– The purpose of this paper is to examine the leadership styles of police chiefs and how these styles related to demographic, personality, and effectiveness.
– Participants included 161 police chiefs in Texas who completed the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X-Short) leader form, the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), and a background characteristics form.
– Results indicate that the police chiefs were fairly evenly classified across leadership styles with the Transformational leaders rated as most effective. Transformational leaders are characterized as confident, energetic, and open-minded. Although few of the demographic variables predicted leadership styles, several of the personality characteristics were significant predictors.
– Few previous studies have reported the relationship between police leadership style, personality, and effectiveness. This study adds to the body of knowledge regarding the relationship between these variables by specifically targeting police chiefs.
