A Comparative Analysis of Personality and Leadership in New Zealand

This essay examines the personalities of New Zealand's Prime Ministers, Bill English and John Key, focusing on how their traits influence their leadership styles. The analysis uses the Big Five personality model to assess traits like extroversion, openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. The essay draws on media reports and public perceptions to illustrate the leaders' behaviors and their impact on the nation. It contrasts English's perceived calmness and potential lack of social engagement with Key's more outgoing and social approach, highlighting how these differences may have affected their governance. The essay also touches upon controversies surrounding both leaders, such as the 'dirty politic scandal' involving English and Key's public interactions, to provide a comprehensive view of their personalities and leadership.

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The Effect of personality
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Abstract
The global importance of having a right personality has been a concern to many people in
the society. Most of the leaders of nations such as the president and the prime ministers are
expected to behave well and correctly represent the country. Therefore, personality is subjected
to the proper behavior that most people will admire according to the ethics of the society. Most
individuals in the world today are attracted by individuals with the right personality. In this
paper, will be able to analyze the character of the two prime minister of New Zealand and that is
Mr. Bill English and John Key. The media department will aid us to get know some of the
characters of the two close leaders to find out whether this corresponds to their productivity in
the nation. Personality trait plays an essential role in the success of an individual and the society
in general through a responsive leadership.
Bill English
He is the current prime minister of New Zealand after a successful succession from the
former Prime Minister John Key. The media department in the country has talked much on the
prime minister some positive and others negative. First, based on the personal conversation
analysis done at the press desk most of the people believe that he is a calm man. Most of the
people in this nation describe the prime minister as being a calm person due to the slow speech
motion that it will take the person next to him some proper attention to listen and get what he's
saying (Boudreau, Boswell and Judge, page 60). According to some of the media department,
this is viewed as pretense and lack of good leadership quality as some say based on their opinion
that a good leader should be audible in speech and not as the current prime minister. However,

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this may be true or not, but his past leadership as a minister under the previous government can
tell a lot based on the information.
The live news which is one of the media departments in the nation released breaking
news through their analysis of Bryce Edward concerning Bill English dirty politic scandal. The
national party which is chaired by Bill is described as the one that is involved in silencing some
levels of impunity in the nation especially the crisis that touches the government. The national
broadcast gave out an opinion that the government had spun the act around the issue of the tape
recording claiming that the most of the politicians are playing PR in most public gatherings to
get support instead of being guided by principles and truth in their service to the nations.
According to the media, The Prime minister is rude and perhaps maybe hiding some information
to the public. ‘’ I am not a lawyer’’ Prime Minister Bill English said as he was confronted with
some questions to clarify. Based on the information given that seems contradictory from what he
said before, Hon Bill says that he did not attend to the offer of the records as the media
departments have been claiming.
The government may be facing some allegations that might be true or false based on the
contradictory opposition measures to make the people feel bad about the state. Therefore, based
on the information from the media departments and the newspaper, it will be justifiable to say
that most of the politicians are not clean. However, it seems that some of the press department
has decided to give to the society what it needs to classify the current government as corrupt and
surpassingly dirty in running the affairs of the state. Ideally, the media has the power and
freedom to give to the society what they need to hear from what is taking place in the state where
they cannot see because they can question the government on what is happening that people need

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to know (Cope and Kalantzis, page 170). Nonetheless, the media has placed the leader as just
like any other politician whose road is not as clean as expected according to the Barclay Scandal.
John Key
He is the 38th prime minister of New Zealand and the leader of the national party before
Mr. Bill took over from him. The newspaper and other media department have talked a lot about
him based on the social conduct and perhaps the performance that he has brought to the people
of New Zealand. Most of the media desks have captured some of the moments that the leader has
moved and made fun in public. First, a child kissing the Prime minister was viewed as a sign of
showing the public how he is a social person to gain trust and perhaps boost votes. The six
months old Harrison Burns took upon himself and thrashed into the arms of the Key grabbing a
chunk of flesh from one of his cheeks. The leader is one of the most social people in the nation
who has tried to reach out to many people around as a service and a show of hospitality.
The media also captured by the time he was given a chance to model the Rugby cup
uniforms. He became a bit enthusiastic as he walks down. After that, he calls the media and
regrets saying that the action was a bit stupid and he ought not to have done that in the first
place. The actions and statements indicate that he was a person who is straight forward and
enjoyed having some fun to make people laugh even as a leader. On the other hand, he pulled a
waitress Known as Ponytail who went viral. The media went through the newspaper defending
the journalist claiming that the prime minister has misbehaved pulling the hair more often during
most of the public sessions. The media says that the people have the right to know what is
happening and how their leader is behaving in the public sites with people. However, the prime
minister apologized for the action and said that it was meant to be light-hearted.

