The Hidden Key Personality Traits of Effective Leadership in China

Effective leadership is essential for organizational development; however, it has been insufficiently examined in China. Thus, we explore what constitutes effective leadership in China by identifying the personality traits necessary for practicing effective leadership behaviors and developing an empirically-based personality trait framework. In-depth interviews were conducted with 132 executives identifying the initial item pool. Data were collected from 432 respondents and exploratory factor analysis was conducted to explore a possible model structure. Further data were collected from 513 respondents and confirmatory factor analysis was performed to assess the convergent and discriminant validities of the proposed model. A personality trait framework to practice effective leadership comprising 12 factors and 40 sub-items was developed. The findings expand our understanding of effective leadership in China by discovering individual characteristics; they offer an efficient benchmarking for assessing the discerning personality traits for effective leadership behaviors, and significant implications for Chinese leadership development practices.