Are we equally good at self-leadership? : the analysis of the relationship between personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion and self-leadership with a moderating role of self-efficacy

Are we equally good at self-leadership?

The analysis of the relationship between personality traits: openness to

experience, conscientiousness, extraversion and self-leadership

with a moderating role of self-efficacy

Amsterdam, 29 June 2015

Olga Kowalska 10449639

Supervisor: Dr. Merlijn Venus

Thesis seminar Business studies

Academic year: 2014/2015

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Statement of Originality

This document is written by Student Olga Kowalska who declares to take full responsibility for

the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is

original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been

used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the

supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Foreword

This thesis concludes three wonderful years of my education at the University of Amsterdam and is a symbolical finish line of the route towards a goal of accomplishing the Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration. I feel extremely happy that I was able to get so far in my academic career. At the same time, I am really looking forward to go further on this educational path and strive to achieve more and have ambition to reach higher. However, as they as: “Life is not about the destination, but more about the journey”. I fully agree with that and therefore, I feel happy and blessed for having these three years of intense work, challenges, achievements, growth and abundance of opportunities to learn, both about the world and about myself. These years greatly contributed to my personal development and helped me realize my strengths and overcome my weaknesses and were unforgettable time and precious experience.

I could have not achieved it all without great people around me. First of all, I would like thank my supervisor, Dr. Merlijn Venus, for his support in choosing the research topic, all the guidance, suggestions and valuable feedback. I am really glad I had such a great supervisor. Moreover, I would like to say thank you to all my friends, who offered me their help throughout these years, helped me in data collection and with whom I had amazing time in breaks of working on this thesis.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their support, patience, understanding and help, and the fact that they always believe in me and constantly show me their love and commitment. I would like to thank my Mum, Beata, who is my greatest friend, my role model, my inspiration and who showed me how to be a strong and brave woman. I would like to thank my Dad, Otto, for being such a lovely father, who always shows his interested in what I am doing, encourages me and cheers me up every day. I love you both very much and thank you for everything you do for me!

I hope you will enjoy reading my thesis!

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Abstract

Despite the growing importance of self-leadership in the contemporary work context, we know very little about what makes person a good self-leader. The current research indicates the role of personality in the self-leadership behaviors, but the nature of such a relationship has not been clarified yet. This research investigates the influence of personality traits: extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience on behaviour-focused, natural reward and constructive thought pattern strategies of self-leadership, as well as the moderating role of core self-evaluations. To test the hypotheses, I surveyed 139 individuals with different age, nationality and work experience. Results indicated that openness to experience is related to all self-leadership facets, conscientiousness to behaviour-focused strategies and extraversion is not related to any of the separate self-leadership facets. Contrary to expectations, I have not found any evidence of the moderating role of core-self evaluations. While personality is to some extended related to self-leadership, it seems not to be a determinant factor. The implications of these findings for self- leadership theory are discussed.

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Table of contents

Statement of Originality ... 2

Foreword ... 3

Abstract... 4

1. Introduction ... 6

2. Theoretical framework ... 8

2.1. Self-leadership ... 8

2.1.2. Natural Reward Strategies ... 9

2.1.3. Constructive Thought Strategies ... 9

2.1.4. New strategies ... 10

2.1.5. Measurement of Self-Leadership ... 10

2.2. Personality traits at the work context ... 11

2.2.1. Extraversion ... 12

2.2.2. Conscientiousness ... 12

2.2.3. Openness to experience ... 12

2.3. Self-leadership and personality traits ... 13

2.3.1. Behaviour-focused strategies and extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience ... 14

2.3.1. Natural Reward Strategies and extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience ... 15

2.3.3. Constructive Thought Strategies and extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience ... 16

2.4. Core self-evaluations and self-leadership ... 17

3. Methodology ... 20

3.1. Research design ... 20

3.2. Sample and procedures ... 20

3.3. Measurements ... 21

3.4. Analyses ... 23

4. Results ... 24

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4.2. Correlations ... 25

4.3. Findings ... 26

5. Discussion ... 30

5.1. Theoretical implications ... 30

5.2. Limitations and suggestion for further research ... 33

5.3. Practical implications ... 34

6. Conclusion ... 36

Bibliography ... 37

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1. Introduction

“There is a person with whom you spend more time than any other, a person who has more influence over you, and more ability to interfere with or to support your growth than anyone else. This ever-present companion is your own self.”

Dr. Pamela Butler, Clinical Psychologist

Extensive body of literature has been focused on the role of leader as of a one who inspires, motivates and supports employees in pursuing organizational and individual accomplishments (Chemers, 2014). However, in the contemporary world, a traditional hierarchy structures and an overall work reality undergoes continuous changes and shifts to a more individual-centred approach. Nowadays, employees are working in more decentralized, specialized firms, and an employer-employee relationship is becoming less standardized (Karoly & Panis, 2004). The recent report “The future of work. A journey to 2022” conducted by PwC (2014) states that there is an increasing desire for autonomy at a workplace. Especially young professionals indicate a generational shift towards greater freedom, entrepreneurship and specialist skills and they enjoy working as a freelancer or as a contractor for a number of organisations. Furthermore, it was found that high levels of job autonomy is associated with high levels of job satisfaction, commitment, involvement, performance and motivation (Spector, 1986). In addition, due to a widespread use of an advanced communication technology, working from home or being a virtual employee becomes increasingly more popular (Biro, 2014). Because employees spend less time at the office, they oftentimes lose a personal contact with the leaders and are not directly exposed to their strategic or motivating messages (Kahai, 2012).

The reality of the contemporary complex work environment requires individuals who are able to work independently, set themselves ambitious goals, are willing to challenge themselves and find an intrinsic motivation to improve and develop. Consequently, more emphasis should be put on investigating concepts related to employees’ ability of self-managing and independently organizing the work activities. Self-leadership is a concept which describes the process through which people influence themselves to achieve self-direction and self-motivation needed to perform (Manz, 1983, 1986, 1992a; Manz & Neck, 1999; Neck & Houghton, 2006). Self-leadership is a new concept with relatively few empirical studies examining self-leadership in organizational context.

Some people seem to be better at working autonomously than others and they usually tend to incorporate self-leadership strategies more easily in daily activities. One may ask: is it due to the natural predispositions which are embedded in the personality of such a well-organized, independent, motivated individual or maybe is it more due to the practice, knowledge or any other outside circumstances? Besides, it seems that a person who is confident would be better at finding direction and

self-8 manage their tasks, since he/she is genuinely sure that is able successfully perform them. Also, people with high self-esteem are usually less likely to seek for directions or acknowledgments from the outside (for example, from the leader). In contrary, those who are generally less confident about their abilities, oftentimes seem to be more doubtful, clueless and lost in the process, since they cannot objectively estimate if their actions are appropriate and can lead to successful outcomes.