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The media has also revealed that through the leadership of Mr. John Key and Bill, the
nation has experienced an economic growth that has spurred them to the national ranking
regarding development. The information is dated from the 2008 financial crisis that took place
and shook most nations in the west. The media has accepted that though the Prime minister may
be having a problem with the public representation through his acts on pulling the Journalist and
also through catwalk during the rugby presentation, his administration has assisted the nation a
great deal to curb and rectifies the financial crisis that hit the countries. The prime minister
according to the media is a right person though the aspect of public quo lacks in his leadership.
On the other hand, the media presented a breaking news following the resignation of the
prime minister which was said is out of his quest for the love of the family. The family according
to key has faced and sacrificed a lot for him being in the leadership. Most of the people said that
the wife complained and forced him to resign and commend Mr. Bill to take the position as the
next prime minister. The action shows that Mr. Key loved the family in the case the reasoning
the media gave is genuine and not politics. The social nature of Mr. John Key was felt, and his
role in bringing the nation to a stable economy meant a lot for the people of New Zealand.
Introduction to the Big Five personality
The model was asserted by some of the personality theorists to assist the people in
understanding some of the personality traits of individuals around them. The classification
includes traits like Extraversion, agreeableness, openness; emotional stability and consciousness
to the experiences that is meet in day to day interaction with people and the society (Seibert and
Kraemer, page 6). The global understanding of the trait is fundamentally based on the behavior
of the persons at work to get the best achievement in the world of business and any other work

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available that requires productivity. The traits act as a benchmark to aid us in knowing the
individual who is feet in various positions in the society to shun placing evil characters in real
positions especially in choosing the right people in taking essential posts like presidents and the
prime minister like in the case of New Zealand.
Discussion of the personality trait of Bill English according to the big five
personality model
Extroversion
According to the model, the character represents a person who is very assertive and social
and not timid or quiet. The kind of behavior represents someone who does not like socializing
with other people in the society. In consideration to what the media said about Bill at the prime
minister, we can see that he is a flexible person and does not like talking too much. The softness
is described by the media that the words are few. Based on this trait, I think Bill is not a social
person because he is not being captured in the social gathering like in sports and other public
events. Therefore, in most of the public speeches, he plays a lot of public relation traits (Ellison
and Levy, page 503).
Openness
This attribute represents the aspect of being curious, and creative while handling the
official duties. According to the model, the representation is not being narrow-minded as some of
the people are in their performance but being able to be cultured. From the information, Bill
seems to be highly concerned with the matters of the office and does not pay attention to find out
some of the issues affecting the nation (Kriesi, page 844). The people were complaining through
the media of the Barclays scandal that affected the national party alleged to be involved. He

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complains, and instead of digging deep into the matter, he responds to the public that ‘’ he is not
a lawyer, ’’ and the media should avoid bothering him with questions that are not as important as
the development of the nation’s economy. Therefore, it is clear that he lacked the creativity to
keep the trust of people at bay and get the attention even with the much accusation of the party
cropping in and causing animosity.
Conscientiousness
These involve the aspect of being hardworking, organized and equally dependable at
work to achieve the set goals. Most of the employers like in this case the citizens of New
Zealand would be at high notes electing someone with great integrity and passion to hard work.
Therefore, according to the information that I have read in the media, Mr. Bill is perhaps hard
working which can be confirmed by their collaboration with the former Prime Minister John Key
to bring back the nation to its normal from the great financial crisis that took place in the year
2007 to 2008. Therefore, based on that the people were able to depend on him again to take the
lead and continue with the great work. Ideally, when an individual has the spirit of hard work, he
or she will be able to achieve the best in the work place. Therefore, the personality trait of
conscientiousness is directly proportional to performance (Myllylahti, page 13).
Agreeable
This is a personality trait represented in the model that depicts a person who embraces the
quality of being cooperative, he or she is very warm and can agree on various opinions that
people give. It is one of the important aspects that are needed in team work to ensure that people
work together to get the best effects in the nation. Based on the trait, I can say that to some
moments Mr. Bill showed an aspect of being agreeable for example his cooperation with the

