What makes a Prime Minister great?: A Leadership Trait Analysis of the effectiveness of British Prime Ministers from 1902 to 2004. (2014)

“Leaders projecting strong power motivation are significantly more likely to have their time in office considered effective.

Samuel R. Rohrer, Department of Political Science and International Affairs, University of North Georgia, USA
Research and Politics October-December 2014: 1–8

Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA) criteria … “examine an individual’s underlying desire for power, the belief that they can uniquely shape events, and their openness to new and/or conflicting information.”

The researcher uses “at-a-distance” content analysis of subjects’ verbal contributions in the House of Commons (as recorded in Hansard) to score their performance on the LTA traits. He then cross references those results to a 0-10 ranking of highly successful-highly unsuccessful PMs generated in a poll of 139 historians and political scientists.

Whether as a result of natural charisma or diligent PR, leaders projecting strong power motivation are significantly more likely to have their time in office considered effective.

“These findings provide more than a novel historical profile of British PMs. The relationship between effective leadership and LTA traits could be utilized by political campaigns, especially given the introduction of prime ministerial debates, to portray a prime ministerial candidate as more politically effective than his/her competition.”

Access a PDF here: What makes a Prime Minister great?