The extent to which personality and other individual’s characteristics have an influence on self-leadership behaviours has not been clarified yet. Some of the theorists have questioned the extent to which self-leadership is a unique and distinguishable construct with respect to personality, while others have even suggested that self-leadership is a mere repackaging of individual differences already explained by previously existing personality constructs such as conscientiousness (Markham and Markham, 1995, 1998; Guzzo, 1998). Study by Houghton, Bonham, Neck & Singh (2004) is the only research so far, which empirically investigated the relationship between personality and self-leadership. In the study, they focused on three traits: extraversion, conscientiousness and neuroticism and concluded that self-leadership is a related, yet distinct to personality, but only at the higher level of abstraction. However, their study examined only three out of five personality traits. Previously, Williams (1997) proposed the relationship between extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience, and suggested that self-esteems, locus of control and self-efficacy may also be related to self-leadership. However, there is a lack of empirical study which would investigate these relationships. Openness to experience, as well as core self-evaluations have never been tested in the relationship with self-leadership.

Self-leadership is a fast developing theory, which will gain increasingly more importance and application at the modern work context. Hence, it is crucial to clarify the relationships between self-leadership and personality, in order to gain more insight on what makes person a good self-leader. This research study will attempt to fill the gap in the existing literature and answer the question: what is the nature of the relationship between contentiousness, openness to experience and extraversion and self-leadership strategies and are core self-evaluations playing a moderating role in such a relationship?

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2. Theoretical framework

This section provides a thorough analysis of existing literature, current developments and a need for a further research on the following topics: self-leadership, personality traits and core self-evaluations and their relevance in predicting work behaviours. First, the concept of self-leadership is explained and the evolution of this term in the work psychology is described. Subsequently, the literature about personality traits and five-factor model, with a special focus on openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion is discussed. This is followed by a review of the importance of core self-evaluations as a moderating variable. These in-depth literature reviews serve as a foundation for the conceptual framework presented in the following section.

2.1. Self-leadership

Self-leadership is a relatively new concept, the emergence of this construct can be dated to the mid-1980s. The term was first proposed by Manz (1983) as an alternative and expanded version of self- management. Manz (1983) distinguished that self-management is largely concerned with a set of behavioural and cognitive strategies that reflect a rational view of what people ought to be doing, while self-leadership is supposed to go beyond that and place a significant emphasis on the intrinsic value of tasks. Moreover, self-leadership addresses not only the reduction of discrepancy from performance and behavioural standards, but also the purposes and appropriateness of the standards themselves (Manz, 1986). Besides, the crucial difference of these two concepts is that self-management includes rewards that are separate from the task and that are received for its completion, and self-leadership view explicitly recognizes "natural" rewards, which result from performing activities themselves.

Self-leadership has been defined as a process through which people influence themselves to achieve the self-direction and self-motivation needed to perform (Manz, 1983, 1986, 1992a; Manz & Neck, 1999; Neck & Houghton, 2006). From a practical point of view, self-leadership involves specific sets of strategies and normative prescriptions designed to enhance individual performance. Self-leadership strategies were built upon a theoretical context of several classic theories of self-influence, such as: self-regulation (Kanfer, 1970; Carver & Scheier, 1981), self-control (Cautela, 1969; Mahoney & Arnkoff, 1978, 1979; Thoresen & Mahoney, 1974), intrinsic motivation theory (e. g., Deci and Ryan, 1985), and social cognitive theory (e. g., Bandura, 1986). Self-leadership strategies are usually grouped into the three primary categories: behaviour-focused strategies, natural reward strategies and constructive thought pattern strategies (Manz and Neck, 2004; Manz and Sims, 2001; Prussia et al., 1998). Each of the strategy is described separately.

2.1.1. Behaviour-focused strategies

Behaviour-focused strategies provide specific approaches for identifying ineffective behaviours and replacing them with more effective ones through a process of observation, goal setting, self-reward, self-correcting feedback, and self-cueing (Neck & Houghton, 2006). According to Manz (2014) self-observation is one of the most crucial components of self-leadership, since it leads to the observation

10 of one’s own behaviours to obtain information about them and subsequently identify behaviours which need to be changed, enhanced, or eliminated (Mahoney & Arnkoff, 1978, 1979; Manz & Sims, 1980). Self-goal setting encourages individuals to develop and adopt specific goals and related reward contingencies in order to energize and direct necessary performance-related behaviours (Mahoney & Arnkoff, 1978, 1979; Manz & Sims, 1980). Besides, many research findings suggest that accepting specific, challenging, and realistic performance goals can significantly impact task-related performance (Locke & Latham, 1990). Self-reinforcement and self-punishment (or self-criticism) are interrelated; both involve self-applied consequences for the behaviours. However, excessive self-punishment, including harsh and unrealistic self-criticisms, leading to feelings of guilt and inadequacy, is often counterproductive and should be avoided (Neck & Houghton, 2006; Manz & Sims, 2001). Environmental cues, such as to-do lists or inspirational wall hangings, can serve as an effective means of keeping attention and effort focused on the task at hand (Houghton & Neck, 2006; Neck & Manz, 2010). Behaviour-focused self-leadership strategies are designed to encourage positive, desirable behaviours that lead to successful outcomes, while suppressing negative, undesirable behaviours that lead to unsuccessful outcomes.

2.1.2. Natural Reward Strategies

Natural reward strategies involve seeking out work activities that are inherently enjoyable (Houghton, 2000). There are two primary natural reward strategies. The first involves building more pleasant and enjoyable features into a given activity so that the task itself becomes naturally rewarding (Manz and Neck, 2004; Manz and Sims, 2001). The second strategy consists of shaping perceptions by focusing attention away from the unpleasant aspects of a task and refocusing it on the task’s inherently rewarding aspects (Manz and Neck, 2004; Manz and Sims, 2001). Self-leaders who rely on these techniques strive to redesign their tasks, and/or how they think about them, in ways that contribute to their feeling more self-controlled, competent, and/or purposeful (Manz, 2015). Natural reward strategies are designed to help create feelings of competence and self-determination, which in turn energize performance-enhancing task-related behaviours (Neck & Houghton, 2006).

