The Impact of Personality Traits of the U.S. Presidents on Cabinet Appointments

• In Event: Presidents and Executive Politics & Public Policy Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual Poster Session: Presidents and Executive Politics Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

The paper is a comparative study of three U.S. presidents’ administrations: George W. Bush (2001-2004), Barack H. Obama (2009-2012), and Donald J. Trump (2017-2020). If Trump has appointed 24 persons to 15 places in the Cabinet, Bush and Obama administrations had only 17 officials for the corresponding positions. For investigating such a difference in the number of cabinet appointments by Trump and other two presidents, the Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA) has been employed to study the three leaders’ personality traits. Interviews and other public speeches have been used in the LTA. The results from the analysis of the collected data demonstrate that Trump’s distinctively higher number of appointments to the Cabinet positions is correlated with his low task focus and relatively high general distrust or suspiciousness of others.

Author

• Abbas Mammadov, Washington State University