The Effect of Personality Traits of Tourist Guides on Leadership Behaviors

Purpose and Importance: The aim of this research is to determine the effect of personality traits of tourist guides on leadership behaviors. In this context, the population of the research consists of guides registered to 13 regional guide chambers that practice the tourist guiding profession within the borders of the Republic of Turkey. Before starting the research, a literature review was conducted and as a result of the search, there are limited studies investigating the personality traits of tourist guides; When examined in terms of leadership behaviors, there are many studies on leadership behaviors; however, it has been noticed that studies on leadership in particular for tourist guides are also limited. Therefore, the absence of any study investigating the personality traits and leadership behavior variables related to tourist guides together, and in this context, it is important to determine the personality and leadership characteristics of tourist guides, to provide ideas and suggestions to the relevant parties, and to contribute to the relevant literature at the same time. Methodology: Questionnaire technique, one of the quantitative data collection methods, was used in the research. The questionnaire was defined as “the method of obtaining data by the respondent's response to the questions created in a predetermined order and structure” (Altunışık et al., 2010). The population of the research consists of 10651 tourist guides in Turkey. Since it was not possible to reach the entire universe within the scope of the research, sampling was preferred and convenience sampling was chosen from non-probability sampling methods. Research data were collected online between February and May 2019. In the scope of the research, Costa and McCrea's (1989) five-factor personality scale was used to measure the personality traits of tourist guides, while the scale developed by Türkmen (2016) was used to measure leadership behaviors. Data on the individual characteristics of the participants were given by calculating frequency and percentage distributions. In order to reveal the effect of personality traits, one of the research variables, on leadership behaviors, the results were interpreted by performing regression analysis other than percentage and frequency. Findings: When the five factor personality traits of tourist guides are examined, it is seen that the dimension with the highest average is responsibility; it was determined that the dimension with the lowest mean was neuroticism (emotional fluctuation). Leadership behaviors scale was determined as three dimensions and while the dimension with the highest average among the three dimensions was task behavior, the lowest average was determined as change behavior. As a result of the regression analysis, it was determined that only the responsibility dimension of the five factor personality traits affects the leadership behaviors, while the other personality traits do not affect the leadership behaviors. It has been revealed that the general average of the leadership behavior scale is at a good level. In addition, the reliability coefficient applied to the leadership behavior scale was determined as 0.896. Originality/Value: When the literature on the subject is examined, it has been seen that the studies on the five-factor personality traits variable have started to increase in recent years, but there are still limited studies on tourist guides. Despite many researches with different variables, different populations and samples, the absence of any study investigating personality and leadership behavior specifically for tourist guides fills a gap in the literature in this context, filling the relevant parties (travel agency, tourism guidance departments of universities, TUREB, Ministry of Culture and Tourism etc.) It is considered to be an original study since it is a study that will contribute to the fact that all member chambers are reached and data are obtained. Limitations: The delivery of this study to the tourist guides in the online environment and the collection of the data online made it difficult to reach the guides in Turkey. One of the limitations of this research is that tourist guides forget to fill in the links sent online, do not want to fill them or fill them randomly. The implementation of the research in a limited time in terms of time and coinciding with the working periods of the tourist guides caused the number of data to be low and constituted another limitation of the research.