2.1.3. Constructive Thought Strategies

Constructive thought strategies are aimed at reshaping certain key mental processes in order to facilitate more positive and optimistic thinking patterns and mental processes that can have a significant impact on individual performance (Neck & Houghton, 2006; Neck & Manz, 1992, 1996). A variety of specific strategies for self-leadership of thought have been identified and studied. More specifically, intentional self-influence of self-talk, mental imagery, and beliefs and assumptions have been studied as means for establishing overall patterns in thinking (Neck & Manz, 2013; Stewart et al., 2011). For example, there is evidence that replacing dysfunctional with more functional imagery, self-talk, and/or beliefs and assumptions can promote self-efficacy, persistence, and challenging goals for one’s self, which in turn can contribute to increased effectiveness (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). Self-talk or self-dialogue may be defined as what we covertly tell ourselves (Ellis, 1962; Neck & Manz, 1992). These self-dialogues

11 usually take place at unobservable levels as individuals evaluate, instruct, and react to themselves mentally (Ellis, 1962, 1977; Manz & Neck, 1991; Neck & Manz, 1992). Mental imagery, the final thought self-leadership cognitive strategy, involves imagined experiences. Those individuals who envision the successful performance of a task or activity beforehand are much more likely to perform successfully when faced with the actual situation (Manz & Neck, 1999).

2.1.4. New strategies

Recently, self-leadership theorists have expanded the classical set of self-leadership strategy dimensions. For example, Georgianna (2007) highlighted the importance of including Volitional strategies in the self-leadership practices. The use of volitional strategies influences the decision-making process by creating concrete intentions by which to implement a desired behaviour. For example, it may involve formation of goal implementation intentions that specify when, where and how goal striving will be initiated (Georgianna, 2007). Moreover, self-awareness has been included in the more recent set of self-leadership strategies. Self-awareness strategies involve specific efforts to focus attention on oneself in order to selectively process self-related information resulting in knowledge about oneself (Georgianna, 2007; Carver & Scheier, 1998).

2.1.5. Measurement of Self-Leadership

Manz (1993a, 1993b, 1993c) developed a set of initial items designed to capture elements of both self-management and self-leadership. Subsequently, Anderson and Prussia (1997) subjected the Manz scales to content validation. Raters placed the original 90 items into three categories: behaviourally focused strategies, natural reward strategies, and creating constructive thought pattern strategies and developed 50-items scale. As a result, 10 underlying factors were uncovered, including self-observation, self–goal setting, self-cueing, self-reward, self-withholding, self-punishment, focusing thoughts on natural rewards, evaluating beliefs and assumptions, self-talk, and visualizing successful performance. Houghton and Neck (2002) further refined the Anderson and Prussia (1997) measures. They deleted items with large cross-loadings, reworded some items, and added new items. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a nine-factor structure (the factor of self-withholding was deleted) for the 35-item scale.

Recently, the new shorter version of the questionnaire was designed. Houghton, Dawley, DiLiello (2012) developed and tested a 9-item abbreviated version (ASLQ) of the widely used 35-item RSLQ. Three factors emerged in the exploratory factor analysis with three items loading on each factor. The three factors were given new labels: Behavioural Awareness and Volition (BAV) including goal-setting and observation, Task Motivation (TM) including visualizing performance and self-reward strategies, and Constructive Cognition (CC) including evaluating beliefs and assumptions and self-talk strategies. Houghton et al. (2012) proposed that these three factors encapsulate the heart of the classic self-leadership strategy dimensions (e. g., Neck & Houghton, 2006), while also reflecting some of the additional self-leadership strategies suggested, such as self-awareness and volition as described by Georgianna (2007). Since the abbreviated version of the scale has been developed recently, its

12 validity has not been tested on a wide scope yet. Therefore, as suggested by Houghton et al. (2012), the future research should continue to examine the psychometric properties of the ASLQ relative to the RSLQ and other scales of interest. It would be desirable to test the ASLQ in the work-environment settings.

2.2. Personality traits at the work context

The use of personality measures in the recruitment process has become more popular in the past decade. Recruiters incorporate personality questionnaires in the selection process, using it as a tool which helps to predict who will perform well on the job and to estimate if the person’s personality types will fit the job’s requirements. There are multiple personality measurement scales available, for example: Myers– Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (Briggs & Myers, 1962), Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) (Cattell, Tatsuoka and Eber, 1970), Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975) or Occupational Personality Questionnaires (OPQ32) (Saville, Nyfield, Hackston & Maclver, 1996). However, over last decade researchers have been consistently developing evidences of the existence of five major, commonly known as “The Big Five”, personality traits. A fairly high level of agreement has emerged between academic scholars that five-factor model represents an almost universal template for describing the fundamental dimensions of personality (Digman, 1990; McCrae and Costa, 1990; Costa and McCrae, 1992). The weight of evidence suggests that the five-factor structure remains remarkably stable over time (Costa & McCrae, 1988, 1992a), generalizes across cultures and languages (McCrae & Costa, 1997; Pulver, Allik, Pulkkinen, & Hamalainen, 1995; Salgado, 1997), and shows substantial agreement across self and other rating sources (McCrae & Costa, 1990).

The five factor model has become the most relevant and widely used model in the contemporary research studies. The variables in this model are specific personality traits. The instrument developed by Costa & McCrae (1992) to measure the model is the Revised NE0 Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) which assesses 30 separate traits organized by the model into five domains: Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness (0), Agreeableness (A), and Conscientiousness (C). The model helps to specify the range of traits that a comprehensive personality instrument should measure, and the factors that emerge from an analysis of these traits are what is considered the basic dimensions of personality (McCrae & Costa, 1992). Since this research will focus on three out of five personality traits, mainly: openness to experience, extraversion and conscientiousness, exclusively these three factors will be described in further detail.

2.2.1. Extraversion

Extraversion describes the extent to which people are assertive, dominant, energetic, active, talkative, and enthusiastic (Costa & McCrae, 1992). People who report themselves to have a high level of Extraverted people tend to describe themselves as outgoing, gregarious, lively and sociable (Arnold & Randall, 2010). The research by Judge, Heller and Mount (2002) indicates that individuals who are extraverted seem to perform well in sale, customer service and managerial jobs, tend to do better in

13 training programs, and usually have higher levels of job satisfaction. Extraversion is characterised by positive feelings and experiences and is therefore seen as a positive affect (Clark & Watson, 1991). Extraversion is compatible with pursuing excitement, novelty, and challenge, the goals of stimulation values (Roccas, Sagiv, Schwartz, & Knafo, 2002).

