Volodymyr Zelenskyy (EIE): Personality Type Analysis

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (born 1978) is a Ukrainian comedian, actor, film producer, and the current President of Ukraine. Zelenskyy began his career in entertainment doing comedy skits, eventually moving on to starring in movies, as well as funding movies and shows himself. In 2015, Zelenskyy began starring in a comedy/satire TV show called Servant of the People in which he played a school teacher who is suddenly and unexpectedly elevated to the Presidency of Ukraine after his rant against widespread government corruption in Ukraine went viral. In 2018, Zelenskyy ran for President under his newly formed political party named after the TV show he starred in, ‘Servant of the People’, as a political outsider (as expected of someone who spent their life in entertainment instead of politics) on a populist, anti-corruption platform which frequently referenced the TV show and, according to some, seemed to blur the lines between fiction and reality. Another of Zelenskyy’s campaign tactics was to intentionally draw comparisons between himself and fellow actor-turned-President Ronald Reagan (EIE). He would even quote Ronald Reagan's famous "Government is no the solution to the problem, government is the problem" line in his inauguration speech. Despite portraying himself as a man of the people, Zelenskyy has been criticized for his strong connection to Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. Despite these and other criticisms I will cover later, Zelenskyy won the Presidential election with 73% of the vote against the incumbent President Petro Poroshenko. Zelenskyy’s Presidency has seemingly gone from one crisis to another, each more dangerous than the last. The first of which was when US President Donald Trump (SLE) tried to force Zelenskyy to investigate Hunter Biden, son of at the time Democratic Presidential candidate and current President Joe Biden (EIE) by implying he would cut off American aid to Ukraine which the country relies on. The second major crisis was the COVID-19 pandemic. The third, the most notable, and the most recent crisis of Zelenskyy’s Presidency is of course the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Zelenskyy’s status as the leader of Ukraine in this crisis and his bravery in staying in the capitol city Kyiv, even as Russia is attacking the city, has in the past few days (as of writing this article) elevated him to international acclaim.

The one thing that stands out about Zelenskyy above all else is his charisma. Blessed with a magnetic personality, Zelenskyy chose entertainment as his initial career choice despite graduating with a law degree. He has been a charming host and a skilled actor, and his skill as a communicator is what swept him to the Presidency in 2019. The writer of a DW News article on Zelenskyy declares confidently that Zelenskyy’s speeches during Russia’s invasion will go down in history, calling him an outstanding communicator while contrasting his skilled use of rhetoric with the flailing rhetoric of Russian President Vladimir Putin (LSI). It’s impossible to find any article or video covering Zelenskyy that does not focus mostly on his charisma.

Zelenskyy himself is well aware of the importance that charisma and an appealing image plays in politics. In a 2019 article covering Zelenskyy in relation to Donald Trump’s impeachment, he is described as having a disarming ability to adopt whatever persona suits the occasion. When asked how his career in entertainment prepared him for politics, Zelensky states “What the viewer loves in an actor, this feeling of humanity—of course I use it. And that’s very easy to do, because I remain myself… I look at things like a producer. I would often watch a scene on the monitor, and the director and I would yell, ‘Stop, no more, this is unwatchable! No one will believe this.’”

Zelenskyy’s charisma has been on full display during the most recent crisis. In addition to staying in Kyiv, meeting with soldiers and putting out statements to keep morale up, Zelenskyy has given speeches filled with emotional appeals to both the West for aid and addressed to Russians imploring them to put a stop to the invasion, including a speech spoken in Russian (Zelenskyy’s native language) naming specific streets, parks, bars, etc., in the Donetsk region, building an emotional connection with people there and emphasizing that it is Ukrainian territory, in an attempt to convince the Russian people of the injustice of the invasion.

What’s clear about Zelenskyy is that he is not only very concerned with appealing to others, he is very good at it as well. With Zelenskyy’s unbridled charisma, his perception of how things appear to others, and his rhetorical skill, E1 is clear.

In addition to basic emotional appeal, Zelenskyy shows a strong understanding of how symbolic actions influence perception, as seen in his most immediate actions after becoming President. Among Zelenskyy’s actions was the decision to change the traditional greeting that guards used for the President from the more standard and grandiose greeting to a simple "good morning," and to reduce the size of the Presidential motorcade, both among his many actions intended to send the clear message that Ukraine was entering a new era of governance by a good and upstanding President who is not interested in the trappings of power. 

Zelenskyy’s campaign also had a very strong focus on presenting an inspiring vision of a future Ukraine, without the corruption that plagued the country since its independence. Presenting corruption as the root of all problems in Ukraine, his stated goals of rooting out corruption and ending the war in the Donbass region were often described as being overly ambitious and unreasonable, considering Zelenskyy promised he would only run for one term.

In addition, a rather minor point, but still worth noting, is that Zelenskyy himself appears to have an inclination toward viewing things by what they represent, rather than at face value. For example, saying to a journalist in reference to the gaudy President’s Office after his inauguration “These walls are filled with the symbolism of the past thirty years. They were the site of what brought our country to the condition it’s in. You want to wash all this off yourself.” In addition, in interview clips, Zelenskyy discusses events in terms of both the symbolic effect they have and the long-term effects of past events. All of this, his understanding of how to affect emotions with symbolic change and his overly ambitious vision, is consistent with T2 supporting E1.

