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Editorial verdict
Methodologically transparent but limited in scope — the core finding is clear: MBTI explains approximately 1% of variance in LPI leadership practices, making it a weak predictor of leadership behavior; practitioners relying on MBTI to predict leadership behavior should treat these findings as a caution, not a validation.
Executive summary
This article addresses the empirical question of how effectively the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) predicts leadership-related behaviors as measured by the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI). The authors argue that despite MBTI's widespread use in organizational coaching and leadership development, its predictive validity for leadership behavior has rarely been tested through rigorous quantitative methods. Using a sample of 529 graduate and undergraduate business administration students from Colombian universities (464 valid observations after data cleaning), the study employed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling to test the personality-leadership relationship. Results confirmed acceptable psychometric properties for the MBTI under both estimators and for the LPI only under DWLS (the FIML leadership model did not fit, RMSEA = 0.18), but the structural relationship between MBTI personality dichotomies and LPI leadership practices was weak (R² = 0.01, about one percent of explained variance), with only 7 of 20 theoretically proposed relationships reaching significance. Notable associations included Extraversion with inspiring a shared vision and encouraging the heart, Intuition with challenging the process and inspiring a shared vision, and Perceiving with multiple leadership practices. The authors conclude that while seven specific pairings were significant, the overall MBTI-LPI relationship is weak (about one percent of explained variance), calling for longitudinal and experimental follow-up research.
Key insights
- 1The structural relationship between MBTI personality dichotomies and LPI leadership practices is weak, explaining approximately 1% of variance (R² = 0.01), regardless of estimation method used.
- 2Only 7 of 20 theoretically proposed personality-leadership pairings reached statistical significance, with the Judgment-Perceiving dichotomy showing the broadest associations with leadership practices, including challenging the process, inspiring a shared vision, and encouraging the heart.
- 3The Thinking-Feeling dichotomy showed no statistically significant relationship with any of the five LPI leadership practices, suggesting that decision-making style as captured by MBTI may not map meaningfully onto transformational leadership behaviors.
Practical takeaways
- Organizations using MBTI as a primary tool to predict leadership behavior are relying on an instrument that accounted for about 1% of the variance in LPI leadership-practice scores in this study of Colombian business-administration students.
- Specific MBTI dichotomies — particularly Extraversion-Introversion and Intuition-Sensing — show selective, low-magnitude correlations with certain leadership practices (e.g., inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process), which may have relevance for targeted self-awareness coaching rather than broad leadership prediction.
Frameworks mentioned
Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI)
A 30-item behaviorally-based instrument developed by Posner and Kouzes measuring five exemplary leadership practices: challenging the process, inspiring a shared vision, enabling others to act, modeling the way, and encouraging the heart.
References
- Bass et al. (Free Press) (1990).Bass & Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications.
- Myers and Myers (2010).Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type.
- Myers and Mccaulley (1985).Manual: A Guide to the Development and Use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
- Kouzes and Posner, Leadership & Organization Development Journal (2019).Influence of managers' mindset on leadership behavior.
- Posner and Kouzes, Educational and Psychological Measurement (1988).Development and validation of the leadership practices inventory.
- Bass and Riggio (2006).Transformational Leadership.
- Hu and Bentler (1999).Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis.
- Meehl, Psychological Reports (1990).Why summaries of research on psychological theories are often uninterpretable.
- Bono and Judge, Journal of Applied Psychology (2004).Personality and transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analysis.
- Gardner and Martinko, Journal of Management (1996).Using the Myers-Briggs type indicator to study managers.
- Burns (Harper and Row) (1978).Leadership.
- Lowe et al., Leadership Quarterly (1996).Effectiveness correlates of transformational and transactional leadership.
- Bollen (1989).Structural Equations with Latent Variables.
Source & Provenance
frontiers
Rodrigo Zárate-Torres, Juan C. Correa
March 2, 2023
Research Study
Latin America
Original source metadata is preserved. AI analysis is generated separately.
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