete implications of personality patterns and the way they
correlate with the patterns of Millon’s MIDC.
5 THE PUBLIC PERSONALITY OF JAN PETER BALKENENDE
5.1 Introduction: Balkenende’s four terms as a Prime Minister
Balkenende has led the Dutch government from the world famous elections of
2002 untill the cabinet resigned in February 2010. In many respects 2002 was
an interesting year. Balkenende’s main competitor Pim Fortuyn, a more right-
wing politician whose popularity skyrocketed right before the elections, was
assassinated. Balkenende led the cabinet through the first decade of the
second millennium, which politically, socially, economically and in many other
ways was an interesting period of time.
Internationally, there was 9-11 and the war against terrorism. Nationally there
was a lot going on concerning the integration topic: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a female
Dutch-Somali politician politically criticized the Islam and got sent away from
politics in 2005 because she had lied about her naturalisation while entering the
country in the nineties. There was opinionist Theo Van Gogh who was killed by
a young Muslim man after producing a critical movie about the Islam.
Balkenende was the Prime Minister during these and many other challenging
political happenings and circumstances. Who is this man with the old-fashioned
hairdo and Harry Potter-glasses, how did he make it into being a government
leader? And the central question of this chapter: what was the effect of his
personality on his public credibility?
the Dutch were never particularly fond of Balkenende. It seems that he was the
best leader out of other alternatives that were considered to be worse. But he
outlasted many predecessors by remaining seated for eight years. Aside from
the obvious, there must be things that make him credible.
5.2 Source Materials

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22 articles contained enough evidence to draw a grounded personality profile of
Jan Peter Balkenende. Over one hundred articles published between 2006 and
2009 were read and the most relevant 22 were selected for the MIDC coding
process as described by Immelman (2004). This resulted in over two hundred
relevant quotes. From these articles, 433 codes were given to the quotes, which
means 433 times an MIDC criterion was identified (on average, each quote was
coded approximately two times). The articles were written by 22 different
journalists and researchers who gathered quotes from (former) co-workers,
friends, old school mates, fellow governors, politicians and family members of
the Prime Minister. As an extra check, the 70 articles not selected as MIDC
source materials were extensively analyzed in order to make sure that all the
relevant MIDC criteria were scored. From this process nothing new showed up:
the Prime Minister’s profile remained the same. Additional research confirmed
most of the the personality profile extracted from the 22 selected sources. A few
criteria appeared to be not significantly present within Balkenende’s personality,
so they were removed from the score sheet. A few adjustments were made
after an extended check executed by an experienced psychologist10 and the
discussions that followed from this check.
6 RESULTS & INTERPRETATION
Jan Peter Balkenende has dominant, ambitious and conscientious patterns.
Table 11 shows the Personality Profile of Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter
Balkenende, based on source materials written between 2006 and 2010. The
score sheet in table 12 shows these and a few other personality patterns
present within Balkenende’s expressive behavior, interpersonal conduct,
cognitive style, moods and self-image (attribute A through E).
6.1 Balkenende’s Dominant pattern
Balkenende first and foremost has a dominant political personality (25 raw
points makes 24.8 % of Balkenende’s full profile). This is partly due to the fact
that he is the Prime Minister and dominating behavior comes with the job. The
source materials show that he is the leader of the cabinet, so everyone naturally
expects him to show certain dominant behavior in leading the cabinet and
during tv-performances. Many people see him as the leader of the nation, so

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whenever there is a public problem, they want the Prime Minister to solve it or
to have it solved by his cabinet. The power and authority people expect the
Prime Minister to display depends on their view on leadership and government.
But despite the differences between people, everybody wants the Prime
Minister to solve problems - although citizens disagree strongly on which
problems that would be - and to lead the country into the right direction. So in
order to do a proper job, Balkenende needs to display a certain amount of
dominant behavior. This he certainly does, as is shown with the MIDC results.
But besides the fact that his job requires him to be dominant, Balkenende really
seems to have a dominant personality. A quarter of Balkenende’s character is
determined by dominant patterns, so there is robust evidence for a level III
personality type. Immelman (2004:16) says about people who score more than
24 points on one of the scales between 1A and 8 (for scales 9 and 0 there is a
different approach):
Identification of a criterion at both the second (scored 2 points) and third
(scored 3 points) levels in all five attribute domains of a given personality
pattern (i.e., 25 points), or identification of a criterion in any four of the five
attribute domains at all three levels (scored 1, 2, and 3 points) of a given
personality pattern (i.e., 24 points), provides quite convincing evidence for the
existence of a maladaptively exaggerated or distorted variant of the personality
pattern associated with those criteria.
Balkenende’s profile lacks only one criterion in order to be called “maladaptively
exaggerated”. In other words, Balkenende’s dominance might be slightly
maladaptive and possibly causes problems to himself and/or others. Each
criterion of the dominant pattern that was found to be present within his profile
will be discussed below. This will create a better understanding of the Prime
Minister’s personality. Such an analysis can explain why he behaves the way he
does, how he is reviewed by others and why. Hopefully it will give some insight
into his role as the leader of a new millennium Dutch cabinet and the way he is
perceived by the public. Could an MIDC personality analysis explain the extent
to which a leader is credible?
Each diagnostic criterion will be discussed below. Balkenende is dominant
within attribute A: expressive behavior (which might explain credibility

