Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

Publication Date

9-9-1977

Abstract

The central aim of this study was to determine whether a relationship exists between leader personality structure (as measured by Fiedler's LPC instrument) and manipulative behavior (as measured by Christie's and Geis's Machiavellian V scale). A major thesis of this study was that since both manipulation and leadership are concerned with attempts to influence the behavior of others, those in leadership positions must be regularly engaged in manipulative behavior. While the study of manipulative kills of leaders may have strong implications for organizational effectiveness, this study was concerned neither with effectiveness of the group per se nor with performance of the high or low Mach leaders who score high or low on the LPC (Least Preferred Coworker) scale. Rather, the intent was to determine what the correlations are between the scores of leaders on both the LPC and the Mach V scales and thus to establish the relationships between high Mach and low LPC leaders; between high LPC and low Mach leaders. A number of the questions to which answers were sought in this study may be stated as follows: Does the motivational structure (LPC) of the effective leader correspond in any meaningful way to the manipulative behavior of leaders as measured on the Mach V scale? What is the relationship between the measure of leader effectiveness (LPC model) and the measure of leader analytic orientation (Machiavellian model)? Both of these questions are related, since they are concerned basically with a leader's manipulative inclinations in a given leadership setting. The sample comprised of 24 department heads (including four divisional directors) and was drawn from the academic departments of three institutions of higher learning in New Mexico. Subjects were asked to complete two instruments-­Fiedler's LPC scale and the Mach V scale developed by Christie and Geis (1970). The two instruments and their underlying theoretical formulations constitute at large the conceptual basis for this study. A major hypothesis of this study was that there will be a significant negative correlation between the scores on the LPC scale and the scores on the Mach V scale. Two corollary hypotheses were also tested: (1a) for those leaders who score low on the LPC scale, there will be a negative relationship between their LPC scores and their scores on the Mach V scale; (1b) for those leaders who score high on the LPC scale, there will be a negative relationship between their LPC scores and their Mach V scores. The main hypothesis, as well as the corollary hypothesis - 1a, was supported at the .05 level of significance. The corollary hypothesis - 1b, however, was not confirmed. A four-cell matrix analysis was conducted with the scores from both scales. This analysis showed 16 of the 24 subjects (72 percent of the total sample) falling in the lower left and the upper right cells, both of which support the hypotheses. Seven subjects (28 percent of the total sample) fell in the upper left and lower right cells, thus opposing the hypotheses. One of the subjects could not be categorized as to high or low Mach because his score fell precisely at the mean; he was therefore not considered in the analysis. The scores on two Mach V subscales (Views and Tactics) were correlated with those on the LPC scale. The Views subscale discriminated between the low and the high LPC leaders, as indicated by a significant coefficient of -.59. The Tactics subscale, however, failed to yield any significant coefficient (-.10). This finding seems to indicate that the variables measured on the Views subscale are very similar to those measured on the LPC scale. The variables measured on the Tactics subscale, on the contrary, showed very little relation to the LPC items. Although the mean LPC and the mean Mach scores for female subjects (62.5 and 102 respectively) were slightly higher than the grand means (55.33 : LPC; 99 : Mach), sex as a variable had no significant impact on the distributions from both scales. Also, neither age nor number of years as heads of departments significantly affected the distributions. On the whole, the data from this study have established a definite relationship between Fiedler's LPC model and the Machiavellian model developed by Christie and Geis. Fiedler (1967) states that low LPC leader will be effective in both favorable and unfavorable situations. On the basis of the significant correlation for the low LPC and high Mach leaders in this study, it can be expected that high Mach leaders, like low LPC leaders, will be effective in both favorable and unfavorable situations. The significant coefficient (-.37) for the grand total correlation also seems to indicate that low Mach leaders, like high LPC leaders, would perform well in a situation of intermediate favorableness.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Educational Leadership

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy

First Committee Member (Chair)

Ronald Eugene Blood

Second Committee Member

Richard Lee Holemon

Third Committee Member

Horacio Ulibarri

Fourth Committee Member

Howard Vivian Finston

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