Personality and leadership styles of top management in public listed companies in Malaysia and their relationships with organizational culture / Abdul Kadir Othman, Zokree Abdul Karim and Md Lehan Parimun

Personality is said to determine the leadership styles. Leaders with Introvert personality type are less open to criticism and tend to make decision without much consulting others. They prefer authoritative style of leadership. However, those with Extrovert personality type tend to accept ideas, comments and suggestions from others. They favor participative style of leadership. However, lack of supportive evidences in Malaysian context, drives the researchers to conduct the study in this area. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between personality traits of leaders and leadership styles in Public Listed Companies (PLCs) in Malaysia. The instrument for this study is developed based on the Multi-facets Leadership Questionnaire and Goldberg’s Big-Five Factor Structure. A number of public listed companies are selected and data are analyzed by using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis.
Besides, many authors and researchers agree that leadership styles influence culture of the organization. Participative leadership style promotes the teamwork and participation of the employees in decision-making. Therefore, it creates the supportive culture between the employees and the leaders. However, little empirical evidence is found on this phenomenon in Malaysian context. The study is conducted to minimize the gap in the literature with regard to leadership study and culture in Malaysia. The study is also an attempt to investigate the relationship between