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shortcomings), B: interpersonal conduct, C: cognitive style, D:
mood/temperament and E: self-image.
Attribute A. Expressive behavior. Balkenende expresses dominant behavior to
two out of the three gradations: he can be commanding (a) and forceful (b).
There was not enough evidence to score the gradation c criterion: Balkenende
is not aggressive.
Attribute E: Self-Image. From the way he presents himself through mass media,
it is clear that Balkenende considers himself assertive, competitive and powerful
(scale 1A, gradations a, b and c). The Dutch newspaper Het Parool shows that
“Balkenende claims to have dragged the Netherlands out of an economic
recession, thanks to a conservative and efficient financial approach”34, which
reflects a dominant self-image: first he shows to be assertive (gradation a) by
claiming his success. Second, he shows to be competitive (gradation b) by
showing that he has done what other Prime Ministers could not do. And third,
he shows to have a self-image of being powerful by claiming that the recovery
of the economy was because of his leadership. The question is, however: is this
really Balkenende’s self-image or is this political behavior based on a
communication strategy? Without a doubt, the latter is true anyway. Anything
about Balkenende that shows up in a newspaper or book will be a result of
some kind of (political or communicative) strategy. But how does Balkenende
really perceive himself?
The source materials show a lot of dominant behavior, mixed with ambitious
characteristics. Balkenende is confident, conceited and sometimes even
somewhat arrogant (scale 2, gradations a, b and c).
As more diagnostic criteria are discussed, It will become clear that
Balkenende’s self-image is likely to be assertive (1Aa), competitive (1Ab) and
powerful (1Ac), as is also shown by these quotes: “I’m done with the negativity.
(…) Internationally we [the Dutch] are performing great. Unemployment is
historically low and the Dutch income is one of the highest of all European
national incomes. Besides, people are satisfied with healthcare and other public
services” and “I have gone through a lot in the last ten years. Bad polls and
worse reviews. My last cabinet also had a hard time, but finally in 2006 we
received public confirmation of the good work. There is a reason I have won
three elections in a row. I consider that appreciation. Look at Mrs. Verdonk. She

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gets good polling results but that gives her no guarantee to win elections
whatsoever Balkenende’s personality shows 24.9 % dominance. 36.7 % of his
personality exists of Ambitious (scale 2, 14.8 %) and Conscientious (scale 6,
21.9 %) patterns.
6.2 Balkenende’s Dominant pattern: generalizations
Scale 1A, the dominant pattern, refers to individuals who are asserting and
controlling, but can be somewhat aggressive. Immelman (2004) says the
following about personalities with dominant patterns:
The Dominant pattern, as do all personality patterns, occurs on a continuum
ranging from normal to maladaptive. At the well-adjusted pole are strong-willed,
commanding, assertive personalities. Slightly exaggerated Dominant features
occur in forceful, intimidating, controlling personalities. In its most deeply
ingrained, inflexible form, the Dominant pattern displays itself in domineering,
belligerent, aggressive behavior patterns that may be consistent with a clinical
diagnosis of sadistic personality disorder. (Immelman, 2004: 18)
Immelman (2004) shows that adaptive variants of the Dominant pattern are
similar to the aggressive style (Oldham and Morris, 1995), the forceful style
(Strack, 1997), the controlling pattern (Millon, 1994a) and the ‘managerial
segment’ of the managerial–autocratic continuum (Leary, 1957). Research
shows that people with the Millon’s controlling pattern are likely to show the
conscientious factor as described in the five-factor model. Individuals who
display controlling behavior (see Millon, 1994a) are likely to be extravert as well,
but the correlation is less significant. The factors Neuroticism and
Agreeableness however are negatively correlated to Millon’s controlling pattern
(Millon 1994a: 82). There is no correlation between the controlling pattern and
the openness to experience factor of the five factor model (see Millon, 1994a:
82).
Simonton (1988) calls individuals like Balkenende, with an elevated dominant
pattern (scale 1A: 25 points), a contentious pattern (scale 5B: 5 points) and a
conscientious pattern (scale 6: 22 points) leaders with a ‘deliberative
presidential style’.
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