Zelenskyy clearly values toughness and the will to make change. For example, saying of the Ukrainian oligarchs “You have two billion dollars? O.K. One billion goes to paving roads. That’s how you have to talk to them.”, asserting the necessity of being harsh against oligarchs. We can also see this in his decision to stay in Kyiv during the attacks, responding to American offers of evacuation "I need ammunition, not a ride." Zelenskyy also clearly has a desire to act to change his country. He has projected confidence while staying on the ground in Kyiv during Russian attacks on the city. It is likely from this that Zelenskyy values F. His recent bravery in Kyiv during the Russian attacks would even seem to be indicative of F ego, or at the very least strong F. However, there are quite a few problems with F ego. Noticeably, despite his tough rhetoric and some early executive actions, Zelenskyy has had serious difficulty pushing his agendas through. Quite a lot of his attempted bills have been stalled in the parliament. While this could very easily be explained by the fact that Ukraine’s executive has much less authority than many other executives, it is still strange for the nominal leader of a party which controls a majority of parliament (240 out of 450), with an additional 80 seats belonging to members of allied parties. This could also easily be explained by the unclear ideological values of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party. Even so, Zelenskyy has only recently begun to take bold action, such as running for President. Prior to that, he primarily criticized and satirized Ukrainian politics from the side-lines as an entertainer. F does not appear to be a natural strength, instead, it is something Zelenskyy has worked to develop, best suiting F6. Further evidence of combined T2 and F6 would be the frequent criticism that Zelenskyy’s campaign promises were often overly ambitious and excessively visionary, lacking an understanding of how much he would actually be capable of accomplishing, which is the reason that Zelenskyy’s popularity was at an all time low prior to its spike as people unified behind him in response to Russia’s invasion.

In addition, Zelenskyy spent the early parts of his life involved in creative work, including comedy routines, acting, writing and filming and producing movies and TV shows. Zelenskyy spent his earlier period of life taking part in many different projects, and only lately has he started decisively committing to a single course and seeking power, a life trajectory fully consistent with someone relying on unvalued I8 for most of their life until transitioning to pursuing valued F6. The creativity on display in Zelenskyy’s Presidential campaign, ignoring traditional media and focusing on social media, creating a connection between the real Zelenskyy and the fictional President that Zelenskyy played on TV, etc. provides further evidence of I8.

Combined with Zelenskyy’s desire to effect change and his valuing of F is a desire to do so on an ideological and structural basis. Most of his comedy centered on criticisms of Ukrainian politics, particularly the corruption and oligarchy that has always plagued Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet Union. This suggests that Zelenskyy has always to some extent been motivated by a desire to see structural change, (L). Rather than directing his comedy and political career toward specific individuals or specific moral condemnations (R), they have been directed toward general impersonal problems in the way Ukrainian society has been structured since 1991.This suggests that Zelenskyy values L along with F, i.e. Beta Quadra. However, despite valuing L, Zelenskyy has been very frequently criticized for not really having any clear ideology. His speeches, while uplifting, are typically light on specific policy ideas, consisting almost purely of emotional rhetoric. Zelenskyy’s lack of a clear ideology or specific policy positions has been the biggest criticism he has received in his short political career. Zelenskyy’s party, the Servant of the People party, is itself very ideologically incoherent. At one point, Zelenskyy’s representative in Parliament declared Libertarianism as the party’s ideology, but later another leader of the party declared that the ideology would no longer be libertarian and that, to make necessary compromises, the party would become a mix between liberal and socialist views, a very rapid and seemingly random shift in ideology, and an already unbelievable shift in ideology for any political party, made even more jarring by the fact that the party has only existed for a little more than four years. It seems that for both the party Zelenskyy created and Zelenskyy himself, alignment with the West and the EU, and anti-corruption are the only clear and consistent policies (and even these are quite vague), with everything else up in the air. Combining this incoherence which can only be L5 or L4 with the fact that Zelenskyy still seems to value L, and L5 is most likely.

In addition to this, Zelenskyy has been quite dismissive of competence as a necessary quality for a leader, on several occasions stating that he does not need to be a good manager, just that he needs to be a good person. Zelensky himself even admits that he is not a particularly competent person. This all indicates that Zelensky does not value P and, by his own self-assessment, is quite weak at P aspects.

Often, rather than citing ideological consistency or competence as reasons for electing someone to government, Zelenskyy will talk about the need for having good selfless people in government, showing a clear awareness of R. However, Zelenskyy does not seem to put much of a focus on R for the sake of R. Two examples come to mind; first, in Zelenskyy's inauguration speech, he requests that lawmakers stop putting up pictures of the current President in their office, and instead put up pictures of their children. The second example is another of Zelenskyy's speeches, spoken in Russian the night that Russia's invasion started, in which he named specific individuals that he is good friends with living in the separatist-controlled regions in Donetsk as well as specific places that hold sentimental value to him. In the first example, this request takes place in the context of Zelenskyy imploring lawmakers to think about future generations when making their decisions rather than short-term selfish gain, a T focus using R as a tool rather than a point of focus itself, all channeled through through an attempt at emotional impact (E). The second example was also R being used as a tool in service of E during a time of desperation. While both of these examples show an awareness of R from Zelenskyy and confident use as well, they both show R only being used as extrinsically, in service of E1, and there does not seem to be any other instances of R usage by Zelenskyy in the sources I looked through, not even as a background element. Lastly, as I said before, Zelenskyy's political career has been on the basis of challenging oligarchs and pursuing structural change, an L focus, rather than an R focus. This is all consistent with R7.