2.2.2. Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness indicates an individual’s degree of organization, persistence, hard work, and motivation in the pursuit of goal accomplishment. Some researchers have viewed this construct as an indicator of volition or the ability to work hard (Barrick & Mount, 1991). People who report themselves to have high levels of Conscientiousness consider themselves as being good organized and complete their task in a scrupulous manner (Arnold & Randall, 2010). It has been the most consistent personality predictor of job performance across all types of work and occupations (Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001). Conscientiousness, according to the NEO-PI-R measure, is described by 6 underlying facets: Competence (belief in own self-efficacy), Order (personal organization), Dutifulness (emphasis placed on importance of fulfilling moral obligations). Achievement Striving (need for personal achievement and sense of direction), Self-Discipline (capacity to begin tasks and follow through to completion despite boredom or distraction), Deliberation (tendency to think things through before acting or speaking).

2.2.3. Openness to experience

Openness to Experience is a personality dimension that characterizes someone who is intellectually curious and tends to seek new experiences and explore novel ideas. Someone high on Openness can be described as creative, innovative, imaginative, reflective, and untraditional (Zhao & Seibert, 2006). Openness to experience trait can be described by facets such as: fantasy aesthetics, feeling, actions, ideas, values (Arnold & Randall, 2010). People whose self-report reflects high levels of Openness to experience usually like working with ideas and possibilities and they are ready to re-examine their attitudes and values (Arnold & Randall, 2010). Openness is positively correlated with intelligence, especially aspects of intelligence related to creativity, such as divergent thinking (McCrae, 1987). The Openness to Experience scale, according to the NEO-PI-R measure, is divided into six subscales or “facets”: Openness to Aesthetics (deep appreciation for art and beauty), Openness to Action (preference for novelty and variety), Openness to Fantasy (vivid imagination and active fantasy life), Openness to Feelings (receptivity to one’s own inner feelings and emotions), Openness to Ideas (active pursuit of intellectual interests for their own sake and a willingness to consider new, perhaps unconventional ideas), and Openness to Values (readiness to re-examine social, political, and religious values). (Piedmont, 1998).

2.3. Self-leadership and personality traits

The nature of the relationship between self-leadership construct and personality traits has not been clarified yet. As Neck and Houghton (2006) have argued, self-leadership consists of particular set of behavioural and cognitive strategies that are based upon, related to, and yet distinct from other theories

14 of personality, motivation, and self-influence, such as self-regulation theory and social cognitive theory. However, some theorists have questioned the extent to which self-leadership is a unique and distinguishable construct with respect to these related motivational and personality constructs, while others have suggested even that self-leadership is a mere repackaging of individual differences already explained by previously existing personality constructs such as conscientiousness (e.g. Markham and Markham, 1995, 1998; Guzzo, 1998). Therefore, it would be interesting to investigate the nature of the relationship between self-leadership and particular personality traits in order to determine whether these concepts are distinct from each other and to define the dynamics between them.

Williams (1997) proposed positive associations between self-leadership skills and extraversion, emotional stability, and conscientiousness. However, the results of an empirical research by Houghton, Bonham, Neck and Singh (2004) showed that the traits of extraversion and conscientiousness were significantly related to all three self-leadership strategy dimensions but the trait of emotional stability was significantly related only to the natural rewards strategies dimension. Therefore, the trait of emotional stability will not be included in this research. Williams (1997) argued that agreeableness does not seems to be correlated either to self- management or any meta-skills. Also Houghton (2004) noted that there is still any strong logical or theoretical bases which would support a hypothesis concerning the relationships between self-leadership behaviours and the agreeableness. Following the reasoning of previous research, agreeableness will not be taken under consideration in this study. However, the trait of openness to experience with relationship to self-leadership has not been researched yet. It would be interesting to examine the nature of this potential relationship, hence openness to experience will be included in the model. Therefore, this study will examine the relationship between three self-leadership strategies and three personality traits, namely: openness to experience, extraversion and conscientiousness.

When taking under consideration the fact that self-leadership is a considerably complex concept, which is built upon multiple theories and strategies, looking for a direct relationship between personality traits and overall self-leadership would seem oversimplified. However, examining underlying facets of self-leadership separately and analysing them in the relationship with particular personality traits could possibly lead to interesting findings. Houghton, Bonham, Neck and Singh (2004) made a comparison of hierarchical factor structures of the relationship between self-leadership strategies and extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. The results of this study suggested that the three self-leadership strategy dimensions are distinct from the three personality traits at lower levels of abstraction, but that the general second-order factors for self-leadership and personality are statistically indistinguishable. Following the results of this research, self-leadership concept should be investigated in respect to separate factors of the concept.

2.3.1 Behaviour-focused strategies and extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience

15 In the abbreviated questionnaire of self-leadership, behaviour-focused strategies are represented by Behavioural Awareness and Volition (BAV) facet, which includes self-goal-setting and self-observation strategies. Extravert is a person who is described by traits such as gregariousness, assertiveness, warmth, activity, excitement seeking, and positive emotions. It may seems that person scoring high on extraversion is more focused on external environment than on, for example self-observation. Also, person who enjoys cooperation with other people and is a team-player, would maybe prefer to align goals with the group rather than set specific goals for him/herself. However, in the study by Atman (1993) it was shown that people with an extraverted personality score higher on being goal oriented than those who are introvert. Also, according to the study by Williams, Verble, Price, & Layne (1995) extraversion is positively related to the self-management dimensions of being goal-directed and effectively organizing one’s physical space. Extroverts may also be better self-regulators to the extent that they are more action-oriented than introverts. Therefore, the first hypothesis is as follows:

Hypothesis 1: Extraversion is positively related to behaviour-focused strategies

The Big Five’s conscientiousness factor consists of the specific traits of competence, order, dutifulness, achievement striving, self-discipline, and deliberation (Costa & McCrae, 1992b). Many scholars regard Conscientiousness as a broad personality dimension that is composed of two primary facets: achievement motivation and dependability (Mount & Barrick, 1995). Ones with a high level of achievement motivation would supposedly set goals for themselves and establish direction of their actions because of their preference for situations in which performance is due to their own efforts rather than to other factors. Also, according to Mount & Barrick (1995), those who score high on contentiousness like making plans and are achievement-oriented, which seems to correspond to the self-goal-setting strategy. Stewart, Carson, & Cardy (1996) demonstrated a positive relationship between conscientiousness and employee self-directed behaviours. Hence, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 2: Conscientiousness is positively related to behaviour-focused strategies