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former prime minister, thus leading to a positive change in the economy. On the other, he has
exhibited the absence of collaboration, especially with the media to assist in getting to the root of
the scandal that exists in the nation (Roberts, page 4). Therefore, it is vivid that for a precise
performance at any workplace a person must be agreeable to agree with the people around.
Discussion on the personality of John Key based on the Model
Agreeable
Based on this trait I can say that Mr. Key attributed the element of cooperation with the
other teams especially the media. The leader was responding to the people more often than the
current prime minister of the nation. In spite of the rivalry that some of the people had with him
through the aspect of a public image, he allowed the media to do their job and comes later to
correct the situation by apologizing to the people. Ideally, that is the kind of leadership that ought
to take place around the society to ensure that peace is maintained and allow the society to have
their opinion listen and responded to amicably. This medium is the basis of a good performance
in most nations (Firth, page 87). Most of the successful people in the society according to
psychologist are individuals who can move along with people and does not create enmity since is
a fact that we need people to make life even better and we cannot live in isolation. Therefore,
Mr. Key was right maintaining the relationship of various characters in the media and the nations
at large by ensuring that he apologizes to every critic. This is because the connection between the
press and people is substantial and perhaps, they can get the possible gang up and make sure that
the leader especially the top leader is frustrated (Argyle, page 56).
Extraversion

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Being social to ensure that the every person gets your time is an essential personality that
most leaders should embrace. In this case, the prime minister leads the whole nation, and that is
the poor, rich and perhaps the wealthy families and not just a chunk of people. According to my
analysis, I think the leader showed all the aspect of possessing the trait and that can be captured
on where a child jumped and played with him as the camera takes. This is basically, the genesis
of being social (Eysenck and Eysenck, page 13). Moreover, he is seen in most of the social
places like during the sports days like Rugby to cheer them and open up for the teams to get the
records which they intended to gate such as the registers. Additionally, to have the public
opinion about what they think about you and perceives, the leader must make sure that the bond
between him or her and the public is strong and kept. And that is what Mr. Key is
enthusiastically doing to find out get the benefits (Ward, page 404).
Openness
Most of the leaders of many nations lack the trait and stand out not to be rigid since they
accept no correction from the people. The creativity aspect shown in the attribute is in the fact of
receiving at some times the way of the people to happen. I think the leader actions on
apologizing as the media condemns his action of pulling the hair of the journalist which he
claimed to him was not a big deal. Consequently, through this personality, he was able to allow
the media to do their job and responds to them where necessary (Belich, page 90). This median is
essential for creativity since it allows for team work and respect to be maintained. The
performance that has been realized in many nations is because team spirit has been evoked to run
in most of the departments (Zuckerman, page 52).
Conscientiousness

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To be dependable is important and allow the people to have confidence in the individual.
The aspect of hard work is also captured in the train and order as well. Most successful people in
the society are orderly; they have the spirit of hard work and also show some dependable nature.
John Key seems to have all of the above characters to allow the people to elect him as their
leader. Ideally, to move such a large number of individuals to have you in their minds and vote
for you in the election is not something to just perform overnight (Olins, page 83). It takes the
time to mature the characters to make sure that they are part of you since no society or nation
would like to lead by someone who is not hard working and lacks order. Therefore, for the sake
of success, it is crucial to have the above facts right within the mind. Mr. Key is remembered as
being the economy elevators from the dark days that was perceived to be a crisis by some of the
leaders who lacked the integrity to work for the people to gain the confidence they deserve.
Therefore, performing a remarkable task to the people elevates the confidence and makes people
cooperate with everything that you perform (Beck, page 342).
Conclusion
A personality trait is an aspect that correlates with the behavior of an individual to the
people around them that can either promote the success or hinder it. Most of the success in their
work places especially the government leaders have tried to maintain their status quo through
their behavior and reasoning regarding what they say and what they do in public. The negation of
personality factor has been a concern to most of the people in the leadership positions through
successive characters that would perhaps lure most of the people to like them in the long run.
Basically, according to the model of the five personality traits, it is vivid that most of the leaders
in the society today especially the developed nations like New Zealand have developed the
aspects to capture the hearts of the public to promote peace and cohesion. Moreover, being

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socially available like in the case of Mr. Key did not affect or perhaps lower his dignity as a
leader but promoted him to be one of the best prime ministers in the nation. The characteristic is
all about being able to understand the people and also through making people understand you
through your actions and words.

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