With E1, T2, L5, F6, R7, I8, and weak unvalued P, the type that best fits Volodymyr Zelenskyy is EIE.

To learn more about EIE, click here.

If you do not understand our use of Socionics terminology, click here.

Sources

For a broad overview of Zelenskyy’s life, I used the following articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelenskyy

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/04/how-trumps-emissaries-put-pressure-on-ukraines-new-president 

https://abcnews.go.com/International/ukrainian-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy/story?id=83085078

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-who-is-volodymyr-zelenskyy-ukraines-unlikely-wartime-president-7791092/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/zelenskyy-ukraine-russia-putin-invasion-rcna17661

https://www.dw.com/en/ukraines-volodymyr-zelenskyy-from-comedian-to-national-hero/a-60924507 

Interviews and speeches:

https://youtu.be/db6B9f-swBQ?t=2574 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/full-transcript-zelenskyys-emotional-appeal-russians-rcna17485 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkWfOWqVYJQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OOBEs8TIjk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC2t-SqWMX4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVAExDHaKcc 

Info on the Servant of the People’s Party:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_of_the_People_(political_party) 

Other sources used:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/24/ukraine-president-virtual-campaign-226711/

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/11/ukraine-still-backs-zelenskyy-despite-slow-progress

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-invasion-who-is-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy-russias-enemy-number-one-12551009

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/20/1082037466/what-to-know-about-ukraine-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/25/who-is-volodymyr-zelenskyy-europes-most-vulnerable-president

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/4/22/volodymyr-zelenskyy-wins-ukraines-presidential-vote

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-who-is-volodymyr-zelenskyy-ukraines-unlikely-wartime-president-7791092/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fr9ARK2Zo4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30ALpcuyaYM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkGbnplg308

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgNj6xkA2u8

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/no-policies-no-problem-ukrainian-comedian-s-election-success-latest-n990331

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1DS9iDmQVk

Alexander Hamilton (LIE): Personality Type Analysis

Alexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757-1804) was one of the founding fathers of the United States of America. Born out of wedlock in the Caribbean, Hamilton immigrated to America on the eve of its revolution against British control. He studied law and wrote essays arguing passionately for greater freedom from Britain, one of the most known being a rebuttal against “a Westchester Farmer” (a pen name for Samuel Seabury) called ‘Farmer Refuted’. Hamilton interrupted his schooling to join the continental army where his leadership skills were noticed and he rose through the ranks to eventually become right hand man to General and first President George Washington (ESI). After the war, Hamilton took part in the constitutional convention to replace the failing articles of confederation, in which he gave a 6-hour speech in support of his own form of government, which many in the convention believed gave far too much authority to the executive branch and thus this speech made made him a lot of enemies. Once the new constitution was decided on, Hamilton partnered with John Jay and James Madison (LII) to write the Federalist papers, which argued for New York state to ratify the constitution. Hamilton served as the first Treasury Secretary under President Washington, in which he repeatedly clashed with Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson (LII) over the size of the federal government and concentration of power (Hamilton wanted more, Jefferson wanted less), before both left the administration (Jefferson quit due to his lack of ability to combat Hamilton’s policies, while Hamilton quit to pursue other projects and due to lack of funds). During this time, Hamilton also founded the Federalist party to combat the anti-Federalists led by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Out of political office, Hamilton would clash with the second President John Adams (ILI) who was a Federalist, a rivalry which caused the Federalist party to cannibalize itself and eventually implode during the presidencies of three successive Democratic-Republicans, Jefferson, Madison, and James Monroe (EII). In 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr (SLE), knowing he would be replaced as President Jefferson’s running mate in the election that year, ran for governor of New York, and Hamilton, viewing Burr as a scoundrel with no values or morals, stepped in to prevent Burr from winning the election. In response, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. Hamilton accepted, and in the duel, Burr fatally shot Hamilton, who died of his wound on July 12th, 1804. Today, Hamilton is credited first and foremost with having created the American financial system that lasted to the present day. Hamilton’s face is on the $10 bill, the only person other than Benjamin Franklin (ILE) to appear on current U.S. currency without having been President. He was also recently thrust back into the spotlight as the subject of Lin Manuel Miranda’s hit Broadway musical ‘Hamilton’.

