Hardiness, leadership style and gender as predictors of leader performance in military academy cadets

Abstract

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point is widely considered the premier leader development institution in the United States. Since first admitting women in 1976, few studies have examined factors that may influence female cadets to perform as leaders in this environment. The present study analyzed archival data collected during a unique longitudinal study of leader development conducted at West Point during the years 1993–2000, the Baseline Officer Leader Development Study (BOLDS). Personality hardiness, transformational and transactional leadership styles were evaluated as potential predictors of performance as leaders, according to supervisor ratings. Regression results showed that female cadets excel as leaders, outperforming male cadets as a group. Hardiness and transformational leadership style predicted leader performance for both male and female cadets. Additional analyses indicated it is the transformational leadership element of “charismatic” (or idealized influence) leadership that accounts for this finding. The transactional component “management by exception‐active” also predicted leader performance, but for male cadets only. This study confirms that hardiness and charismatic leadership style are important for leadership performance of both male and female cadets. For male cadets, leader performance was also tied to actively identifying and addressing failures in subordinates. Leader development programs for both men and women may thus be enhanced by including programs to develop personality hardiness and transformational leadership qualities.