Introversion, extroversion, and empowerment performance of aerospace managers

Relationships between personality type and empowerment performance of 115 aerospace managers were examined and the research question asked was, "Are introverted aerospace managers less likely to demonstrate empowering behaviors than are their extroverted counterparts?" Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) testing was used to determine the specific personality types of the managerial sample. Selection Ratio Type Table Analysis (SRTT) was used to make comparisons within the sample population, and to examine the relationships of these comparisons to other professional groups and the general population. The most frequent types found were INTJ (Introversion-Intuition-Thinking-Judging), representing 31.3% of the sample, and ESTJ (Extroversion-Sensing-Thinking-Judging), with 20.0% of the sample. Significant differences among the sample, other professional groups, and the general population were found, primarily in the overrepresentation of introverts and the underrepresentation of extroverts among aerospace managers. A theoretical and operational model, entitled the Balance of Empowerment, was developed. The model consisted of a set of 9 interrelated leadership behaviors, in the graphic of a scale, which together compose a unique perspective of empowerment. These behaviors were grouped under the broad headings of Trust, Enablement, and Encouragement, and were measured through a composite score called the Empowerment Quotient (EQ). Two survey instruments were designed to measure the empowering performance of the managerial sample. The first of these required managers to self-assess their performances across the 9 empowerment behaviors. The second instrument required the direct-report subordinates of each manager to assess his/her performance in the identical behaviors. The results of the 2 assessments were combined to formulate scores in all 9 behaviors, and a final empowerment assessment score was computed. One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to identify significant relationships among introversion, extroversion, and the measured empowerment performance of the correlated sample. The results of the research found that statistically significant differences in the empowerment performance of aerospace managers exist across all 9 behaviors represented in the model. Comparisons conclusively showed that introverted managers are statistically less likely (p = <.001) to empower their subordinates than are their extroverted peers, a phenomenon which was apparent in 8 of the 9 behaviors, and dominant in the 4 major empowerment categories. Conversely, the comparisons revealed a statistically significant probability (p < .001) that extroverted managers would empower their subordinates more effectively than would their introverted counterparts. The research also revealed that introverted aerospace managers consistently self-assessed at a much higher level than either their extroverted peers or their subordinates' assessments, while the precise opposite was true of the extroverted managers.