Hamilton’s greatest strength, and the reason he was valued so much by George Washington and others, was his pure competence in everything he did. Alexander Hamilton was a genius manager of people and resources, with an eye for efficiency that was almost completely unmatched. In his early teenage years, shortly after being orphaned, Hamilton was employed as a clerk at a local import-export firm which traded with New York and New England on the island of St. Croix, and his management was so impressive that the owner of the firm felt completely comfortable leaving the teenaged Alexander Hamilton in charge for five months while he, the owner, was at sea. All this while voraciously reading every single book that he could get his hands on. At the beginning of the American war for independence, Hamilton joined the army and cobbled together 60 men for an artillery regiment in which he was elected captain, and his leadership abilities were noticed. His skill in managing the regiment was the primary feature noticed and got him many requests by high-ranking officers to join their staff, all of which Hamilton refused until he got an offer he couldn’t refuse: to become General George Washington’s aide-de-camp. Washington believed in choosing as an aide-de-camp one whom he could put all of his faith in to execute the duties required of them with competence. Following the war, Alexander Hamilton taught himself law and managed to pass the bar so that he could practice as an attorney. Hamilton was appointed to the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, which he was already criticizing prior to joining on the basis that Congress under the articles did not have any of the power necessary to perform any of its duties, that it could only collect voluntary taxes from the states and with such strict requirements for passing a bill that it was impossible for anything to get done. Hamilton was not interested in the abstract values of freedom and liberty that were used to defend the articles, basing all his criticisms on the Congress’ lack of efficiency or ability to do what it needed. Hamilton’s defense of the new, proposed constitution in the Federalist Papers, of which he wrote 51 out of 85, was based on how much more efficient the constitution would be than the articles of confederation.

Following the adoption of the constitution and the ascendancy of George Washington to the Presidency, Hamilton was chosen to become the first Secretary of the Treasury, at which point he set about creating a financial system predicated on efficiency and progress, with a large part of this program being the Federal Government’s assumption of state debt, which centralized Federal power by requiring all states to collectively pay off the nation’s debt rather than pay off their own debt individually. His anti-Federalist opponents, the Democratic-Republicans (though they simply called themselves 'Republicans' at the time) who were led by Thomas Jefferson, opposed Hamilton and his financial plan on the basis that this expanded government power and thus went against the core values of the American revolution. Hamilton’s arguments for his economic policies were their effectiveness in increasing economic well being, often citing the United Kingdom as an example of effective economics (and effective politics, having argued for an executive branch similar to the British system when he spoke for 6 hours at the constitutional convention), a stance that was anathema to the Republicans and caused them to label Hamilton as a monarchist and accuse him of working on behalf of Britain.

Hamilton’s other programs were justified in similar ways, always on the basis of pragmatism, while his opponents criticized his disregard for the principles of the revolution, a conflict that would form the basis of the first set of political parties, the Federalists founded by Alexander Hamilton, and the Democratic-Republicans founded by Thomas Jefferson. The first party system was, in essence, a conflict between Hamilton’s calculating pragmatism and Jefferson’s loyalty to the idealistic, abstract principles of the revolution, essentially a conflict between P and L, with Hamilton supporting the P approach. This reliance on P, with very little focus on L, not to mention Hamilton’s incredible skill with practical management of resources, makes it clear that P was Hamilton’s most valued and skillful element, and consistent only with P1.

Alexander Hamilton himself said “Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.”

Though Hamilton certainly ignored L in favor of P, It cannot be said that Hamilton was bad at L. Hamilton was a very skilled lawyer, and his defense of the new constitution shows that he understood the necessity for having a structure in place to pursue pragmatic benefits. Still though, his complete dismissal of abstract ideological values in favor of tangible benefit is enough to say that L was an area of very low focus despite its strength, fitting L7.

Hamilton’s approach to P always took a very future-oriented approach. Most notably, his financial system was made specifically for the purpose of lasting long into the future. His concern was if this financial plan would last and keep America successful and stable in the long-term. His focus on promoting manufacturing was on the basis of preparing for the changing times, namely the industrial revolution, which was just starting up in Britain at the time. Hamilton was always concerned with the future implications of actions taken by himself and others, and his early correspondence shows that, even during the revolutionary war, Hamilton was very concerned about the future economic system the United States would adopt and was putting thought into the system he believed would be best to implement. All this shows a strong focus on T as well as P.

Hamilton also concerned himself with a very large variety of issues, most pertaining to economics but also concerning himself with the law, the constitution, government centralization, and the creation of a standing army. He worked to push president John Adams to establish a standing army, which was meant to be led by George Washington, although Washington never took command in person and died while Adams was still in office during his only term of four years. Hamilton was also a curious and voracious reader, reading constantly even at a very early age the works of a wide variety of philosophers and thinkers.

To have been involved in such a wide variety of pursuits, despite his life having been cut short by his duel with Aaron Burr, is astounding, with a breadth of knowledge, intellectual curiosity, and variety of pursuits strongly indicating a focus on I. However, the vast majority of his interests were centered on ensuring his vision of a strong central government. Hamilton did not view his creativity and variety of interests as something to pursue for its own sake, relegating it to a tool to be used in service of P and T, which put together with his focus on T being used to support P, is most consistent with T2 and I8.

In pursuit of his policies and ideals, Hamilton worked non-stop. The poster child for workaholics, Hamilton’s health frequently suffered from his endless workload and his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (ESI) had to force him to take a break and take care of his body through exercise and adequate rest, however he was always working on something and could rarely be pulled away from his work, a dismissiveness consistent with S4.