Individuals who score high on openness to experience are creative, innovative, imaginative, and reflective and are active in a pursuit of intellectual interests for their own sake. Hence, it seems reasonable that those people create specific goals for themselves, since they want to be engaged in the development which is driven by self-direction. According to the research by Roccas, Sagiv, Schwartz, & Knafo (2002), Openness to Experience correlates positively with self-direction and stimulation values. Also research by Parks (2007) showed that openness to experience is related to self-direction values. Study of Williams et al. (1995) examined the correlation between self-management skills and the Myers-Briggs personality dimension of Sensing, which corresponds to openness to experience in the Big 5 Model. Sensing was positively associated with self-management particularly on the timeliness of

16 task accomplishment and organization of physical space dimensions. Moreover, Judge & Ilies (2002) found that openness is related to goal setting motivation. It leads to the second hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: Openness to experience is positively related to behaviour-focused strategies

2.3.2 Natural Reward Strategies and extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience

The natural reward strategies are represented by Task Motivation (TM) facet and include specific strategies of visualizing performance and self-reward. Extraversion relates to a relatively positive view of the world, as extraverts judge neutral events more positively than introverts (Uziel, 2006). Therefore, they seem to more likely visualise their successful performance and see themselves achieving their goals. Lucas, Le, and Dyrenforth (2008) showed that extraverts have higher positive affect than introverts across different situations. Fleeson, Malanos, and Achille (2002) and Heller et al. (2007) showed that people experience more positive affect when they act in an extraverted manner than when they act in an introverted manner. Therefore, it seems probable that extraverts will engage in the strategy of shaping perceptions and focus attention away from the unpleasant aspects of a task and refocusing it on the task’s inherently rewarding aspects. According to Roccas, Sagiv, Schwartz, & Knafo (2002) extraversion is correlated positively with stimulation and hedonism values, therefore, extraverts may be more willing to implement self-reward strategies. This leads to the next hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: Extraversion is positively related to natural reward strategies

There so no theory which would indicate the link of the conscientiousness trait and visualization of tasks or self-reward. Therefore, this leads to the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 5: Conscientiousness is not related to natural reward strategies

Openness to experience trait can be described by features such as: fantasy aesthetics, feeling, actions, ideas, values (Arnold& Randall, 2010). People who score high on that traits creative, innovative, imaginative and reflective (Zhao& Seibert, 2006). Hence, it seems probable that those individuals will actively engage themselves in visualising their (successful) performance. Openness correlates with divergent thinking (McCrae, 1987) and is strongly related to both personality-based and behavioural measures of creativity (Feist, 1998; McCrae & Costa, 1997). People who are creative are supposedly good at creating imaginative pictures of themselves performing a task. Alacorn, Bowling, & Kzazon (2013) found that openness to experience is related to optimism, which may also enhance the positive perception of tasks and duties. Therefore, the next hypothesis is as follows:

17 2.3.3. Constructive Thought Strategies and extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to

experience

Constructive thought is represented by Constructive Cognition facet and includes strategies such as evaluating beliefs and assumptions and self-talk.

Extraversion predicts categorization of words by their positive affective quality rather than their semantic quality (Weiler, 1992).Therefore, people who score high on extraversion would seem to be willing to engage in a positive, encouraging self-talk. Also, extraverts are describe as talkative and verbal, so they enjoy conversions. This need for talk may be also reflected in a more frequent self-talk. Therefore, the following hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 7: Extraversion is positively related to constructive thought strategies

One of the conscientiousness facets is Deliberation, which is a tendency to think things through before acting or speaking. Recent research by Oliver and Flint (2013) indicated also that conscientiousness predicts the use of task relevant and competence enhancing internal speech, indicating a focused and pragmatic approach to goal pursuit. According to the results, conscientiousness is positively related to informational self-talk, therefore, it can be assumed that people who score high on conscientiousness make use of self-talk to redirect their behaviors and are able to internally reevaluate their assumptions and beliefs. Therefore the next hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 8: Conscientiousness is positively related to constructive thought strategies People whose self-report reflects high levels of Openness to experience usually likes working with ideas and possibilities and there are ready to re-examine their attitudes and values (Arnold& Randall, 2010). Openness to Values, one of the facets of Openness to experience, describe the readiness to re-examine social, political, and religious values (Piedmont, 1998). Therefore, it can be concluded that people scoring high on openness to experience will be willing to evaluate beliefs and assumptions. Other facet called Openness to Feelings represents the receptivity to one’s own inner feelings and emotions, so it can be assumed that by self-talk individuals would interact with own feelings and emotions. Therefore, the next hypothesis is as follows:

Hypothesis 9: Openness to experience is positively related to constructive thought strategies

The big five personality traits construct captures many facets of individual personality differences. Nevertheless, there are some other personality aspects, which are out of the BFI the scope, but at the same time, they seem to have a potential influence on the self-leadership performance. For example, it

18 would seems logical, that people who are more confident would more likely engage in self-leadership strategies, since they are genuinely sure that they can successfully perform. In contrary, those who are generally less confident about their abilities, oftentimes seem to be more doubtful, clueless and lost in the process, since they cannot objectively estimate if their actions are appropriate and if they would lead to successful outcomes. Also, people with high self-esteem are usually less likely to seek for directions or acknowledgments from the outside (for example, from the leader), but they more easily set the direction and motivation for themselves. Following this reasoning, as well as previous research suggestions, the core self-evaluations concept as a moderating factor will be incorporated into this research.

2.4 Core self-evaluations and self-leadership

Williams (1997) in his research proposal regarding self-leadership and personality traits suggested a positive relationship between leadership and efficacy, esteem, locus of control and self-monitoring. He proposed also that these four traits would moderate the effectiveness of self-leadership training. However, still very little research have been made that had empirically investigated this relationship and the moderating role of these traits. Study by Prussia, Anderson & Manz (1998) examined only self-efficacy factor and indicated that self-leadership strategies had a significant effect on self-efficacy evaluations, and that self-efficacy directly affected performance. Further, self-efficacy perception fully mediated the self-leadership/performance relationship. However, as suggested by Prussia et al. (1998) the direction of the relationship between self-efficacy and self-leadership is not obvious and the reverse direction should be studied as well.

Besides, the mentioned traits tend to be an important moderator of people’s performance. According to the social cognitive theory, developed by Bandura (1994), human motivation and actions are regulated extensively by forethought. In particular, the prime factors which have a direct influence on one’s behaviour are self-efficacy, self-esteem, locus of control and neuroticism. There has been a personality trait defined, namely core self-evaluations, which embodies all of these four facets. According to Judge et al. (1997), the core self-evaluations concept is a higher order trait representing the fundamental evaluations that people make about themselves and their worthiness, competence, and capability. It has been researched that the validity of CSEs is more than twice as large as the validity of self-esteem or any other individual core trait, and it often predicts outcomes such as work motivation, job performance, job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and stress better than any individual core trait does (Judge, 2009).

