Correlations of Ellis' irrational ideas, Fielder's Least Preferred Co-worker measure, and biographical data on senior ROTC cadets

Abstract

Leadership has long invited explorations into the vagaries of its nature. Albert Ellis describes eight characteristics common to all leaders, each of which can be disrupted or negated by ones proneness to upset oneself through blaming or demanding tendencies. The anxiety and hostility individuals generate often undermine positive efforts by interfering with the concentration necessary to gain the requisite knowledge and skill to excel in their chosen fields. These immature, self defeating reactions stem, in part, from the individuals' subscription to and perpetuation of one or more irrational ideas. Fred Fiedler, in his Contingency Model of Leadership, postulates that the effectiveness of the performance of interacting groups is dependent upon an appropriate match between the personality attributes of the leader as they affect his motivational structure, and the degree to which he controls the situation and influences the group. The leader's motivational structure as measured by the Least Preferred Co-worker or LPC measure, reflects his primary concern in the leadership situation as inferred from his description of his least preferred co-worker, as either "task-oriented" or "relationship-oriented". Situation favorableness is assessed over the dimensions of Leader-Member Relations, Task-Structure, and Position Power. The model holds that task-oriented leaders function best in situations which are either relatively favorable or unfavorable, while relationship oriented leaders function best in situations intermediate in situation favorableness. In another approach to predicting leadership ability, William Owens, and Donna and James Rawls have investigated the use of biographical information (biodata). Such divergent sources as background and family relations, personal habits and attitudes, and peer and social attitudes have showed the capacity to differentiate the more successful from the less successful leader. Further, not only are factors from the college and high school years capable of predicting leadership ability, but those elicited as early as grade school are useful as predictors of leadership success of adults. This study sought to integrate Fiedler's Contingency Model and Ellis' Rational Emotive Theory and elicit biodata predictors of leadership success. A correlational approach tested seven specific hypotheses and explored secondary relationships.