For decades, it was a commonly held belief that personality traits — be they motivations, abilities or patterns of behaviour — remain relatively stable. In the US, one of the largest and longest nationwide surveys followed thousands of people from the 1930s through to the 1980s. Researchers found that while habits may evolve, core personality traits generally did not change over time. However, research by professors Fu Pingping, Associate Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Xi Youmin, Executive President of Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, and Xu Liguo, doctoral candidate at Xi’an Jiaotong University, shows that some personality traits do evolve.

In their study of five prominent Chinese business leaders, the researchers found that these leaders modified their leadership styles as their personalities changed. Fu argues that these leaders adapted their leadership styles to overcome setbacks, provide better management and raise global awareness of their organisations and China. Understanding the malleability of some Chinese business leaders’ personality traits might help pave the way for a new generation of business leaders to lead in Asia and beyond.  

How can personality traits evolve?

According to the research from Fu et al, leadership traits tend to evolve along three main patterns: homological, converse and composite.

1. Homological

Leadership traits that evolve in a homological pattern tend to become stronger through repetition. Wang Shi is chairman of China’s largest residential real estate enterprise, China Vanke. In his 2006 autobiography, he argued that his mischievous nature as a child matured into an adventurous approach to entrepreneurship and leadership. Just as he tested limits in his childhood, in business Wang aimed to broaden his employees’ horizons and empower them to build better homes for the Chinese people.

The evolution of Wang’s leadership style displays homological patterns – as his adventurous, boundary-pushing personality traits were reinforced by business success.

2. Converse

The opposite of a homological trait evolution is a converse pattern, whereby existing traits are replaced by diametric ones.

When Shi Yuzhu was 29, he founded Giant Group, China’s second-largest privately held technology company in the 1990s. One of China’s best-known and controversial businesspeople, Shi was widely perceived as audacious and ambitious due to his propensity to take risks. However, he appeared to overreach, building a 72-storey skyscraper for Giant Group that burdened the company with bad debts. The unfinished skyscraper became a symbol of Shi’s hubris when Giant Group collapsed in 1997, putting Shi in debt of 200 million yuan (US$24 million). Shi rebuilt the corporation from scratch, but the experience had changed him. His reckless style was replaced by a realistic approach, and he said that he became more receptive to other views.

In April 2013, Shi resigned as CEO of Giant Interactive Group Inc, the successor of Giant Group. His resignation statement made a point of praising the efforts of his colleagues: “I have always envisioned Giant becoming a mature company with a self-sustaining culture and core values, relying on the entire team to produce the results.”

As Shi’s account suggests, when leaders evolve in a converse pattern, it is usually because their pre-existing style of leadership has failed convincingly. Fu argues that such leaders who realise their previous methodologies were unsuccessful consciously develop more effective alternate traits.

3. Composite

The third way in which traits evolve is a composite pattern. Here, two seemingly disparate traits combine to create a new, more effective trait. Zhang Ruimin, chairman and CEO of Haier Group, was a leader whose traits developed in a homological pattern. In the early 1980s, as China embarked on its economic reformation, Zhang adopted a forceful leadership style to drive much-needed changes. As the recently appointed head of an ailing state-owned refrigerator factory, Zhang was determined to ensure that product quality was paramount. When 76 refrigerators were found to be defective, he famously handed out sledgehammers to his factory staff and ordered them to smash the refrigerators. “I knew that I wanted to do something very important, to make a good product,” remembers Zhang.

Zhang is committed to quality — every Haier employee has their own performance-related targets — but he is equally committed to his people. He once drove 20 miles in an old, open-top three-wheeler in cold winter weather to borrow money for his employees’ Chinese New Year bonus. He believes in empowering his employees to be innovators. “Peter Drucker [legendary management theory thinker] said he wanted everyone to be their own CEO,” Zhang told Forbes last year. “That’s what we want. We aren’t there yet, but that’s the goal.”

Displaying a composite pattern of trait evolution, Zhang combined forceful leadership and a commitment to employee empowerment into one trait: ‘thinking on principle, acting flexibly’. Zhang argues that this combination of core values and flexibility allows Haier to quickly identify and meet consumer needs. In contrast, Haier’s competitors, such as large appliance manufacturers, are not as flexible and agile.

Today, one of the sledgehammers hangs in the National Museum of China, in Beijing. The refrigerator factory evolved into Haier, the world's biggest seller of domestic appliances. Zhang is fêted as one of China and the world’s most influential and visionary business leaders.

The dual nature of evolving personality traits

As personality traits change in different patterns over time, leaders must understand this evolution. Failure can lead to leaders potentially developing negative leadership traits. In late 2009, a corruption scandal rocked Chinese politics. Xu Maiyong, former vice-mayor of Hangzhou, was accused of abuses of power that included bribery and embezzlement totalling millions of dollars. Xu was once a rising star in the Chinese Communist Party, but in a confessional letter written just before his execution in 2011, he explained his fall from grace. Growing up in poverty, Xu said that he was immensely grateful when party members offered him a position in the provincial government. Xu claimed that at that point his only desire was to repay the faith invested in him by serving the public.

As he rose in the party, however, Xu travelled to other cities in China and met with high-ranking officials and private businesspeople. Xu said that he felt indignant and jealous of the private fortunes amassed in the business world and the large amounts of money spent entertaining, which dwarfed his monthly income. The previously idealistic and dedicated Xu underwent a converse trait evolution. Driven, he said, by greed, jealousy and the fear of returning to poverty, he committed graft on a massive scale, stealing millions from the public purse.  

Managing a leading personality

How do business leaders positively harness their trait evolution? The answer, Fu believes, might lie in the adherence to a central purpose in life. The best leaders, says Fu, are driven by a greater ideal or vision. Corrupt Chinese politician Xu Maiyong may have begun with selfless aspirations to serve the people, but Fu argues Xu was weak-willed, easily swayed and became interested only in enriching himself.

In contrast, Zhang Ruimin’s life experiences — especially during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, when the closure of schools denied him a chance to go to college — left him with strong sense of responsibility to develop his country. This drove his desire to turn Haier into a source of national pride for China. Fu argues that everything, from the symbolic smashing of refrigerators to the synthesis of the ‘thinking on principle, acting flexibly’ style of leadership, all stem from Zhang’s core purpose of creating an iconic Chinese company and brand. In Fu’s opinion, this clarity of purpose is the most important aspect of leadership. Establishing and adhering to an inspiring vision or purpose gives personality traits the positive framework within which to evolve. It also enables leaders to guard against temptation and ensure their development is beneficial to both themselves and their organisations.