The Core self-evaluations trait includes four dimensions. 1) Self-esteem can be defined as the overall value that one places on oneself as a person (Harter, 1990). 2) Neuroticism is the tendency to have a negativistic outlook and to focus on negative aspects of the self (Watson, 2000). 3) Locus of control is concerned with beliefs about the causes of events in one’s life—locus is internal when individuals see outcomes as being contingent on their own behaviour (Rotter, 1966). 4) Self-efficacy can be defined as the extent to which an individual believes about her or his capabilities to successfully

19 perform a specific behaviour or an action required to attain a desired outcome. (Bandura, 1986). The higher the level of a person's self-efficacy, the more confidence the person has about succeeding in a particular task domain.

The beliefs about one’s abilities and competences influence 'what challenges to undertake, how much effort to expend in the endeavour, (and) how long to persevere in the face of difficulties' (Bandura, 1989). Empirical research on self-efficacy has consistently found that it has a significant impact on performance on a variety of tasks as well as motivation, emotional reactions, and persistence on a task (Gist and Mitchell, 1992). Therefore, it seems logical that people with a high level of core self-evaluations would be better in proceeding with self-leadership strategies, which demand a lot of determination and self-control. For example, several studies have concluded that self-efficacy is related to task effort and performance, persistence, resilience in the face of failure, effective problem solving and self-control (Bandura, 1986; Gist & Mitchell, 1992; Hysong & Quinones, 1997; Prussia, Anderson, &Manz, 1998; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998).

Erez, A., & Judge, T. A. (2001) noticed that a higher CSE level is positively correlated to goal setting and motivation. According to the research by Judge, Bono, Erez & Locke (2005), Core self-evaluations concept was positively related to goal self-concordance, meaning that individuals with positive self-regard were more likely to pursue goals for intrinsic and identified (value-congruent) reasons. Therefore, it can be supposed that the people scoring high on CSE would more likely engage in self-leadership activities, and consequently the effect of self-leadership would be stronger for those people.

Adding to that, Bandura and Cervone (1986) found that after setting goal standards, individuals high in self-efficacy increased their efforts to meet the standards, whereas those low in self-efficacy did not. It means that people who are more self-confident, would be more persistent in achieving goals, what represents an important factor of self-leadership.

Marshall, Kiffin-Petersen & Soutar (2012) in their research made in educational setting found that general self-efficacy is an important antecedent to self-leadership strategies. As they argued: “General self-efficacy potentially influences self-leadership by contributing to an upward efficacy-performance spiral (Lindsley et al., 1995; Shea and Howell, 2000), in which confident teachers practise self-leadership strategies more often, which leads to further improvements in their confidence.” This all leads to a conclusion that core self-evaluations may be related to self-leadership strategies and it may moderate the relationship between personality and self-leadership. Therefore, the next hypotheses are as follows:

Hypothesis 10: Core self-evaluations are positively related to self-leadership

Hypothesis 11: Core evaluations has a moderating role in the relationship between self-leadership and personality traits

20 3. Methodology

In this section the research design and methodology used in testing hypothesis is described. First, the research method is presented. Next, sample characteristics and procedures are outlined. This is followed by the procedures used in collecting data. The section is concluded with analyses and predictions used in research.

3.1. Research design

The study is supposed to explain the relationship between self-leadership and certain personality traits, and determine the moderating influence of self-efficacy in this relationship. Extensive number of research studies examining these constructs took quantitative approach, using the survey method. Moreover, the constructs of personality, self-leadership and self-efficacy are usually measured using self-report scale as the psychometric measurement and so far, this is the most commonly method used in the research conducted about these topics. Moreover, validated measurement scales for these variables haven been developed and are available for use and easily accessible. Therefore, following the most common method of examining variables of interests, this research will also have a quantitative approach, using survey as the research strategy. According to Saunders et al. (2011) surveys allow the collection of a large amount of data from a sizeable population in a highly economical way. Moreover, the data collected is standardised and allows for an easy comparison (Saunders et al., 2011). In addition, the survey strategy is perceived as authoritative by people in general and is both comparatively easy to explain and to understand. Since, this study will involve individuals at a different age, educational background and occupation, it is important that is easy and convenient to all of them. Nevertheless, the survey method certain drawbacks. For example, there is a limit to the number of questions that any questionnaire can contain or there is always a probability that survey questions do not fully represent underling concept. To avoid the latter, it is appropriated to use scales with a confirmed validity.

Considering time constraints, the research will be a cross-sectional analysis, therefore, the causality of relationship cannot be determined. However, since this research is supposed to examine mainly correlational relationship between variables, this limitation is not directly relevant.

3.2. Sample and procedures

The sample size must be greater than 30 in order to assure the normal distribution. According to Mundfrom et al. (2005), the minimum necessary sample size for excellent agreement is never greater than 180 and, in most cases, less than 150. Therefore, for purpose of this study, sample was aimed to yield approximately 150 participants. The sample amounted to a total of (N=154) participants. Out of this sample, 139 participants completed the full questionnaire of which 72 (52%) were male and 67 (48%) were female. Previous research examining the relationship of self-leadership and personality by Houghton, Bonham, Neck & Singh (2004) used sample composed of undergraduate students. However, the results obtained from such a sample are not necessarily generalizable for whole population, since there is low diversity in terms of age, working experience and education level. Therefore, to assure for greater generalizability, the sample of this study was diversified in terms of nationality, age, as well as

21 education and work sectors. The questionnaire was completed by participants with 30 different nationalities, the majority from the Netherlands (49,6%), Germany (13,7%) and Poland (7,9%). Participants worked in 18 different sectors: Sales (25,2%) , Education (15,8%), Accountancy (9,4%), Finance (7,9%), IT (7,2%), Service (5,8%), others (28,7%) of which 57% worked part-time and 43% full-time. The greater number of participants held bachelor’s degree (54%), while 30,2% had education of high school or lower and 15,8% completed Master’s degree or higher. The mean age for the sample was 30 years old with a minimum of 18 and a maximum of 64 and mode of 21.

The sample data was gathered using convenience sampling and snow-ball sampling method. People were contacted via email, personal contact and social media, mainly based on the personal network. Potential participants were either approached directly or managers were asked to distribute the survey among their employees. The research was focused on the self-leadership performance in the organizational context. Therefore, it was crucial to assure that only participants with work experience proceeded with completing the questionnaire. The first question of the survey asked whether a person is working now or has been working in the past. In case of a negative answer, the survey ended. The survey was collected anonymously and participations was voluntary. The anonymity was highlighted several times during the data collection process. As an incentive, participants were offered an opportunity to receive the results of their personality test. In case they wanted to obtain such an outcome, they needed to fill in their email address. The data was collected and stored using online Qualtrics software.