Alexander Hamilton was notoriously combative in pursuit of his goals, having picked fights with nearly every single founding father except for his patron George Washington. Just as many picked fights with Hamilton as well. Hamilton was known to enjoy conflict, unlike his main rival Thomas Jefferson who dreaded direct confrontation and primarily worked through proxies. The key thing to point out with regard to this is that, while Hamilton could certainly be very assertive when carrying out his duties for others, he only came into his own regarding pushing for his own agenda later in life. On St. Croix, even at the tender age of 14 when he was in charge of the local import-export firm, Hamilton had no trouble admonishing workers who were not up to his standards, even when they were more than triple his age. He could also be very pushy when fulfilling the requests of George Washington, but with the exception of a brief resignation from Washington’s staff over Washington’s refusal to grant him command of troops, Hamilton only started engaging in conflict consistently for the sake of his agenda after becoming Secretary of the Treasury. When he did so, he was very effective with it, primarily because President Washington, despite seeking to appear politically neutral, leaned toward the Federalists far more than the anti-Federalists. With Washington on his side, he was given free reign to act how he wanted. After Washington stepped down, he was succeeded by John Adams, who hated Hamilton. At this point, it became clear that Hamilton, through constant bickering with other politicians, had no friends in power when he needed them most, with the exception of holdovers from the Washington administration, particularly his successor Secretary of the Treasury. However, these men were distrusted by the notoriously paranoid and vindictive Adams who eventually decided to fire them. During these four years Hamilton engaged in a never-ending feud with John Adams, despite both being from the same party. This feud brought out the worst of Hamilton’s personality, as he became more vindictive, paranoid, and authoritarian in his outlook, eventually coming around to supporting the Alien and Sedition Acts, which are widely regarded as blatantly unconstitutional, especially the Sedition Act which made it illegal to slander or defame the government of the United States, with language so vague as to allow the administration to imprison or fine anyone who wrote criticisms of the Adams administration.

Hamilton was also known to harbor many fantasies of battlefield glory, repeatedly requesting to be given command of soldiers from George Washington, who consistently refused because Washington did not want to risk losing his closest and most competent assistant, and due to a need to appoint men of higher rank. Eventually, after Hamilton threatened to resign, Washington relented and gave him command of three battalions near the end of the war. These fantasies came back later in the Adams administration as Hamilton requested to be a general in the newly created standing army. Though after the revolutionary war, Hamilton never actually took part in combat.

Hamilton also had a strange relationship to dueling. Despite his moral opposition to dueling due to his religious beliefs (which became more and more important to him as he grew older) he seemed almost enthralled by the idea of dueling and yet he rarely engaged in duels himself. He served as a second in several duels and was almost the principle in several duels himself but ultimately agreed to call them off. He was quick to aggressively protect his reputation by threatening a duel, and that was usually enough to gain a retraction from his detractors, yet the only duel he ever fully went through with was his deadly 1804 duel with Aaron Burr.

From all of this, we can see that Hamilton certainly valued F, and quite strongly, yet had an often immature relationship to it. Later in life, he grew into someone who was willing to resort to open conflict much more in pursuit of his goals but in doing so, his use of F could be accurately described as ‘hyperactive’ later on in life, i.e. something he voluntarily grew in over time, which is most consistent with F6. 

I would also add that, in addition to the already mentioned conflict between P and L that formed the basis of the first party system, Hamilton and the Federalists supported centralized government power, while Jefferson and the Republicans supported decentralized power, essentially a conflict between valued F and unvalued F.

As would be expected of someone as quick to resort to conflict as Alexander Hamilton, he made many enemies and not very many friends. Much like his one-time acquaintance, later adversary and eventual killer Aaron Burr, Hamilton had a way of somehow turning pretty much everyone against him, including people who should have been his political allies, such as President John Adams, though Adams, due his jealousy and "encyclopedic memory for slights", also played a large role in creating and perpetuating this rivalry. Hamilton’s only consistent, major political ally was George Washington, and after Washington stepped down as President, Hamilton was stripped of most of his political influence, only being able to affect events indirectly as a major leader of the Federalist party, though even then his influence over them would eventually wane, primarily due to his rivalry with fellow Federalist John Adams, someone who also made too many enemies and not enough friends. Though John Adams was paranoid about the holdovers from Washington’s administration serving at Hamilton’s behest, Hamilton was not close enough to them to influence them in any meaningful way.

In terms of personal relationships outside of politics, Hamilton was also quite a poor judge of character, relying often on friends who showed their corruption time and time again, as well as being somewhat of a dupe with regard to his extended family. Despite his extended family in Scotland never trying to contact him or help him in any way during the rough years of his adolescence and never reaching out to him after he had achieved enormous success in politics, some of them reached out during dire times asking for financial aid, which Hamilton obliged. When he trusted someone, often based on very little reasoning, it was very easy for them to take advantage of him.

This all generally indicates a severe deficiency in R, and combined with the points already indicating weak F, it’s clear that Hamilton, while definitely a genius policy-maker, was an inept politician. While researching Hamilton, I was asked on occasion by friends and family why he never became President, despite his nearly unparalleled ambition and intelligence. The answer was his lack of self-control in starting conflicts and his inability to manage his relationships with others, essentially weak R and overactive F. Of course, it is also likely that Hamilton did not have any desire to be President, but he certainly did want to be a major political leader, and after Washington stepped down, his weak R and F is what held him back from that.

