sustainability Article Understanding the Role of Leadership Styles of Erdogan and Merkel in Sustainability of Turkey-European Union Relations: A Leadership Trait Analysis Erdi Kutlu 1 , Ça˘gda¸sCengiz 2 , Murat Necip Arman 3 and Emir Ozeren 4,5,* 1 Independent Researcher, PhD Degree in International Relations at Ege University, 35040 Izmir, Turkey;
[email protected] 2 Instructor, PhD Degree in European Studies, Dokuz Eylül University, 35210 Izmir, Turkey;
[email protected] 3 Department of International Relations, Aydin Adnan Menderes University, 09010 Aydin, Turkey;
[email protected] 4 Faculty of Tourism, Dokuz Eylül University, 35390 Izmir, Turkey 5 Centre for Inclusive and Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CISEI), University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK * Correspondence:
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[email protected] Abstract: This study aims to understand the role of the leadership styles of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in European Union-Turkey relations by conducting a Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA), which takes into account the leaders’ personalities in Citation: Kutlu, E.; Cengiz, Ç.; foreign policy. The article makes use of the verbal records of the two leaders regarding the bilateral Arman, M.N.; Ozeren, E. relations between their countries and the European Union. The results unveil that the two leaders’ Understanding the Role of personal characteristics bear similarities to a considerable extent; i.e., both leaders are sceptical in Leadership Styles of Erdogan and inter-personal relations, discernibly intuitive, self-confident and so forth. The study suggests that Merkel in Sustainability of those personal traits of the leaders which have occasionally outweighed crude rationality have been Turkey-European Union Relations: A Leadership Trait Analysis.