There were two language versions used in collecting the data: English and Dutch one. For the self-leadership scale, the validated Dutch translation of the questionnaire has not been developed yet. Therefore, for the aim of this research questions were translated. Translation of a questionnaire may diminish its validity, since the translation may not fully represent the original concept evoked in the question. To minimalize this not positive effect, 5 Dutch native speakers were asked to assess the similarity between English and Dutch versions. In case questions were not clear or the discrepancy between English and Dutch version was noticed, the translations were improved. The final version was estimated to most appropriately reflect the English one by all 5 native speakers. For the personality measurements, the validated Dutch translation of the questionnaire developed by Denissen, Geenen, Van Aken, Gosling and Potter (2008) was used. According to Dennisen et al. (2008) “The high levels of internal consistency, factorial and external validity, and good applicability in different age groups of the Dutch BFI are consistent with the psychometric quality of the English original (John & Srivastava, 1999).” The five factor model generalizes across cultures and languages (McCrae & Costa, 1997; Pulver, Allik, Pulkkinen, & Hamalainen, 1995; Salgado, 1997). For the Core-self evaulations, a validated translation developed by Pater, Schinkel en Nijstad (2007) was used.

3.3. Measurements

There are three main variables tested in this research, namely: personality traits, leadership and self-efficacy. The subsection describes the measurements used in testing these concepts.

22 3.3.1. Self-leadership measures

The self- leadership construct is represented by 9-item Abbreviated Self-Leadership Questionnaire (Houghton, Dawley, DiLiello, 2012). The ASLQ is especially useful when a brief overall measure of self-leadership is required or when the use of the more in-depth 35-item RSLQ is not practical. The scale has been developed recently, therefore the validity of this measure has not been confirmed yet. However, since the measurement is based on the classical RSLQ, the abbreviated version reflects similar conceptual idea of self-leadership. The RSLQ has shown a greater degree of reliability and construct validity than earlier measures (e.g., the SLQ of Anderson & Prussia, 1997). Applying short scale as a measurement has its advantages. As Burisch (1984) observed: “Short scales not only save testing time, but also avoid subject boredom and fatigue, since there are subjects from whom you won’t get any response if the test looks too long”.

Participants were supposed to answer the 9-item questionnaire using 5 point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Examples items included: “I establish specific goals for my own performance.” or “I visualize myself successfully performing a task before I do it.” People scoring high on self-leadership can be considers as ones who apply self-leadership strategies in their work performance and are able to be leaders for themselves.

3.3.2. Personality traits

The personality was measured using 44-item BFI questionnaire (John & Srivastava, 1999). Only items regarding conscientiousness, extraversion and openness to experience were taken under consideration. The Big Five Inventory (BFI) is a self-report inventory designed to measure the Big Five dimensions. It is quite brief for a multidimensional personality inventory (44 items total), and consists of short phrases with relatively accessible vocabulary. The BFI is a shorter version of the previous 100 and 60-item questionnaires and was developed to achieve as few items as possible while keeping the level of reliability high. As noted by Dennisen et al. (2008), the scales of the BFI demonstrated good internal consistency (Mα = .83) and convergent validity with corresponding scales of Goldberg’s (1992) adjectives and Costa and McCrae’s (1992) NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO–FFI; John & Srivastava, 1999).The BFI shows high convergent validity with other self-report scales and with peer ratings of the Big Five. The BFI items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The example items are: I see myself as someone who: “is original, comes up with new ideas” (for openness to experience), “is a reliable worker”, “makes plans and follows through with them” (for conscientiousness), “is talkative” (for extraversion).

3.3.3. Core Self Evaluations

The self-efficacy theory is conceptualized by the Core Self Evaluations Scale (CSES), developed by Judge, Erez, Bono, Thoresen (2003). “Introduced by Judge, Locke, and Durham (1997), the core self-evaluations concept represents the fundamental assessments that people make about their worthiness, competence, and capabilities; such evaluations vary from positive to negative self-appraisals (Judge, Erez, Bono, Thoresen, 2005).” Therefore, people scoring high on that trait are the ones who believe in

23 their own success and have a confidence in their capabilities. The scale is self-administered, using the 12 items mixed at random 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Example items are: “I am confident I get the success I deserve in life.”, “I complete tasks successfully.” According to Ferris, Johnson, Rosen, & Tan (2012), the CSE scale is backed by a growing body of validation evidence (e.g., Gardner & Pierce, 2010; Holt & Jung, 2008; Stumpp, Muck, Hulsheger, Judge, & Maier, 2010). CSES has acceptable internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity (Gardner & Pierce, 2010; Judge et al., 2003; Newness & Viswesvaran, 2010).

3.4. Analyses

Two models will be tested by the correlation and simple linear regression analyses. Considering correlation analysis, I expect positive correlation between Self-leadership and personality traits and positive correlation between Core-Self Evaluations and Self-leadership. What concerns the regression analyses, it consists of two models. Model 1 tests two main effects, while Model 2 test the interaction effect.

24 4. Results

The study was focused on determining the relationship between personality traits of extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience and self-leadership strategies, as well as evaluating the role of Core self-evaluations as a moderator in this relationship. The following section presents the finding of the study. First, the reliabilities and correlations are described and this is followed by presenting the findings of the regression analyses, regarding two models: the main (model 1) and the interaction (model 2) effect. The section is finished with an initial conclusion regarding the results.

4.1. Reliabilities and factor analysis

The main variables used in the research were: 1) Self-Leadership strategies: Behaviour Awareness& Volition (BAV), Task Motivation (TM) and Constructive Cognition (CC), 2) Personality traits of Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience and 3) Core Self-Evaluations . For each variable, reliability test was performed. Nunnally (1978) has proposed, that a variable can be considered reliable when Cronbach’s alpha is higher than 0,7.