However, while R was certainly an extraordinarily weak point for Hamilton, it also served as his only source of comfort and respite from the stress of politics. At times of intense strain in both politics and his law practice, Hamilton would always look to his very close relations, primarily his family and particularly his wife Elizabeth, for support. This, combined with his choice to rely on close friends in politics, sometimes to his detriment, and help out family who did not really have his best interests at heart, makes it clear that Hamilton valued R quite a lot, and with his ineptitude consistent with R5. Hamilton also had a strong vindictive streak, causing him to act antagonistically on harsh, personal judgements, such as against John Adams, culminating in his writing of the Adams pamphlet, a tirade against the President which tanked his (Hamilton's and Adams') popularity and turned the cracks in the Federalist Party's foundation into a gaping hole. Another example would be his vindictiveness against Aaron Burr, portraying him as nothing more than a power-hungry opportunist with no morals or principles who was even more dangerous than Thomas Jefferson (whom Hamilton also despised), a characterization of Burr that most scholars agree is unfair though they disagree on how much. He went so far as stepping in to stop Burr from becoming President during the tie in the election of 1800 and stopping Burr from becoming Governor of New York in 1804. This vindictiveness is more consistent with valued R+F, i.e., Gamma Quadra rather than R+I, i.e., Delta Quadra.

So with P1, T2, S4, R5, F6, L7, and I8, it is clear that Alexander Hamilton was an LIE.

To learn more about LIE, click here.

If you are confused about our use of Socionics shorthand, click here.

Sources

My main source was Ron Chernow's biography 'Alexander Hamilton'

Chiang Kai-shek (LSI): Personality Type Analysis

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), also known as Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese revolutionary, general, and President of the Republic of China from 1927 until his defeat at the hands of Mao Zedong (EIE) in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, after which he and his government fled to the island of Taiwan, which he ruled until his death in 1975. First taking part as a military leader in the Xinhai revolution against the Qing dynasty in 1911 led by Sun Yat-sen, Chiang rose through the ranks of the nationalist party, called the Kuomintang, and eventually became commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army. In this leading role, Chiang led the Northern Expedition to reclaim the vast majority of China which was controlled by warlords, and with his rule over China established, he presided over the Nanjing Decade, which was a period of unprecedented economic growth from 1927-1937. This was followed by the Japanese invasion of 1937, triggering the Second Sino-Japanese War, which had a very mixed legacy, with continued appeasement of Japan, brutal human rights abuses, rampant corruption within the military and bureaucracy, as well as many poor military decisions. In Taiwan, Chiang ruled as military dictator through martial law and oversaw both rapid economic growth and continued human rights abuses. To his supporters, Chiang was a visionary leader and staunch patriot who did what was necessary to defend China from its external and internal enemies. To his (more numerous) detractors, he was an incompetent and corrupt dictator over a kleptocratic regime who bungled his way through several wars and lost the mainland to the communists, despite having had a decisive advantage.

Central to Chiang’s personal and public life was a need to meet his very high standards. In his personal life, Chiang was primarily influenced by his neo-Confucian values and education, with a strong focus on discipline, duty, and self-improvement (which primarily took the form of self-criticism). In pursuit of these ideals, Chiang was an extreme perfectionist, or at least attempted to be one. Though often failing to live up to his ideals, Chiang would engage in endless self-criticism in his diary, constantly trying to align with his image of perfection and his values. These were practices that Chiang began at an early age and would continue for the rest of his life.

Politically, Chiang was staunchly ideological and legalistic. First and foremost in his political philosophy were always a set of core principles to be followed. While Chiang’s vision was mostly inspired by another revolutionary, Sun Yat-sen (a topic which I will cover later), Chiang’s pursuit of this vision always followed a set of core principles, specifically nationalism, rights of the people (often translated as democracy), and people’s livelihoods (sometimes translated as ‘socialism’). While these principles were initially outlined by Sun Yat-Sen, they remained vague enough to placate everyone who needed to be placated (including right-wing nationalists and left-wing communists) until Chiang devoted himself to his clearer interpretation of these principles, which would be augmented by Chiang’s personal neo-Confucian and later Christian views, principles which Chiang would attempt to instill in China and Taiwan for the rest of his life. So important were these principles that when Chiang Kai-shek was in charge of the Whampoa Military Academy where the officers that would take part in the Northern Expedition studied, military tactics made up only one quarter of all lessons, while political instruction based primarily on the three principles of the people (and instilling a Bushido code) made up the other three quarters of the lessons. Beyond his ideological approach to politics and military instruction, Chiang was a very strict leader, valuing obedience and ideological purity above all else, for example, withholding supplies from military commanders in World War 2 whom he judged to be disloyal and harboring communist sympathies.

Chiang was extremely willing and able to forcefully implement his values. As a revolutionary, he was a very decisive and skilled commander. In his leadership of the Kuomintang, he was far more decisive than Sun Yat-sen, for example choosing to push forward with the Northern Expedition that Sun had been hesitating on starting. Unlike Sun, who relinquished power in 1911 to Yuan Shikai, Chiang never willingly relinquished power except for one resignation in 1927 in which he knew he would be asked to come back (and he was asked to come back a few months later). As President in both China and later Taiwan, he maintained a dictatorship where most power was centralized in his hands (though warlords who willingly submitted to his rule were allowed to maintain their territory with high degrees of autonomy) and dissent was strictly punished. Examples can be seen all throughout Chiang’s rule but notable examples include the 2/28 incident in Taiwan, the 1927 purge of communists from the Kuomintang, and his crackdown and intimidation of wealthy capitalists.

Chiang also excelled at political power-struggles. Understanding how to use his leverage to win, Chiang emerged successful from power struggles against Wang Jingwei in 1927, and against various generals and reformers in Taiwan, not to mention his ability to gain American support for relatively minor concessions throughout World War 2 and during diplomatic crises with the Communist mainland while in Taiwan.

