The effects of socioeconomic status, basic values and core self-evaluation on leadership

In this thesis, the factors that effect military leadership are researched. The aim of the thesis is to determine how and to what extent Basic Values, Core Self-Evaluation, Socioeconomic Status Differences, Self Leadership and demographical differences (especially the school of leader and rank) affect leadership behaviour; the results of this study will be used as input for recruitment and training of leaders whom Turkish Army needs. Sample of the study is Commissioned Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers and Specialized Sergeants working in Turkish Army. Totally 2898 data was collected, paired as 410 leader-follower pairs and 290 proper paired data was analysed. The hypoteses are tested by CHAID and SEM. The research is designed on two main parts. First one is the study of determining the statistical differences of demographic and continious variables, and the second one is the study of determining the relationship between variables. It is found from the first study that tenure (higher) and type of employment is the most important factor for effective military leadership. Besides, SES make differences on basic values, the ones who belong to higher SES are more open to change and has higher self-transcendence and lower conservation. It is found from the second study that "Opennes to Change" and "Conservation" values have positive effect on "Interest to Subordinate" dimension of Military Leadership; while Self-Enhancement value has slightly positive effect on "Interest to Job" dimension. CSE has no effect on Military Leadership. As a continuation of the second study the same analyses were performed with the data collected from one source (all are self report). It is found from the continued second study that Opennes to Change value has moderately positive effect on three dimensions of Military Leadership; Self-Enhancement value has slightly positive effect on three dimensions of Military Leadership; CSE has slightly positive effect on awareness dimension of Military Leadership. Also, Self Leadership has a mediating effect between CSE and Military Leadership and Openness to Change value and Military Leadership. In the second part, results of multi-source and self report data were compared and the negative effect of social desirabilty effect was revealed. This study contributes literature in the matter of military leadership studies, SES and basic values relations, as an interdisciplinary study between sociology and organization psychology, revealing social desirability effect. This study also has contribution for the army as an executor. The resulst can be used as input in the recruitment and also for determining the period of obligatory service of the officers. The Collecting multi-source data, using a scale developed in Turkish culture (military leadership scale), having a time-difference between collecting data (that reduces the negative effect of common method variance) are the strengths of the study. Assigning SES groups just with state of education and collecting data via intranet are the limits of the study.