The Self-leadership variables were measured using 9-item scale, each factor consisting of 3 items. The variables values were calculated by taking the mean value of three items for each of the factor. Behaviour Awareness& Volition was considered reliable, since Cronbach’s = 0,725. The remaining two Self-strategy factors: Task Motivation and Constructive Cognition have showed lower reliability, Cronbach’s = 0,613 and =0,578 respectively. For the TM variable, the Cronbach’s alpha would increase to 0,736 if the item 6 “When I have successfully completed a task, I often reward myself with something I like” would be deleted. However, this is the only one item representing self-reward strategy facet of self-leadership theory, therefore, I decided not to delete the item. The elimination of this item would increase the reliability but at the same time, it would result in loosing valuable information. The similar issue was observed for the CC factor. In case item number 9 would be deleted, the Cronbach’s alpha would increase to = 0,707. However, in such a case the only item representing self-talk strategy would be deleted. Therefore, for the same reason of losing valuable information, the item was not deleted. The factor analysis confirmed the inconsistencies of the scale. The output of the scree plot suggested the existence of only one factor in the scale, contrary to the research findings by Houghton, Dawley, DiLiello (2012), which proposed three underlying factors in the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire. Following the finding of factor analysis, the reliability of the overall 9-item scale of Self-Leadership was checked. The overall self-leadership 9-item scale can be considered reliable, since = 0,764 and deletion of any of the items would lead to any increase in the value. This can lead to an initial conclusion that the Abbreviated self-leadership Scale represents the general self-leadership better than it does represent each separate factor. The relatively low Cronbach’s alphas of variables TM and CC can affect the strength of the final conclusions. This limitation will be addressed in the limitations and recommendation for future research section.

25 The personality traits were measured using 44-item scale, but only items regarding extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience were taken under consideration. Extraversion was calculated by first recoding 3 items and subsequently, taking the mean value of all 8 extraversion items. The variable was considered reliable since the Cronbach’s =0,816. In case the item BFI 26 “I see myself as someone who has an assertive personality” would be deleted, the alpha would increase with 0,016. Since the increase is low and it would not considerably improve the scale, I decided not to delete the item. The variable conscientiousness was calculated by first recoding 4 out of the 9 items and calculating a mean variable of these 9 items. The conscientiousness scale Cronbach’s =0,791, therefore it is reliable. No items were deleted, since was the highest when all 9 items were included. Openness to experience variable consisted of 10 items, of which two had to be recoded. The variable was calculated by taking the mean value of the 10 items, what resulted in obtaining a reliable variable with Cronbach’s = 0,757. Deleting the item BFI_41r “I see myself as someone who has few artistic interests” would increase the value with 0.002, but since the increase it minor, no item was deleted.

The Core self-evaluation scale consisted of 12 items, all yielding to one variable. It was calculated by taking the mean value of all the 12 items of which 6 had to be recoded. Cronbach’s = 0,845 showed considerably high reliability of this variable. No item was deleted, since it would lead to a lower Cronbach’s value.

4.2. Correlations

Table 1 presents the correlations between the examined variables. Research by Cohen (1988) provided the most widely accepted guidelines for interpreting the magnitude of correlation coefficients typically found in the behavioural sciences. According to Cohen, correlation coefficients in the order of .10 are “small,” those of .30 are “medium,” and those of .50 are “large” in terms of magnitude of effect sizes. In interpreting the correlation power, these correlation power thresholds are applied.

I expected that people who score higher on extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience would score higher on self-leadership strategies, with exception of conscientiousness and Task Motivation where no relationship was expected. I found a significant correlations effect between some of the traits and SL factors. Moreover, there is a significant correlation between all three traits and overall self-leadership. However, the correlations are considerably small. Based on the data, it appears that correlation between Personality traits extraversion and self-leadership is significant and moderate, since p<0.05 and the r(139)= 0.205. The expected positive correlation between extraversion and BAV is significant but small, p<0.05 and the r(139)=0.199, the same is observed for extraversion and TM : p<0.05 and r(139)=0.179.

For personality trait conscientiousness there was expected a positive relationship between the trait and BAV, as well as CC and no relationship between the trait and TM. As expected, ther e is a positive, moderate relationship between conscientiousness and BAV, since p>0.01 and r(139)=0.305 and correlation is significant. Also according to expectations, there is no significant relationship between conscientiousness and TM, p<0.05. However, contrary to what was expected, there is no significant

26 correlation between conscientiousness and CC, p<0.05. At the same time, conscientiousness is correlated to general self-leadership score, the correlation is small but significant, p<0.05 and r(139)=194.

It was expected that people scoring higher on openness to experience will score higher on self-leadership strategies and such an effect was indeed observed. Openness to experience is significantly related to all SL factors and the correlations can be considered moderate: BAV p<0.01 and r(139)=0.233; TM p<0.05 and r(139)= 0.204; CC p<0.01 and r(139)= 0.237. Openness to experience is also significantly correlated to overall self-leadership and the relationship is moderate: p<0.01 and r(139)=0.288.

Besides, the relationship between self-leadership and Core self-evaluations was expected. People scoring higher on core self-evaluations were supposed to score higher on self-leadership. However, this was not found in the analysis of the data. Only a significant relationship between CSE and BAV was observed, p<0.05 and r(139)=0.204. Contrary to expectations, the remaining two factors are not significantly related to CSE, for TM p>0.05 and r(139)=0.140; and for CC p>0.05 and r(139)=-0.006. Also, there is no significant relationship between CSE and general self-leadership score, p<0.05.

Table 1. Descriptives and correlations between variables (Cronbach's alpha on the diagonal)

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Extraversion 3,60 ,67 0,816

2. Conscientiousness 3,68 ,55 -,006 0,791

3. Openness to experience 3,62 ,52 ,271** ,007 0,757

4. Core self-evaluations 3,75 ,54 ,346** ,256** ,072 0,845 5. Behaviour Awareness& Volition 3,73 ,64 ,199* ,350** ,233** ,204* 0,725

6. Task Motivation 3,44 ,76 ,179* ,040 ,204* ,140 ,440** 0,613

7. Constructive Cognition 3,66 ,70 ,103 ,091 ,237** -,006 ,361** ,409** 0,578

8. Self-leadership 3,61 ,54 ,205* ,194* ,288** ,143 ,750** ,815** ,761** 0,764

Note: N=139 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

4.3. Findings

Initially, based on the theory and hypothesis stated, it was predicted that high score on the personality traits of Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience would positively influence the self-leadership factors, except of the relationship between Conscientiousness and TM, where not influence was hypothesized. I expected also that Core evaluations would positively influence leadership factors. Based on the output in the Table 2, model 1 presents the main effect for self-leadership strategies, as well as the general self-self-leadership score.

Unexpectedly, Extraversion has no significant effect on Behavioral Awareness and Volition (β=.146, p>0.05), hence hypothesis 1 is rejected. Consequently, it can be assumed that people scoring high on Extraversion are not necessarily better in the strategies related to Behavior-focused type. However, accordingly to our predictions, Conscientiousness (β=.123) and Openness to experience