Chiang’s constant focus on obedience to principles, his desire for principled perfection in his personal life and his adherence and enforcement of strict ideological principles in military and political matters were the core of his personality. While Sun Yat-sen was an inspirational revolutionary leader, he faced constant setbacks and failures. After overthrowing the Qing dynasty, Sun Yat-Sen was unable to prevent China from falling under Yuan Shikai’s dictatorship and later splintering among warlords. It was Chiang who brought the strict legalism, enforcement, and decisiveness to the Kuomintang necessary to, at least on paper, reunify China and see through the revolution to the end. This clearly suggests strong and valued L+F, with L taking precedence and F used in a supporting role, best fitting L1 and F2.

Though Chiang Kai-Shek was certainly decisive in his leadership, he also had the ability to be patient, wait for better opportunities and take time to set up a more favorable scenario. Examples of this can be seen in his decisions to appease Japan during their pre-1937 attempts at expansion into China, such as not fighting against their invasion of Manchuria. In Taiwan, Chiang’s goal was to create a model society that would show what China could be capable of and thus raise support for a Kuomintang counter-attack against the Communist mainland or in some other way result in the mainland becoming more aligned with (or under the control of) the Kuomintang. This would seem to suggest some capability in Chiang’s use of T, however, it would be difficult to characterize his use of T as strong or an aspect given a lot of focus. Chiang Kai-shek would prove to be unreasonably stubborn in his long term plans, one example being his continued attempts to crush the Communist rebellion and appease Japan’s expansionist desires while doing so, a course he pursued throughout the 1930s against all internal opposition, which eventually led a patriotic warlord, Zhang Xueliang, to kidnap Chiang and force him to forge an alliance with the Communists. Chiang’s stubbornness and lack of foresight would come up again in failed strategies against Japan (such as the decision to stake his best German-trained divisions against Japan in the hopeless battle for Shanghai) and his decision to stake most of his army in a battle for Manchuria against the Communists. One bad decision is normal for everyone. A few bad decisions can be explained in other ways, however frequent poor decisions related to extreme stubbornness and lack of foresight show that despite a seemingly adequate capability in T, it was still clearly a weak spot.

Despite this weakness, along with his valuing of F, Chiang Kai-Shek can also be shown strongly valuing T. Chiang at all times sought to align his actions with a long-term plan for China’s (later Taiwan’s) political development. He agreed with Sun Yat-sen’s vision of a unified, democratic, modernized China that could defend itself with foreign imperialism and aligned with Sun’s plan for how this would be achieved. Specifically, this followed a three-step plan, starting with military unification, then “political tutelage”, which was a period of authoritarian rule during which citizens were supposed to be taught their rights and how to engage in politics, and ending with a transition to constitutional democratic governance. It should be noted that this process for long-term transition to an independent democratic China was laid out by Sun, not Chiang. Chiang simply followed the path Sun laid out, starting with the Northern Expedition (which Sun remained indecisive on and kept putting off until his death), then political tutelage during the Nanjing decade. It should also be noted that political tutelage, i.e. authoritarian rule, never ended on Taiwan until after Chiang’s death. A charitable interpretation of this would be that Chiang lacked confidence in how events would play out if he made the final transition to democratic government, believing that he alone knew what was best and that others could not rule the country as well as he could, and a lack of confidence in his ability to indirectly influence events, indicating a greater confidence in L, F, and to a certain extent P than in T. A less charitable interpretation would be that Chiang simply desired to remain in power despite his stated views, in which the point that he lacked confidence in indirect influence remains true, indicating he was still more confident in F than T. However charitably you choose to interpret this, the conclusion is still the same: Chiang was more confident in L and F than he was in T. Chiang Kai-shek’s inconsistent ability to plan ahead, his inheriting a long-term vision from someone else much more confident in T, and greater confidence in F over T put together makes T6 very obvious. The unreasonable stubbornness and resistance to the advice of others to pursue alternate paths is characteristic of I4.

Linked with Chiang Kai-shek’s long-term vision was something of a messiah complex. Chiang was himself very emotionally invested in his T based ideals, believing his destiny to be synonymous with China’s destiny, as was seen in his diary. Chiang was quite private about these feelings, only writing about them in his diary, but nonetheless it was still present and formed a large part of his psychology. It is clear that Chiang valued E with T, however E was still a clear weakness of his. Chiang had an exceedingly unappealing personality. Words consistently used to describe him include "harsh", "cantankerous", "abrasive", "aloof", and worse. Beyond being thoroughly unlikeable personally, Chiang was also out of touch with the views of ordinary citizens, most notably with his allowance of widespread corruption within the military and the Kuomintang, and while the Kuomintang and army did function well enough to get by despite the rampant corruption, Chiang was utterly oblivious to how this corruption negatively affected his image in both the United States (whose support he desperately needed in the civil war against Mao) and his image among average Chinese citizens, most of whom were peasants. Mao, on the other hand, had a very strong understanding of image-management and a very appealing personality, and it was due to these skills of his that many Chinese peasants flocked to his banner and Kuomintang soldiers defected en masse to join the Communists. It is clear that Chiang valued E yet was oblivious to how to manage aspects related to E, making E5 most fitting.

Despite his unlikeable personality, Chiang Kai-shek was still capable of maintaining decent personal relations with others, though not consistently or with any apparent nuance. For example, he faced serious personal difficulties with the American overseer of the Chinese war effort, General Joseph Stilwell, whose arrogance, condescension, and ambition caused him to frequently clash with Chiang. For his part, Stilwell was offended by Chiang’s arrogance, stubbornness, and strictness. Nonetheless Chiang could make personal concessions and overtures to placate Stilwell’s ambition. Chiang was also able to get along with other leaders on a personal basis, such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt (SEE), or Mahatma Gandhi (IEI) whom Chiang met with personally to convince him to avoid sabotaging the British war effort, not to mention his ability to inspire personal loyalty in some of his warlord allies such that even when his ally Zhang Xueliang kidnapped Chiang in 1936 to force him to form a united front against Japan with the Communist rebels, Zhang had no plans to harm Chiang and in fact pledged his loyalty to Chiang while imprisoning him. Still, back in Nanjing, Chiang took the opportunity while Zhang was with him to arrest him, and Zhang would remain under house arrest until Chiang’s death in 1975.

However, Chiang Kai-shek still faced difficulties with regard to personal relationships, with his relationship with Stilwell repairing then breaking down consistently. While sometimes making exceptions for close relationships, he could at other times be very ruthless, for example, in a rather notable example of Chiang’s rare vindictiveness, just before fleeing to Taiwan as the Communists were winning the mainland, Chiang went back to the wartime capital Chongqing and suddenly executed several military officers who were imprisoned in 1936 for their role in the aforementioned kidnapping (though Zhang Xueliang himself was transported to Taiwan where he remained under house arrest). What this all shows is a serviceable capability in R, but with no real value or nuance. As seen in his ability to appeal to others on an interpersonal level (though not emotionally), his handling of those military officers, his relationship with Zhang Xueliang, and in his indecisiveness regarding his relationship with Stilwell, Chiang Kai-shek was someone with enough understanding of the importance of personal loyalty and other R related aspects, with a good ability to inspire personal loyalty in others. However, this was without confidence or skill and always subservient to his ideological values, that is, subservient to L, with only rare moments of personal vindictiveness. These are traits most consistent with R3.

Chiang Kai-shek’s management of China is notable for its success in spite of the numerous problems facing the country at the time. Between the unification of China following the Northern Expedition in 1928 and Japan’s invasion of China in 1937, under Chiang’s leadership, China went through the Nanjing decade, named after the capital city Nanjing. The Nanjing decade, while marred by its human rights abuses and authoritarianism, was nonetheless a period of unprecedented economic growth. Despite the Communist rebellion at the time, excessive corruption (which Chiang allowed as it did not cause too much inefficiency to deal with, and Chiang believed he had more pressing concerns) and frequent clashes with (and concessions to) Japan, China remained stable and successful. After fleeing to Taiwan, Chiang's goal was to position Taiwan as a model alternative to the Communist mainland, primarily through economic success, which he managed extremely skilfully. Taiwan’s economic success exceeded the success of the Nanjing decade, due to the combination of Chiang’s skilful management and generous economic aid from the United States. The Nanjing decade ended with Japan’s invasion, but even after the war against Japan devolved into a stalemate across a massive frontline and despite Japan’s blockade (and capture) of Chinese ports, Chiang still maintained China’s domestic economy well, with inflation kept to a minimum and daily life continuing as usual for those living far away from the front. Rampant inflation would not take hold over China until after the Communist victory in the battle for Manchuria in 1948.

Chiang Kai-shek however, was always motivated by something other than proper management and economic success. Chiang’s motivations were always ideological, and Chiang would willingly neglect pragmatic management if they interfered with these. For example, during battles against Japan late in the war Chiang, withheld important supplies from generals he believed to be disloyal or have Communist sympathies. Another example would be how Chiang focused far more on ideological education than military tactics in the Whampoa military academy. Yet another example was in Chiang allowing officials loyal to him to engage in massive corruption, only cracking down on corruption after setting himself up in Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek clearly had a very strong use of P, but still not valued above his ideological views, and when faced with a choice between P and L, Chiang always chose L, a dismissive attitude consistent with P7.

And lastly, in Chiang Kai-shek’s private life, he led a very calm and regimented existence. He woke up early, went to bed early, ate well, and took good care of himself, suffering few health issues until he was in his 70s. This stands in stark contrast to Chiang’s wife, Soong Mayling (EIE), who suffered frequent health issues (including mental health and physical health) and often sought treatment in American hospitals for her ailments. Chiang put great emphasis on taking care of himself physically, though primarily for the purposes of keeping himself capable of taking on the political and military challenges he faced. His pleasant lifestyle and healthy habits were not for the sake of his own enjoyment. Beyond this, Chiang Kai-shek was also frequently focused on minute details as a military leader, known for his frequent micromanagement. We can clearly see from this that Chiang Kai-Shek focused extensively on S but didn’t see it as having inherent value, which is very consistent with S8.

With L1, F2, R3, I4, E5, T6, P7, and S8, Chiang Kai-shek is a clear example of an LSI.

To learn more about LSI, click here.

If you are confused about our use of Socionics shorthand, click here.

Sources

My primary source is Jay Taylor’s biography The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China.